wanderm
Chieftain
Very early wealth production: I remember, that this was being discussed here, and I think, this discussion should continue. Building wealth shouldn't be so commanding. Your economy shouldn't rely on it so heavily. Could this mechanism possibly be favoring rapid expansion playstyles, just like in Civ 3? Hopefully not. You might try to grab plenty of production sites that do nothing but build wealth to keep your research at 100%. Not an intelligent game mechanism, if that turns out to be true. I haven't played far enough to see proof of that, but I'm afraid that's what's happening.
I confess to being a recent convert from Civ 3, but on Monarch level I am grateful for building wealth.
(My settings are Raging Barbs and Aggressive AI, which makes for a somewhat more tactical experience. Just playing Sandbox won't hold my attention).
Because of my various problems with rapid expansion, I tend to disagree that 1.17 is out of balance here. Rapid expansion is not altogether ahistorical; I concede building just for wealth may be gamey, but many possessions of the real life Ancient Era were little more than that.
Of course if more experienced players suspect it is broken I will stand corrected.