Pantheons:
Ancestor Worship: culture from shrines increased from 1 > 2
The culture it gave was not impactful enough throughout the game to make this worth getting.

Dance of the aurora: faith from non forest tundra tiles increased 1 > 2
This was objectively worse than desert folklore in terms of faith generation but tundra are also already worse than desert tiles because deserts have oases and rivers.

Fertility rites: excess food increased from 10% > 30%
The wording on it was misleading reading “X% faster growth” but it only increases excess food which 10% adds nothing of value to so increasing it to 30% should make a bigger difference.

God of craftsmen: removed the population requirement
+1 production would be very nice in new cities but the population requirement prevents new cities from taking advantage of it.

God of the sea: changed +1 production from fishing boats to +1 production from sea resources
Fishing boats are way too many hammers so you pay a ton of hammers to not get much back.

God of war: removed tile limit to gain faith from kills
This pantheon was extremely situational and was only really useful when being rushed by barbs. This change should give it consistent faith generation to rival other pantheons and continue to useful the whole game. It might be too good but I am interested to see what happens.

Goddess of love: lowered population requirement from 6 > 3
This gave population in the mid game but the happiness from this is most useful early when you are founding new cities.

Messenger of the gods: increased science per connection 2 > 3
The just was not as good as most other pantheons as the amount of effort to payoff did not make this worth getting but this should make it a reasonable choice for wide players

Oral tradition: changed +1 culture from plantations to +1 culture to resources upgraded by plantations
A lot of tiles upgraded by plantations are on jungles which require masonry to chop down and take a very long time to chop down. On top of that you also need calendar and plantations take a long time to build as well. To make things worse, players often do not build plantations in the first place on tiles such as bananas so this pantheon was changed because of how little it actually adds.

Religious settlements: increased border growth from 15% > 25%
15% is not really that impactful especially when players do not have control over where the borders grow to. Its common to buy all the important tiles early so this buff might help make more of a difference.

Sun god: added cocoa to the list of tiles that get +1 food
Cocoa is food too

Founder Beliefs:
Initiation rites: increased gold from 100 > 150
Gold amount is modified by game speed so quick speed players got a paltry 67, 100 is still not very much for standard speed players. This should make spreading religion more of a reward to players.

Interfaith Dialogue: added the benefit of every 5 followers in other cities gives you +1 science
The amount of science you got from spreading was very bad and was not worth the amount of effort it took to spread your religion in the first place.

Peace loving: increased happiness by decreasing follower requirement from 8 > 5
8 followers is way too much to have this be useful. It is very hard to have your religion spread everywhere. Not only that but this benefit is canceled by players going to war with you.

Pilgrimage: increased faith per foreign city from 2 > 3
Like the other beliefs that require you to spread to other players, its very hard to make this work. Often times you will only get to spread to city states but this should let you still get value if you only spread to city states.

World church: increased culture gain by decreasing follower requirement from 5 > 4
Yet another belief that requires you to spread to other players. Culture would be better than gold 1:1 if this worked the same as tithe but it does not.

Follower beliefs:
Asceticism: removed population requirement
A lot of the other follower beliefs were so much better, hopefully this makes it a more viable pickup.

Cathedrals: changed culture per turn from 1 > 3
This should make them more of a viable choice albeit not as good as pagodas still. This will at least be more enticing for players going for tourism victory or want high culture games.

Choral music: increased culture per turn from 2 > 3
It was decent before but still nowhere as good as the other choices. This might help make it more enticing choice.

Feed the world: increased food per turn from 1 > 2
+1 food was not impactful enough to make use of. You need shrines and temples to get +2 food which is terrible. Now if you have both you basically have 2/3s hanging garden. This might also be helpful for when you found a new city, you can buy shrines for the city to get up faster.

Guruship: increased production from 2 > 3
Religious community was better, this should make this a much better choice for liberty empires.

Liturgical drama: added +1 faith to monuments, opera houses, museums, and broadcast towers, removed follower requirement
This was completely worthless before. +1 faith from a building that only sees player much later in the game has no impact at all. This now has the potential for high faith gain but also gives high faith gain for players going for high culture or tourism victory.

