Some more feedback.
The
additional troops on golden age are not helpful with
all civs. The colonial civs appreciate all the settlers, I'm sure; but for example Greece can do nothing with settlers, because they don't provide meaningful building upgrades until renaissance; and Greece has too many cities in their Macedonian empire anyway. The Polynesians can't use the surprise golden age troops. Settlers, sure, and more boats, I guess. But for the Polynesians, an even stronger culture boost might be more important than a catapult etc. So, my request is that different civs get different golden age presents?
On another note, I have found a bug there: If you start a new golden age during a golden age, you still receive only one set of units. Also, that Amber Room wonder that lets you share golden ages of your defensive pact partners? That
also grants you the same units, each time a GA is started. With that wonder, you get inundated in military.
So sometimes, the soldiers pile on and on. Another example, I'm just playing Italy and the additional troops forced an earlier-than planned civic change because I was not at war and with the third golden age, I could not pay all the troops anymore. Though I couldn't just fire them, because I knew that Italy gets invaded 200 years later. So I saved them up, never had to pay a single gold/hammer to produce soldiers and yet could easily kill Spain in the Big Reformation War. (Spain-Portugal vs. England-Germany-France-Italy).
Did you raise the
cultural thresholds for cities? Or only decreased the culture bonus from Library/Weaver? Because I had severe problems with managing Italy's second UHV, and this time I did a straightforward Easy/Italy 600 AD start, not my usual precursor starts. I think I had a lucky start, but my culture triangle of Rome+Geneva+Venice couldn't get the required culture level by 1560. My strategy was: 100% research until I had the prereq techs for the three wonders (UHV 1), then 100% culture spending for nearly the entire time between 1300 to 1560. I had 1 great engineer (Sixtine Chapel just before HRE builds it) and six great artists, all delivering 2400 culture to my cities. I built exclusively culture buildings in my cities, too (exceptions for Harbors and Jails), and even joined the Reformation to get St. Thomas and the additional protestant cathedrals. And even with all that, I only ever got close to the goal. Even my best city narrowly missed the threshold.
I'm going to take another run where I research Cartography before going 100% culture (I guess that the great artists are better in reformation) and where I switch to Monasticism to get more of them; missing out on cheaper culture buildings.
Um, still about city thresholds. If you DID raise the thresholds, please don't consider lowering them again. The cultural victory is often easier than UHVs for late-game civs.
Idea for Golden Ages: Maybe do a popup choice here: {"Our outstanding cultural achievements have lead us into a golden age and our people is filled with energy. Which way should they be directed?"} - {Build a fighting force like no other - get lots of soldiers} - {Lead our people to settle new lands - get settlers, workers and garrison units} - {Select the most excellent people and use their ideas - get one great person depending on the civ.} That last point would mean: Great Artists for Italy or Polynesia. Great Engineers for Egypt or Rome. Great Statesmen for Britain or Greece. Great Prophets for Tibet or Spain.
The
additional independent cities of Uruk, Knossos and Carales are a nice touch; Leoreth's DoC has these spots usually not settled. But Uruk (only available in 3000 BC starts) should be targetted for a raze by computer opponents: Barbarians and Persians should consider it as a bad place; by the Islamic conquest it should be gone. If not, then let the Arabs raze it, please. Now, Knossos and Carales are nice spots, but they tend to be independent. And stay that way. In my 3000 BC start Greece/England game, Carales was the Holy City for Catholicism, and do you think anyone wanted it? Nope. Only a human Italy player would ever bother to conquer Carales. (Don't know if it's included in the 1870 late-Italian resurrection zone).
So, um, my takeaway point here is that those cities maybe shouldn't appear guaranteed. A guaranteed Cnossos for Greece is fine; a guaranteed Carales for Italy to conquer is fine; but if the player isn't those civs, these cities could maybe have a 50/50 chance to appear?
Railways: Are no longer the big speed-up. Infantry units gain a speed of 10 instead of 6 - that is substantial, but not as much as from 3 to 10. And horses are
slowed down from 12 to 10. In my games I haven't had tanks so far; but I expect them to also slow down on railways. So, make it 16 speed, please. When researching Infrastructure, increase to 20 (railroads; highways still 16). Aerodynamics then boosts both highways and railroads by another 4. Just an idea.
River movement: I stated it before, that is a great thing. I wish Leo had it in his mod, along with the military/civil unit movement reversal. In Leo's mod, I never used the slow infantry units except for defense and garrison. While your mod made pikemen worth the investment, again. Once you are used to single-move worthless workers, you stop to miss them as two-move units.