In its current state godus is much more of a city builder game with some small godly features. Your followers are mindless robots, that cant even reproduce without your order, In developers commentary creators keep speaking about strategically placing settlements, trees, and gifts, but god game must not be about squeezing your followers for belief, but about protecting them and making them happy.
What can be done to improve this? Give followers more freedom, and their own wishes. It's not you level the terrain and then order your people to build. It's your people, who want to settle in certain area, and need your help.
So i think, that the rest of game development shold be spent on improving social behaviour. Living society card is not an oplion for you to unlock or not, it is an absolute necessity which must be vastly improved. A good example would be dwarf fortress where your own dwarves unhappiness can cause more problems than iutside influence (so there's no need for a gamebraking cheaters like astari, because part of your own followers can split and create their own nation). Of course in dwarf fortress you plan your fotress yourself and give orders, but dont forget that DF is not a god sim.
In one of the commentaries it was also stated that you must feel connection to your first two followers. Well there is no connection whatsoever, because after introduction is finished they are nothing more than small hut on the sand with number over it.