Religious art: increased culture from 5 > 8
Tourism from this doesn’t really add anything meaningful. Increased culture back to G&K level to make this more meaningful as hermitage comes very late in the game.

Swords into plowshares: increased excess food from 15% > 45%, removed not at war requirement
This was garbage because of the way it increased excess food and not total food, similar to fertility rites pantheon. Not only is the amount extremely small, but it required you not be at war so anyone could declare war to negate this.

Enhancer beliefs:
Holy order: increased cost reduction from 30% > 40%
Missionaries are not good at spreading religion to other players as they are not very effective and too expensive. This will help incentivise buying missionaries to spread religion.

Just war: added the benefit of getting faith from kills
The ability was normally too difficult to pull off. You had to spread your religion to someone and then attack them immediately after to get the benefit. A player could check and see that you had just war and would be incredibly dubious when you spread your religion to them. Adding this effect will synergize with holy warriors and open up new playstyles of using religion for war.

Missionary Zeal: increased missionary strength from 25% > 75%
As aforementioned in holy order, missionaries are not good at spreading religion so this should make them better at doing so.

Reliquary: increased faith per great person from 50 > 150
Similar to initiation rites, this is modified by game speed. That is 33 faith for quick and only 50 for standard. That amount is so low it is garbage. 150 faith should make this pay off more throughout a game. Also messiah is better in that you can plant great prophets for cheaper.

Reformation beliefs:
Evangelism: increased follower erosion from 10 > 25
This now removes 25 followers instead of 10. This should make the change do more of what the text implies that it does. Before it would not perfectly erode so they were still much worse than great prophets.

Heathen conversion: changed to Divine Influence
Divine influence: +25 resting influence with city states with this religion
This now allows for players to pick papal primacy, get a reformation and choose this, and get patronage for resting 65 influence with city states. This will allow players to be resting allies with city states that have the same religion as them. Heathen conversions was complete trash before as by the time you got this most barbs would not even be relevant anymore. It was such a terrible gimmick that there is no world where it could work.

Sacred sites: increased tourism from 2 > 5
2 tourism was nowhere near enough to be impactful. This will let players rush reformation belief to try for an early tourism victory. Even if that does not work, 5 is more meaningful for players going for tourism victory.

Underground sect: increased pressure from 5 > 8
This increases the pressure from 45 > 72 on quick, 30 > 48 on standard, 20 > 32 on epic, and 10 > 16 on marathon. The problem with this was that you do not get a spy until renaissance, and for underground sect to activate, they either need pressure from you already or have at least one follower from you. It is also bad because you need to have one of your spies in the city for a long amount of time to convert so when your spy is in a city that it can not steal techs from then it is effectively doing nothing. Not only that but a player can tell there is a bunch of pressure coming from nowhere and tell that a spy is in that city and counter spy it. This change should hopefully make conversion more quick and the pressure more viable.

Honor:
Military tradition: requirement changed to opener instead of military caste
Faster construction speed makes no sense for a penultimate social policy. You want the construction speed as soon as possible to make use of hammer savings.

Military caste: increased culture per garrison from 2 > 3, added 25% discount on military maintenance.
To get this effect you needs units standing around which cost maintenance. Less maintenance should also help save gold early game as well as into late. Culture increase should incentivise players to actually use it.

Piety:
Organized religion: now only leads into mandate of heaven
See reformation

Mandate of heaven: no longer available with opener, now requires mandate of heaven
See reformation

Theocracy: now requires religious tolerance instead of organized religion
See reformation

Religious tolerance: now an opener, leads to theocracy and reformation
See reformation

Reformation: now requires religious tolerance instead
Investing 4 social policy points for a reformation belief was a very large opportunity cost, especially when before the buffs most of the reformation beliefs were trash. Changing the tree should make reformation beliefs more accessible and religions more competitive. I do worry slightly about that mandate of heaven now has a requirement but I don’t think it was too common before that players opened piety only for it.

Patronage:
Cultural diplomacy: now enters a golden age
There was never really much reason to finish patronage with cultural diplomacy, merchant confederacy, and the finisher all being very weak. I want to buff this somehow but I am not sure how. I think this is a step in the right direction but still not good enough in my mind because spending 4 social policies for a golden age is egregious.

