Threads like this make me wonder what Firaxis is thinking when they say "Civ fans, you're the best fans in gaming."
I had the same thought. I really don’t care for the OP’s tone.
If people want to complain, of course they can. As much as they want. And they can be as passionate a they want. But, personally, I don't like an uncivil tone or ad hominem attacks on e.g. Firaxis or its people. That adds nothing.
Sure. The balance changes in this patch seem modest from one angle. The patch stops short in a few places that feels odd, eg rebalancing Happiness thresholds, but not buffing Ecstatic or adding a higher Happiness level; balancing F Min and GM Chapel, but not Audience Chamber. There’s lots of other stuff that needs balancing, and this patch doesn’t address those aspects, eg unit gaps, Unit balance, Anti-Cav specifically, buildings (particularly Science buildings). It’s frustrating.
But, really, removing free amenities is a huge change to how the game is played. And judging from the other tweaks, it seems likely this change has been Qa/QC within an inch of it’s life. There’s clearly a lot of work that’s gone into this change.
FXS also seem to be generally conservative with balance changes, presumably so they can see how each change plays out, rather than rushing through a tonne of changes and stuffing things up in terms of balance. They obviously also prioritise changes based on upcoming content (particularly as sometimes upcoming content will rework the very thing people want re-balanced).
There’s obviously a lot of other stuff going on under the hood in terms of bugs etc. Plus a new game mode, that itself clearly took some thought, time to implement correctly, and more QA/QC.
I wish this patch did more too, but I’m also really happy FXS have finally tried making Amenities more important and have been willing to make the game a bit harder.
So, no, I don’t think OP’s criticism is justified. And frankly, I don’t find OP’s style of criticism constructive. But whatever.
While I’m at it, I think people should lay off Aspyr a bit too. I think they’re doing their best as I don’t think the porting is easy. I’d like NFP on iOS too. It’ll happen when it happens.
[edit: added 2nd para.]