I have the Rise and Fall expansion, and this is something I've noticed happening now that another expansion has come out and I haven't purchased it - some things in-game are unbalanced, but patches only fix the issue if you bought the latest expansion. This is starting to concern me. We paid for the game, and game-balancing shouldn't be DLC-exclusive. It's also important to note that many balance changes were made that were needed in all versions, but only apply to those with Gathering Storm.
For example, last patch, pillaging was nerfed so that it can no longer give science or culture when you pillage improvements. In the patch summary video, they stated that they knew how that would negatively affect Norway, whose economy is meant to be based on pillaging, so they added a buff to their ability that would allow them to still get culture and science from pillaging. The pillage nerf affected all versions, which was good, but the Norway buff only worked in Gathering Storm. Why? I see no reason why they didn't update Norway in other versions, too. Norway is a vanilla civ, and the change that warranted a Norway buff worked without expansions, so why didn't the buff work without expansions, too?
Unfortunately, this is a trend that has continued into the June 2019 patch. They removed the Goddess of the Harvest pantheon, widely considered to be OP in combination with the Rise and Fall expansion's governor Magnus, but they only removed it in Gathering Storm when R&F suffered the same unbalance.
Judging by the latest patch notes, where the listed changes only apply to Gathering Storm unless stated otherwise, there seem to be many other instances of this: great works of writing having altered culture/tourism values, extra GPPs being converted to faith after you can't get that great person anymore, building production cost reductions, yield buffs in later-game buildings to make constructing them worthwhile, pantheon rebalances, tech/civic cost increases, changes to the interactions between battering rams/siege towers/tier 2 or 3 walls... Quite a few. Are any of those changes only necessary in certain expansions due to unbalancing caused by the new features in said expansion? Maybe, maybe some of those are only warranted in a certain expansion. But surely not all of them.
I really hope that they make a change in this regard. It really disappoints me that they seem to be letting some players fall behind just because they didn't buy the newest packs. I dare say it's a bit of a blight on the quality of the game, particularly if it continues.
For example, last patch, pillaging was nerfed so that it can no longer give science or culture when you pillage improvements. In the patch summary video, they stated that they knew how that would negatively affect Norway, whose economy is meant to be based on pillaging, so they added a buff to their ability that would allow them to still get culture and science from pillaging. The pillage nerf affected all versions, which was good, but the Norway buff only worked in Gathering Storm. Why? I see no reason why they didn't update Norway in other versions, too. Norway is a vanilla civ, and the change that warranted a Norway buff worked without expansions, so why didn't the buff work without expansions, too?
Unfortunately, this is a trend that has continued into the June 2019 patch. They removed the Goddess of the Harvest pantheon, widely considered to be OP in combination with the Rise and Fall expansion's governor Magnus, but they only removed it in Gathering Storm when R&F suffered the same unbalance.
Judging by the latest patch notes, where the listed changes only apply to Gathering Storm unless stated otherwise, there seem to be many other instances of this: great works of writing having altered culture/tourism values, extra GPPs being converted to faith after you can't get that great person anymore, building production cost reductions, yield buffs in later-game buildings to make constructing them worthwhile, pantheon rebalances, tech/civic cost increases, changes to the interactions between battering rams/siege towers/tier 2 or 3 walls... Quite a few. Are any of those changes only necessary in certain expansions due to unbalancing caused by the new features in said expansion? Maybe, maybe some of those are only warranted in a certain expansion. But surely not all of them.
I really hope that they make a change in this regard. It really disappoints me that they seem to be letting some players fall behind just because they didn't buy the newest packs. I dare say it's a bit of a blight on the quality of the game, particularly if it continues.