All of the changes look nice at the very least. I fear that the Mission and Ice Hockey Rink will still be fairly late unlocks, and I found it weird that Kevin seemed to announce the fleets/armadas bonus of Spain as though it were new. At least, it came off that way to me anyhow. The Canada changes are not as nuanced as I had hoped, but at the same time ideal: for Canada, flat tundra is now directly equivalent to flat grassland for food yields, and tundra hills/woods are now far better than even plains hills. Blizzards and volcanoes can make all of those tiles even better.
I wish Georgia would get at least part of their Dramatic Ages ability in regular gameplay. Being able to slot in Dark Ages policies during Golden Ages would make for wonderfully unique gameplay, but I suppose it is not to be (outside that game mode, anyway). Too bad the AI is broken in Dramatic Ages and way too easy to beat.
The changes to Spain are especially great, and I think put them in pretty much the perfect spot balance-wise. The Mission is a decent improvement already, though I wish it had an extra little sweetener like some housing. Otherwise, they look to be perhaps the only civilisation which can truly thrive off of domestic trade routes, which is exactly the kind of flavour that suits them.
Broadly, I think the changes to naval AI will lead (hopefully) to the AI settling more coastal cities, which will help all naval-oriented civilisations feel more useful. With any luck, some improvements to coastal tile yields will also be included in the overall balance changes. For this video they seemed to go over the "big ticket" updates, leaving probably a lot more for the patch notes.
Do you all think we will be getting a First Look type of video on Thursday with more details?
