Few observations from my campaign;
France is probably the strongest civ I played so far. While the early game is not spectacular, the obscene amount of culture from the great writers in the late game basically unlocked every policy I could ever wish for while the tourism from the great musicians should be enough to break any cultural stalemate. Combined with the multiattack bonus which works with planes and on cities makes for some crazy momentum and really fun wars. The Musketeers are one of the best unique units I used so far and support the UA perfectly. I just built a ton of them during the industrial era and upgraded them to deadly melee units all the way to mech infantry that served me brilliantly. The chateau is pretty cool aswell with versatile yields that could use to balance out city output. Also the puzzle of chateau, village and farm placement most definitely kept me quite occupied.
Cultural victory with more than a few cities is still a mess. It's really hard to justify founding new cities when going for a cultural victory as they'd have to output maybe around 150 tourism to break even... which they probably wont, even with landmarks. Same with annexing cities. A little carelessness can easily totally mess up your chances at cultural victory. There's also not enough great works for huge maps which is a reason I am hesitant to add even more civs, want to keep cultural victory open for leaders that want to go for it, or myself. The AI is also EXTREMELY keen on passing travel ban and sanctions and never to repeal them, all this just makes cultural victory really hard under some scenarios.
The last few techs are super snowball-ish. It's really easy to just rush through the last part of the tree crazy fast by chaining free great scientists and free techs... Which is an advantage to the human players that can do that way better than the AI. In fact, I was still third in tech right before the Apollo Program. It's not necessarily a bad thing as, though really fun, the late game wars can get tedious with the mounting number of things to manage.
I have utilised most of the late game units and really loved Modern and Atomic era warfare. Huge fan of the Tank line, they are in a much better spot than they were in vanilla and are definitely very high impact units (and techs). I just love building them en masse once wars start and sending them to whatever front needs them. Bombers are essential in taking late game cities as well as breaking stalemates and allow for some rapid conquests. I also built a large amount of destroyers due to the lack of iron for ranged ships. Personally I have no problem with how easily they take coastal cities, it really is necessary in some cases and as long as there are no ships defending it, a coastal city should be at the mercy of the enemy fleet. Was somewhat underwhelmed by stealth bombers though. Submarines also felt weak due to all the destroyers floating around. Giant Death Robots look like game enders -and they should be they come at the time of science victory- couldn't use them much due to lack of uranium. I felt I was given Paratroopers/Special Forces waaaay too often by conscription and city states, would love if it was tweaked to not give them as much.
The AI surprised me in how well it utilised airforce compared to my last games in previous patches. My units cities and ships were consistently bombed and my bombers often intercepted. That made the need for fighters, anti-air and designated intercepting destroyers very real, which was a first. The new Pentagon also helped a lot in that regard, jet fighters are really strong at that time, I do prefer it to the old one. I also got caught with a considerably large squadron of ships I parked on the waters outside the AIs cities. The Shoshone brought a massive fleet out of nowhere and destroyed maybe 6 of my Boarding promoted ships rapidly as well as a great admiral, I had the dreadnoughts further back which I had to retreat and reorganise to face them. Was really surprised by this maneuver. The war AI never fails to make wars very costly in terms of units for the player, even with all the perks I had and I even had to give up some cities I had recently conquered to fall back and move reinforcements. The Atomic era two front war was insanely fun.
I don't really mind the state of strategic resources right now. In tectonic at least, you will be strained for them without Statecraft and Autocracy, which is good and it makes conquests of key cities with strategics essential. Oil is absolutely important for late game wars and it's acquisition is a must for warfare. I had to make the hard decision to declare on Gajah as his colonist was a few turns ahead of me, we had no friendship at that time but same ideology so I felt bad as he scolded me for my action and called me old friend. Totally worth it though as that 10 oil propelled my late game snowball. I like that refineries give Iron as well now as you can be strained for it in some games. Also like the new Agribusiness, there is a strong element of choice on which cities to prioritise them on, as the horses are still limited at that time.
I felt that the AI never had it's sights on me until I was very well established. I do attribute this to my spawn location. Liz did put up a good fight -especially at sea!- but France UA+Authority proved too much. Coffee AND tea monopolies together are definitely strong, but I did use the India Company for a 2/3 in the world, it felt like a good play. It was challenging up to right before information era, as the AI kept up very well in tech and eventually started sabotaging me through resolutions. Indonesia also placed me on the clock with global hegemony victory (vote was set for 20 turns after I won). Although it's better, I still feel the AI can't make efficient late game cities and inevitably falls behind the player. Will probably try immortal next time. Gold was also really important for momentum as it helped push most important buildings out faster which let me snowball eventually, I think gold is undervalued, even in the VP playerbase sometimes
