Well, guess who has involuntarily brainstormed a new god while they should be sleeping so they woke up 11 AM? 

Guess I will be participating of this game.

And about tech level. I kinda like the approach of Mutton, which is kinda similar to a civilization game, early game runs fast while late game runs slower. I don't think we should start in the bronze age as that is no fun, we definitely need the age of mythical creatures and megalith structures for a 'neolithic'.

I also don't think we should shy away from setting up the mood of the turn or epoch. Continent shaping and creating entire regions should be an early game thing, it should be easier to do that in the early game than in the late game. On stark contrast, maintaining a society would be exceptional, the stuff of legends, at first. Anything from Atlantis to Göbekli Tepe / Monte Verde is hard to maintain, if the god turns around there is a legit chance stuff will go up in flames... or sink... or, well, society is fickle, especially up to the bronze age, some small climate change literally erased Myceneans and Hittites from history, so early empires will need the blessings of gods, something like Egypt would need a whole friendly pantheon.

Perhaps something kinda like Greence's Golden Age, Silver Age, Bronze Age, Heroic Age, Iron age? Not literally this, but a similar concept, setting up the mood of how God - Mortal interaction is to follow.

Players should be incentivized to be creative, if we make it hard to just saw "Uhh, I teach these pastoral dudes how to make steel swords" then we can have something like "I craft 10 steel swords for these dudes", which can help these dudes in battle, but can also fall into other's people hand, maybe in 200 hundred years some king can legitimize his rule by finding the "god iron" sword of Pastoral Dude the conqueror.

Also, kinda divide organization and tech so making a wide and tech advanced empire costs more than making a large tribe or an Atlantis like small island.

Furthermore, we should make it clear that nations are common grounds. Players should not be discouraged from starting cults within empires, deciding to bless the provincial ruler who has dreams of independence or even buffing a tribe living in the borders. This should help to avoid the continental empires we saw in Mk2...

And it kinda half-deals with the problem of isolation. I do like having the sense of 'distant lands' we had in MK2, and sincerely, some dude in Yorum shouldn't be worrying about what happens in Fibeslay, Vetros, Alefpria. But... it was just too much for everyone to focus on, and in the end each player just got their little nation and never interacted with others. How to deal with that?

- Political Organization and Technology are cheaper to create closer to already established lands. 
- We are playing gods not nations, again, more than one god should get involved in the life of citizens of these lands. Furthermore, a land only blessed by one god, or that worships one god and persecutes follows of others should be harder to maintain by virtue of the fact they are pissing off the people who can send plages, floods, fire, giants, whatever their way.
- Create a hotspot(s) area(s) like China, the Mediterranean, Mesoamerica and kinda say to players "focus more on here than any other land, even if you helping out tribes in other lands is fine"

Edit:

Just read Cyclone's post.

Seems like me and him agree on ages, lol.

I am also kinda okay with not having levels, even in MK2 they are kinda meaningless, Ilunabar and Xos are both level 9 gods, but obviously very different in terms of power. 

Furthermore, it alienates new players, who already have quite a hard time getting up to date with everything that is happening.