There’s some good stuff in the patch, but very disappointed some stuff is not fixed.
England
I know Firaxis are reading these forums. The problems with England have been posted about exstensively. And yet England is still a mess, and moreso after the Spring patch.
Losing “extra” trade routes has made the RND mediocre (...
at best...), and the loss of the extra trade routes and Pax B’s ability to produce troops on conquest has meant England has lost interesting strategies and real flavour. The ‘loyalty’ bonus to harbours (??) is bland, and doesn’t work anyway because the bonus comes too late to help England settle foreign continents (compare Spain’s Missions, which can be built instantly) and settling on continents isn’t worth the effort anyway.
Add all this to England’s existing problems - Sea Dog is awful, England’s +1 movement for Naval units gets lost if you upgrade a unit, and Naval combat isn’t strong anyway - and it means one of the most popular series Civs is just awful.
The most recent changes don’t “buff” England in any meaningful way, and totally miss the underlying problems. At this point, Enjgland needs to be completely reworked. There are plenty of suggestions: see my signature for example.
Pikes, Medieval Melee and Military Tactics
FXS have tried to improve anti-can and Uniqie Medieval Melee units: they’ve added Anti-Cav to Agoge and related policy cards, they‘ve added an extra Anti-Cav unit (Pile and Shot) and they’ve given Medieval Melee units a serious buff. These are good changes, but we’re not there yet.
First, Pikes are still just too damn expensive for the amount of punch they give.
@Sostratus has explained the problem elsewhere. The last patch actually makes this problem worse, because the change to Commandos makes Melee even stronger (I mean, anti cav have to wait until tier 3 anti cav promotions to get +1 movement).
Second, no one wants to research Military Tactics: it’s a leaf tech with too little benefit. A radical solution would be to get rid of MT from the Tech Tree: make it a civic, and have Pikes and Medieval Melee unlock at Industrialisation or Castles. But a less radical solution would be to make MT more valuable: make researching MT or killing with a Pike a Eureka and or have MT unlock a more general buff like Military Traditon does.
Until Military Tactics gets reworked, Norway, Japan, Georgia and (to a different extent) Greece are made much less interesting or playable.
Cede cities
How it works now makes no sense. Either you should have only two options: return or cede; or if there is a third option (ie not ceding and not returning) then the captured city should become a free city.