Brazil seems underpowered

Just completed my 2nd culture victory with them.

My strategy was to gun for metal casting after philosopy to get workshops and hammer caravans on the go becaus I was short of hammers. That's been working for me. Ironworks in the capital to churn out the wonders even if tile hammers are low. Work an engineer slot in a city to get GEs for the important wonders. Forget early wonders altogether and focus on infrastructure. CI is nice, but in no way essential. My first wonder has always been Sistine Chapel.

Sacred path is decent, but I think you make enough culture as it is with wonders, guild slots, and brazil camps. A faith producing pantheon was better for mr to help with buying GWAMs.

Once I had the universities on the go and working all the jungle tiles, I was racing through tech probably right up to Atomic where it had slowed to about 10-13 turns per tech. I think this was more to do with only having three cities though. With four cities I would have been nearer 1000 beakers per turn.

Don't buy musicians with faith till the end of the game. Try and save about 2500 faith so that you can buy two (or more if you have good faith production) when you have max tourism from hotels/airports/visitor centre/airport and have a carnivale on the go. When they are getting you 10-12000 culture per concert it really makes a difference if you need to catch someone who's had massive culture all game.

Brazil is a big civ for cultural victory

but it must invest in happiness for the Carnival becomes more frequent

The Carnival with the Eiffel Tower is a great combination

Just remember you're not forced to have a low-hammer capital for Brazil. I prefer to leave the jungles for the 2nd or 3rd city, built by the middle ages. For the capital, just settle somewhere else or chop the jungles off and don't look back.

Brazil is vanilla until the Middle Ages and, yes, it's a bit too tied to one victory condition. But it's not sentenced to have low production at the capital.

Brazil is probably one of the better civs in BNW. They may not have an early game advantage, but BNW is all about the late game anyway, and Brazil kills it in the late game. I wouldn't try winning a domination victory with them, but they have a strong offensive advantage in cultural victories that few other civs have.

Brazil is a niche Civ but is hands down the best for a cultural victory if you know how to play them. It's a trade off of late game culture for early game vulnerability.

If you want to try playing a more balanced Brazil however, I suggest you turn off start biases in your advanced settings. It can be hit or miss, but if you can manage found a capital near the hills and your second city in the jungle you can get units and buildings out that much quicker while retaining a jungle foothold for later as you approach Brazilwood.