Château: the yields changed to a Culture / Food instead of Culture / Gold for many reasons. It helps to give its own identity: it was quite similar to the better Persian’s Pairidaeza while Qin Shi Huangdi’s China is also a Wonder civilization that has a Culture / Gold unique improvement. Many people asked themselves why the Château didn’t have Housing in the first place. So here it is: Culture / Food is not done yet, and it also gives Housing. The new Château is not really stronger than the old Château, maybe even weaker. Mainly because you cannot milk the Wonders for extra Culture. You have to see the new one more like a Farm that generates Culture on top of that, instead of a Culture generator for Tourism at Flight purposes. The main advantage of this new Château is the ability to settle Tundra and Desert biomes and have a good Growth if there are a few luxury resources nearby, being available earlier at Feudalism, and being way more flexible.
Garde Impériale: the unit is great and does not need changes. But some have been made anyway. It is unlocked with the Nationalism civic for many reasons. Gameplay wise, it is easier for a cultural Civilization to grab its UU in the Civic tree than making a detour in the Tech tree. The Japanese Samurai, the Polish Winged Hussar or the Brazilian Minas Geraes are unlocked in the Civic tree. Theme-wise, Nationalism is the Napoleon Civic, while the Garde Impériale was Napoleon’s troops, it is a perfect fit!. The continental bonuses changed: 3 Combat Strength is traded for 1 additional Movement. This is added in order to reflect Napoleonic warfare: overcome your enemies by being faster.
Grand Tour: Personally, all the bonus toward Wonder production in the game feels weak, so all their percentage are increased by 5. A +25% Production may feel huge, but it saves about 20% of the Production cost. Or worded differently: 5 Wonders for the price of 4. The ability now also includes the wonder from the Modern and Atomic era. I understand why the game designer didn’t want to include the Modern era wonders in the french ability. All those wonders are cultural (Broadway, Cristo Redentor, Eiffel Tower, and Golden Gate Bridge), which may help the civilization too much in the Culture victory. But it feels odd for the Eiffel Tower to not enjoy the Production bonuses. The Atomic era wonders are added too, more in order to lighten the wording of the ability than anything else. The Château doesn’t give Culture from adjacent Wonders. Instead the Grand Tour ability gives additional Culture to cities with Wonder. It is cumulable 5% modifier, but only works for the city itself. For example, if you have 3 cities with 10, 2 and 0 Wonders, then they will have +50%, +10% and +0% Culture respectively (and not +60% empire-wide à la Pericles). It also gives +5% Food. Gameplay wise, it prevents the city from starving due to having most of its land used for districts and wonders. Plus: it has a good synergy with the new Château. Theme wise, France is a centralized power where everything comes and emanates from Paris. Paris is a densely populated city with a lot of "Wonders". The Grand Tour ability may encourage players to focus on only one mega-city, but that’s France and Paris in a nutshell.
Catherine’s Flying Squadron: The first spy is unlocked with a Civic instead of a Tech. It is in the theme of preventing France from having too much detour in the Tech tree. Since the update, Spy cannot go into allied territory. Maybe the Spy gameplay needs some changes (diplomats gameplay?), or allow only non-harmful missions like Steal tech or Listening post.
Catherine’s Magnificences: the ability changed in order to enjoy the Culture earlier. Having to wait for the Classical era for the Theater Square or the Renaissance era for the Château means that Magnificent’s France has no early game bonuses. Sadly, it would feel a little like Gaul. You can increase the yield from every adjacent Theater Square now, but the ability does not work anymore with the new Château: it is available way earlier, would be too spamable and too powerful since Château also gains additional Food from adjacent Luxury. Like Gallic Mine are now eligible for Tourism with Flight recently, the same should be done with Camps and Fishing Boats. Right now, only the Mines and the Plantations over a Luxury Resources generates Tourism at Flight. The city project changed in order to prevent cheesy tactics of gathering as much Luxury Resources with low Civic/Tech progress (→ cheaper projects), and do all the projects across many cities in one turn with Builders chops. Now that the rewards scale with the Production cost, such things would not be necessary. 5% seems to be a lot, but that is what the project gives in the end game where the project is the least profitable: 50 Culture/Tourism per duplicates, 975 Production cost, so 5.12% per duplicates. In the worst case scenario, the city project gives as much Culture than Theater Square Performances for 3 duplicates. For 10 duplicates, you basically convert 50% of your Production into Culture and Tourism. Which is huge, while being at the worst case scenario (currently, at half completion tree, the conversion is 100% of your Production at 10 duplicates).
Court of Love: the ability is a snowball one, which starts to be powerful when the first Great Artists is coming and when you have a good economy to allow you to purchase Theatre Square and the first 2 buildings easily. The ability changed. It now works with districts. Great Works and Districts now generates Food, which is more thematic with the Angevin Empire Agenda (she wants Population). Great Works and Districts also generate Loyalty (better at keeping conquered or rebelling cities). That Loyalty generates Pressure to nearby cities within 6 tiles. It was reduced to 6 tiles for balance reasons: now that Districts are included, her aura of effects has to be reduced. Something to note: Government Plaza allows an early 8+1 Loyalty pressure for early offensive. Furthermore, the 4+1 Loyalty from foreign RNDY would also work. The latter might be too strong, but the RNDY are more likely to be on the coast so it will be hard for it to reach a lot of cities. But it may need the Loyalty pressure within 6 tiles of the districts, and not 6 tiles of the ciy-center.
In the end, this new Eleanor is better suited for England and new France. Her ability relies less on Great Works to be effective and starts earlier with your first district which would generate 2 Food and 1 Loyalty. This new Eleanor has now better Loyalty to keep her Cities. It would benefit better for an aggressive gameplay like England, you can conquer the coastal cities and keep them Loyal if it has many Specialty districts, even better if it has a Harbor (4 Loyalty) or Theatre Square (put the GW there for +1 Loyalty each). Then the immediate inland city next to your coast could flip to you. For a more peaceful way, your Population will rise high with the many districts and GW that would increase your pressure even more, bonus Food that would be further increased with the +5% Food for each Wonder the city has.
