Ape Apps

Civilization: People

The People inhabit temperate worlds and have collectively discovered the principles of interstellar transport but make minimal contact with outsiders and only colonize worlds near their home system.
Unlike many other civilizations, the People are wholly religious and believe that much of the observable universe is governed by godlike entities. The first civilization of the People
was originally a nomadic culture on the isolated desert world Callan. The original People's lives were centered around the migration of large predatory birds, but within a few thousand years they had settled down and began metalworking.
Around that time, the Peoples' mysticism rose, centered at first around the observation of weather patterns and geometric designs within the desert plants. Believing that extradimensional deities influenced
their world, the People built shrines and temples and set out to communicate with them. The shaman Zhen is credited by the People for communicating successfully with the gods for the first time, with Zhen claiming that the gods had transmitted
advanced technological blueprints into his mind. When given a scroll of papyrus and a quill, he turned out to be right, and the society of the People transformed overnight.

Now, a sprawling city covers much of Callan, with the spires of temples soaring over miles of huts. Cultists and prophets work within the temples, using their clairvoyance to receive information from their gods or ask for divine favors.
Strange machines rise over platforms embedded in the ground, with beams of light piercing miles into the crust of Callan and bringing up precious materials. Automated hovertrucks stop by greenhouses in which plants grow abnormally quickly and produce very large yields.
Mysterious factories churn out textiles, building materials, and equally mysterious machinery, while people gather, priests make offerings, scholars work on equations, and rulers consult the gods in the highest temple of all.

A few hundred years ago, the People began to take an interest in their distant neighbors, constructing massive telescopes, spy probes, and deep space radio arrays, along with sending out shuttles to colonize worlds close to Callan's star system.
You're in one of those shuttles.

Temples:
The temples of the People are some of their most important structures, and early to mid-gameplay is focused around them.
Smaller temples employ scholars and shamans and produce research and civics. Larger temples will begin providing the Mysticality/Godpower utility (used by factories/bigger temples/entertainment) and granting passive boosts to all the structures in the colony such as a +1% food production rate per medium temple.
The largest temples will serve as government buildings, museums, and deep space communication arrays.

ALSO:
You must keep your colonists' belief in the gods up or eventually you'll suffer the gods' wrath. This will make the colonists' belief go up really quickly, but it'll come at the cost of disasters directed towards the colony.

Hope this idea isn't too bad.