What are they not trying to balance the game?

[Jaybe]

Well, if the mod doesn't change civ abilities, Kongo gets very powerful if it spawns in another landmass

And I am all atwitter in anticipation of the experience.
I was only expressing how it's been for me so far (post Australia patch). And no, the mod just uniformly increases sci/civic/GP costs so you can extend the game closer to the turn limit.

 

[Pietato]

Japan and Norway are definetly not bad. As Victoria mentioned, Japan is very strong in island maps and his double adjacency districts are extremely good. Norway is also extremely potential in island type maps, you'll be drowning in captured builders and settlers and eventually don't know where to put them anymore. Berserker is an very underrated unit also, it's situational but can be better than a Knight once you get a couple of the melee promotions for it.

Bererker is rubbish, and Knights get upgrades too.

 

[Bro]

Bererker is rubbish, and Knights get upgrades too.

They certainly are not rubbish. Sure they get upgrades, but they get upgrades from another promotion tree! The Berserker get's +10 strength when defending against ranged attacks and +7 strength against melee and ranged units as it's first tiers. The Knight get's only +7 strength when defending against ranged and +10 when attacking fortified units. Berserkers have 51 attack with Oligarchy, 44 defense. Knights don't get any bonuses from Oligarchy, so it's a static 48. Berserkers get a production card from Feudalism where you should be going anyways, Knights get it from Divine Right. Divine Right is a bit off for most players if you're not going for a religion. Berserkers upgrade to Musketmen, which come far before than Tanks in which the Knights upgrade to.

In my TSL-Earth domination deity victory as Norway Berserkers came just in the right time before I got Frigates and upgraded to Musketmen while I was researching for Battleships. Usually I'll have to chill at my conquest between when the old unit won't cut it any more and I'm waiting for a key tech, but in this game it was endless continuous mayhem.

 

[ShinigamiKenji]

Their first promotion should balance the penalty when defending, while giving a huge boost to attacking. Don't use them for defending your Crossbows; attack them heabily, since the +7 Combat Strength should either kill the enemy unit or leave it so crippled that it won't be able to retaliate.

Though it would be excellent if they also received the Amphibious promotion, or had no penalty when disembarking. Then they wouldn't be looked down so much.

The Knight promotion tree isn't my favourite one. The best-looking one is Rout, which is 2nd-tier.