Finally got around to playing this version and... it was fun.
First up, great works work again, and it's great! (I'm sorry) It's so nice to be able to collect art (and get international theming bonuses). Thank you.
Second, I'm really liking the diplo factors on the mouseover for leaders' portraits. Makes a lot more sense now, well done there. I'm also a big fan of getting information from hovering over the crossed swords when you are at war with someone. I don't know if that's new but I've never noticed it before and I like it.
Third, onto the topical subject of the early-game changes. Starting with a warrior makes the very early game significantly more dynamic - which is good! It also makes that starting period go faster... which I have mixed feelings about as it's one of my favourites. In any case there were no huge 'oh no' moments in that regard, so the worst I can say is that it's different. With regards to archers... I built them and hardly used them, because the early game was pretty peaceful for me all told. Didn't have much of an impact on my game, so not much to say except that I support the reduced hammer cost! Thanks for the hotfix, G.
Something else I noticed in how the early game played out (at least in this example) is that barbarians were a lot less relevant. Might have just been a fluke (with try again with the hotfix and report back), but it seemed to be me that they were kind of... tame? I'm a big fan of recon units being less squishy (and it was especially good playing as Shoshone). I can't say exactly what factors are responsible, and to which degree, but I have some ideas.
Starting with a warrior makes the whole early barb threat a lot less worrying. Which is fine, given people seemed to find found the old version annoying. Something I didn't expect is that without 2-range archers barbarians feel a lot less menacing. In particular I found that recon was a lot more straight forward because situations where previously I was outnumbered and had no way of getting out I could just shimmy my way out of the crowd and only a couple of them could hit me. So I may actually be in favour of moving ZOC on the recon tree to Trailblazer III to rebalance things a bit.
Something I did very much appreciate is that embarking your pathfinder or scout and heading out to sea is no longer a game of russian roulette. I think this is in part due to not having to worry about getting sunk by archers you can't see, and part due to barb ships turning up later so you can swim around in peace. The slightly higher CS for early recon units probably didn't hurt either.
I also wonder how the AI are faring in this new meta. Because while barbarians for me were a bit of a non-issue, I still noticed the AI getting a fair bit of stuff pillaged and workers stolen at times. Maybe I just had better luck than them?
The jungle changes weren't as bad as I feared they might be. Still feels like a nerf in the early game for jungle starts, but it's nice being able to consistently get 60 hammers from clearing land once I reach the classical era rather then 12 or 8 or something depending where and what I chop. Pacal didn't seem to care, with his UI and all.
Also, I am now very much a convert to the Goddess of Springtime faith. Didn't give me the immediate faith generation I enjoyed from the Love and Protection pantheons, but it added up pretty well. It's also nice to see the Herbalist as a go-to building, where it's usually been an afterthought for me (except in the UB form of the Iroquois Longhouse). I also have a stronger appreciate for Olives as a luxury than I did before.
As for the rest of the game, after establishing a strong lead early on my neighbours caught up a little but not enough for me to want to play all the way through. They were relatively smart in warfare though. The Huns put together a solid invasion force despite being many tech behind me and they kept me busy for some time. I also declared war on Rome (across the Ditch) in order to get city-state favour. And while they were already at war with Siam at the time and lost a city they managed to defend very solidy. In particular the naval aspect seemed stronger than what I was used to. I peaced out as soon as possible though as I didn't really care about Rome XD.
All in all, I think this beta is pretty good.