Merchant confederacy: increased gold per trade route with city states from 2 > 4
The amount of social policies it took to get this made it nowhere near worth it. This is also an objectively worse form of wagon trains. This buff should make it more worth the time for people who want to play with city states.

Aesthetics:
Opener: swapped benefit with cultural centers, now gives bonus production 50% to monuments, amphitheaters, opera houses, museums, and broadcast towers
This should make putting one point into aesthetics better than it was before, especially for civs like the Celts. If you wanted the faster great artist, musician, and writer generation then you are probably going for a tourism victory. If you are going for tourism victory then you are probably going to finish the whole aesthetics tree.

Cultural centers: swapped with opener, now gives 25% faster generation to great artists, musicians, and writers
As aforementioned, this benefit is more conducive to people going for tourism victory so it is better to put slightly lower in the tree so players who aren’t don’t have to get this.

Fine arts: added the effect of each monument, amphitheater, opera house, museum, and broadcast tower giving +2 culture
Fine arts was terrible at generating culture. It would never generate enough culture to pay for itself. On top of that, if you had so much happiness that you are getting value out of it then you are already winning or are not playing something right. This change should help people going for tourism victory get a lot more culture; up to +10 per city.

Artistic genius: a great artist, musician, and writer appears
Before the opportunity cost was way too high, getting three social policies just for one great artist. This might be quite op but I am excited and interested to see how this plays out for people going for tourism victory. Player not going for tourism victory could still pick this up for culture and a golden age but it still comes at the high cost of 3 social policies.

Commerce:
Entrepreneurship: great merchant mission gold increased from 2x > 3x
Gold purchasing strategies are very hard to make work. Granting extra gold from missions should help with players looking to pull them off. This is also a buff to Venice as their merchant of Venice would give 6x gold.

Navigation:
Navigation school: added 20% bonus production to all naval units
This was a pretty terrible social policy considering how non impactful great admirals are. Hopefully the extra production should make this more conducive to naval warring.

Merchant navy: increased gold per lighthouse, seaport, and harbor from 1 > 2
Before the gold was not even enough to cover the cost of the building maintenance. It is barely just enough to cover the maintenance cost of harbors and seaports. I feel like this is actually not enough of a buff.

Rationalism:
Free thought: now affects Brazilwood camps
This is a buff to Brazil as they often cover their jungles with Brazilwood camps instead of trading posts. This should help them stay in the game with science a bit.

America:
B17: now starts with bombardment promotion
The promotions it starts with are not useful as bombers mostly attack land units. I fear starting with three promotions is too good so if it is I will make bombardment replace one of the other two it starts with.

Assyria:
Royal library: exp granted increased from 10 > 20, removed gold maintenance, given +2 science
This building does nothing as a library until you fill the great slot, meaning it is pretty useless to mid to late game. Once there, the exp it gives is not enough to get it an extra level. This should be able to give an extra level as well as some early game boost in terms of science and gold.

Aztec:
Jaguar warrior: HP on kill increased from 25 > 50
This heal was rather insignificant, especially since ranged units tend to get more kills than melee units. This is a very small buff that will actually make the healing feel like something rather than nothing.

Brazil:
Brazilwood camp: +1 production, gets +1 science from free thought
Jungle tiles give no production so this should help a lot to Brazil’s late game production. Since Brazil works Brazilwood camps on jungles in lieu of trading posts, having the benefit from the extra science is very nice. Overall Brazilwood camps will be quite monstrous in the late game

Pracinha: strength increased from 70 > 80
This unit’s ability to add to golden ages is completely useless. The increase in strength should make them feel more unique. They might be a bit strong but this is the same increase in strength as the Panzer (70 > 80)

Byzantine:
Ability: added +1 faith from shrines and +2 faith from temples
Byzantium had no way of actually securing a religion despite the fact that they have a unique benefit for religions. This will not secure them first religion but should help them secure one and give great faith generation for the late game.

Carthage:
African forest elephant: cost reduced from 100 > 85, movement increased from 3 > 4
Great generals promotion is not that great, and fear is mediocre. When you compare the less movement and increased cost to regular knights, they are objectively worse. These buffs should help them out a bit while not being too powerful.

