Religions spread way too fast. They were quick in .25, but it seems like they are on Meth now.
Granted, I play most of my games on Marathon, and accept that they will spread faster than other settings due to the upped research times. But, even on Epic, the first religion spreads across continents (long before any contact is made) in under 10 turns. And, even intercontinental, they spread before you have trade routes.
Which brings me to my next point...the "uber-switches" of the Order and AV religions. In my last game, every good civ switched over to AV after Keeyln founded it. Again, the spread was across oceans before contact.
This seems the antithesis to the point of the setting.
When a good civ switches to OO, they only go neutral..same for evil switching to RoK...so, here's my thoughts...
One step rule:
Either the AI will not adopt a religion that moves them further than one step along the alignment chart, or if that is not possible, they only move one step.
So, a good Civ adopting AV would only move to neutral. But, added to that, if that civ researches Malevelont Designs, they move the last step.
On the flip-side, an evil civ moves to neutral with adoption of the Order, but moves the last step with Righteousness.
A neutral civ would move to either good or evil, depending on religion adopted.
Also, the Cult of Dragon is way to early and spreads without trade routes as well. In the last game, my capitol was hit about 10 times between turns 55-80. Twice, I got the pop-up while still in "revolt" from the previous one.
I think it would be cool to see it move to a "barbarian tech". When the barbs build Archeron, it should be founded in that city and start spreading from there. Coupled with the culture from the hoard, it would wreck some pretty good havoc around the dragon lair.
In this, the Kuriorates and the Sheiam would still not be affected, and the cult would survive the capture/razing of the barb city.
Finally, even with raging barbs on in two games, I've seen maybe a total of 5 barb, non-animal, units in both games combined.