My biggest gripe is the new culture victory:
It has all the right mechanics in place, but it's missing a good polish for higher difficulties. This is what a round 2 patch is all about! Generally, it needs to be present throughout the game instead of just the last 25 turns. Currently you go from double digit tourism for 3,000 years, to getting 600+ in about 30 turns. There is no time for the AI to react or for interesting developments. A simple fix is to add small tourism benefits up front, other than GW's and sacred sites. These should NOT be wonder-based, IMO.
Sacred Sites - apply to Temples and Shrines and Holy Sites (settled GPs), but now only as +1 tourism. This fixes two issues: 1) the OP T120 ICS culture victory for Egypt, Byzantium etc. 2) "Risking" Piety over trad/lib and missing out on two buildings because Deity religion/enhancements come ridiculously quick and the AI always grab buildings.
Great Works - These need great work. As it stands, you either give up a Golden Age, or 1/3 - 1/2 of a social policy in order to get 2-3 tourism in those crucial early game stages. Only for France is this even
potentially worth it. OR - you conquer and collect from the resident wonder whore (this is fun, and should remain). The culture GW/Swap UI is also a boring metagame with no depth or diplomatic consideration. Great Works are, currently, incredibly boring.
Why not make GW
trade chips like broadway's "Hits" were before BNW? The AI seems to love making them. I could see them valued around 500g or two luxuries. There should also be a way to acquire them through City States. Maybe a Patronage T3 that requires you are allied for 30+ turns? Or just make them like militaristic CS gifts, but from Cultural CS (hover over tooltip to see their type: writing, music, art). Right now they are just flat out boring when they aught to be cool (the real reward currently is the wonder-esque screen that pops up with a contextual excerpt - very cool)
Culture Buildings - are also very lackluster now. Amphi's and Operas product +1 culture now? This would be fine if GW's were easier to come by, but presently this only benefits the capital and is not worth "settling" the GP (see above). I don't see why their culture needed to be nerfed. Monument should be +2, Amphi +3, OH +4, Museum +5 etc.
*Tourism* - Presently is a very boring resource. The only other thing it adds is ideological pressure. Couldn't it add to religious pressure too? Or have some "1 gold for every 4 tourism" esque bonuses sprinkled throughout? Every other resource has a bearing throughout the game.
Archaeology is a cool bridge between Renn and Airports+Hotels, but I think they should come earlier or be part of a different tech line. I get that they are "exploration" related, but Astronomy and Navigation are so culturally counter-productive lines to pursue compared to Acoustics >> Architecture -> Electricity -> Radio. I miss the "Either OR" logic from Civ 4, where you had to get any combination of Tech A, B, or C to research. Oh well.
Also I agree that some of the Vanilla/G&K civs need updating or general buffs and I've enjoyed reading through the ideas. Are there any devs that read these boards though? I'm concerned we are wasting our time, carrying this on Firaxis' forums
. I suppose that's why mods are awesome!