Nerf: Austria. City states now provide delegates making diplomatic marriage less profitable.
Buff: France. 2 culture per city will be more valuable since cultural buildings generate less. But all old cultural numbers and costs are subject to change so we don't know.
Nerf: Mongols. City states now provide delegates making capturing them less profitable.
Buff: Ottomans. Their early price ship armada can be really useful for pillaging all others sea trade routes.
I'm pretty sure caravans/cargo ships provide gold,food or production per turn, so is there any benefit of them going between each city quicker?
Unless the speed at which they go between cities is also part of the calculations for profit, the only benefit I can see for increased movement of these trade units (via Iroquois forests, England faster naval movement etc) will be the ability to avoid raiders easier, which may be benefit enough.
I've been thinking, as each resource is taking into account when determining money from trade routes, can we safely assume if any resources are pillaged during the duration of the trade route will lower the GPT? and if a new resource is connected, an increase?
Nerf: Austria. City states now provide delegates making diplomatic marriage less attractive
Flip side of this is a buff to Greece and Sweden who are likely to pick up more world congress votes.
I think you're all counting out conquering City States too quickly here. Sure, CS's provide delegates, but probably no more than say, having a city that same size will produce. (I'm making an educated guess at this point in time that population = delegates.) With this line of thinking, it would make sense that allied CS's just add their delegates (population) to your delegate count for votes/propositions.
Since you can usually grow an annexed (or even puppetted) CS at a faster rate than the CS itself grows, adding a CS to your empire should still provide a boost to your delegate count (assuming pop = del) with still having the opportunity cost of the CS benefits.
Well your idea could be true, but to me it seems more likely that stick to the voting system for diplomatic victory. They seem to want to portrait CS like full nations.
CS's would still matter as they're a much easier way to accrue delegates than founding and growing your own city. And even though we have little information at this point, I think it makes sense to assume that population = delegates because in real life delegates are the people expected to vote in elections.
Plus, making population = delegates would still give Tall civs an edge in the expansion, as they would still be able to compete diplomatically despite all the other "nerfs" they face and "buffs" wide seems to be getting.