I've started a Marathon game with the new patch, everything random but the following options. I started with Russia (Catherine), Huge map with 20 Civilizations (24 city states), and chose continents for the map, also playing on Immortal. I experienced good game play except for a crashes that have plagued my system from the start, and it has something to do with clicking on alerts that deal with city states. This has been a problem for me in Civ5 from the very beginning and continues as such after the patch.
As for the AI, it is still just as horrible as it ever was, Suleiman as a player would have given me a great fight because he was able to grab his Janissaries before I could get gunpowder, but he only built a few of them and allowed me to build up my forces and completely overrun his homeland before he decided to react. England which started on a different continent has worked toward buying off tons of city-states, so I moved to kill off a few without going into permanent war and over paid to gain the allegiance of the others to split the vote. I have over 16k gold in the treasury to buy the rest once I get close to the UN.
I was easily able to build any wonder I wanted, and have built Moscow into a super city, grabbing all the wonders I thought necessary to win.
My strategy has been straight forward, be patient and let the other civilizations kill each other off or make the first move against me and then war them until they can no longer have a say in the game, and keep a standing army in the top three in the world, this was very easy following the Liberty -> Tradition > Order social policies. I'm currently at the edge of the Modern Era with 1161 points, with 2nd place going to Elizabeth with 753 points. I plan to win with the UN or Space Race, I'm trying really hard not to just take the few capitals that remain to see what the AI will do when placed in a corner.
I like the patch, it is a step forward, but for any real Civilization enthusiasts I still say the CIv4 AI is head and shoulders above Civ5.
