France gets my upvote again, they are too good to have this low points; did something suddenly change in G&K to change ppls opinion on them? In vanilla they were often ranked amongst the top three.
So were Songhai, and look at them now.
Partly I think something has changed; it's now easy to get early culture as any civ with pantheon beliefs, although still not as early as France. Also, the key benefit often cited for France is that early culture got you that valuable first Settler very early - now Liberty in general isn't as viable as it was in vanilla, and the settler is in a less attractive place.
But mostly, France is just not interesting to play, and this isn't a 'power' thread. Lots of people have voted against civs mainly because they find them boring (which killed Germany early on). There's also the dissatisfaction voiced by some here (myself included) that France's UA etc. don't make it feel obviously French, in the way that most other civs have some thematic 'hook'.
I'm not impressed with Russia at all, cossacks/cavalry in general seem almost completely pointless except for as a final hit on a city that other troops/seige has brought down, kreposts have never helped me in my games as Russia, my borders grow because I tend to generate a lot of culture, and the UA is very underwhelming now that iron isn't needed for siege.
Cavalry's not that bad now that ranged units have a promotion structure that keeps them viable until early in the Modern Era. The speed isn't needed to attack Gatlings or Machine Guns with their 1 range, but IIRC they still get a bonus attacking them that Riflemen don't. There's just the intrinsic problem that in a game in which most combat revolves around cities rather than field engagement, battlefield mobility is a niche application.
I haven't played Russia, so haven't voted for or against, but surely the key advantage in the early game is the production bonus, not double resources? Particularly for iron, as a Russian city with a forge and a couple of decent iron tiles has great production. Double resources only becomes useful later in the game with generally scarcer resources such as uranium. That does leave a big gap in utility in the mid-game, admittedly, due to the game's uneven spread of strategic resources (horse/iron early, then nothing until until the Industrial Era - and coal is rarely a resource I'm short of unless I literally have no coal tiles, in which case the Russian UA is irrelevant - until finally getting three important resources in the Modern and later eras).
