Founding & Spreading Religions

Learn how to found and spread religions in Humankind. This guide covers early game strategies, AI bonuses, and optimal map settings for victory on Humankind difficulty.

This guide is intended to help players beat Humankind on its highest difficulty by explaining the AI bonuses and providing a general strategy to overcome them. The author notes that the game is subject to change with updates.

Humankind Difficulty and General Strategy:

On the highest difficulty, AI receive significant bonuses:

• +3 Food per Farmer
• +3 Industry per Worker
• +3 Money per Trader
• +3 Science per Researcher
• +60 Stability
• +2 Combat Strength on all Units

These bonuses, particularly FIMS (Food, Industry, Money, Science), are flat and scale less effectively than player strategies over time. The combat bonus is significant early on, making early war inadvisable. Luxury resources are key to offsetting stability bonuses.

General Strategy:

1. Avoid early war (until Classical/Medieval era).
2. Establish trade for luxury resources.
3. Focus on Agrarian and Builder cultures for early scaling, expanding widely rather than deeply.
4. Prioritize earning Fame through various means, as ending the game with low Fame can lead to a loss.
5. Trigger the end game condition, often the science ending (researching all technologies) or, if conquest is successful, eliminating/vassalizing other cultures.

Map Settings:

Optimal settings to support this strategy include:

• World Size: Huge (allows for more expansion and minor cultures).
• World Shape: Large Pangea (facilitates scouting and trade).
• Land Percentage: 70-80% (balances land for expansion with enough water for trade routes).
• Climate: New World (ensures specific map generation characteristics).