Quinquereme: starts with deep ocean sailing promotion
A stronger trireme is useless. You’re not going to be taking cities with it. Before you held off barbs slightly better but at least now you can explore deep ocean and explore the map earlier.

Celts:
Ceilidh hall: cost reduced from 200 > 125
This might be too much of a reduction but it never got built that often before since it requires both a monument and an amphitheater. While most players build amphitheaters (or get it for free with liberty), you still need to spend a bunch of hammers making an amphitheater and then more to finally get this building.

Danish (Denmark):
Norwegian ski infantry: strength increased from 34 > 38
Nobody settles in snow so nobody fights in snow. This unit’s ability never saw play so at least now it is slightly stronger so it does at least something better.

Dutch (Netherlands):
Ability: happiness retention increased from 50% > 100%
This ability almost never saw play in pvp, and even against computers, you still have to put yourself at a loss to make use of this.

Polder: marshes now do not go away with nuke
If you nuked the dutch then they would lose all of their polders. Their one unique building would be permanently gone as soon as players hit the atomic era.

Sea beggar: strength increased from 25 > 28
People don’t take cities with melee units, they used ranged ones so the extra city damage promotion does not help them at all. This will help them be better in combat against other boats or the daring player who wants to rush a city down.

Ethiopia:
Mehal infantry: strength increased from 34 > 36
These are pretty good on defense but that bonus is still fairly situational. This should help them be consistently better and feel slightly more impactful.

France:
Ability: added +2 culture in each city
Current bonus is completely worthless as tourism victories almost never happen. Not only that but nobody with a brain would ever trade you great works of art so that you can get you your theming bonus. The situation where you get a theming is so incredibly rare that it will seldom occur in games.

Musketeer: added shock 1 promotion
Stronger musketman is quite unimpressive. Muskets get phased out quickly to rifling but extra combat strength does not do a lot for units that are mostly just blocker units.

Chateau: added +1 food and +1 production
Similar to the musketeer, this is also rather unimpressive. Culture is and gold is nice but in the early game you do not want to work these because they do not help cities grow (no food or no production). Giving these food and production will help with that but also let you utilize the early culture.

Germany:
Ability: increased clearing barb camp spawn change from 67% > 100%
RNG is not conducive to competitive play. Not only that but this ability is not strong enough to warrant need to be random. You still have to spend resources making and healing army just so you can injure them against barbs.

Panzer: increased strength from 80 > 85
This might be an overbuff but considering how unimpactful Panzers were before, I do not think it will be that op. When entering the atomic era tanks is typically the last thing to be picked up. They do not add a lot of impact on the battlefield and this change might make them truly scary, especially when rushed.

Incas:
Slinger: removed withdraw promotion, increased melee strength from 4 > 7
This unit is worse than the archer because it can not be used to escort workers in the early game. This change will make it better at escorting early game units and give it similar effectiveness in terms of military prowess.

India:
War elephant: reduced cost from 70 > 65
This is a weird unit. Slower movement sucks, however this one ignores rough terrain penalty making it quite good since it has more damage. It is also quite nice that it does not require horses but it is 25% more hammers than the chariot archer which is a lot. This reduction might not be enough but will feel nice.

Mughal fort: added +1 faith
It is just a castle that gives +2 culture. It comes so late in the game that the culture does not make as much of a difference as it could. Adding faith hopefully will make it feel better to have.

Iroquois:
Ability: added no road maintenance
Forest as roads for Iroquois do not work properly as Iroquois so they often have to build roads inside of forests. This added bonus should make that less detrimental and more like their intended effect.

Mohawk Warrior: increased combat strength from 14 > 16
The extra damage in forest promotion is pretty meaningless. To be able to perform a melee attack onto another unit in a forest knowing full well they are fighting Iroquois is rare. At least with the added strength they are now a much better swordsman since the require no iron.

Longhouse: added +15% bonus to production
Why it didn’t give +10% production like the workshop did? I have no clue. This building was significantly worse than the workshop because it was missing that 10% increase. This is an enormous buff that should make Iroquois very strong through the whole game.

Indonesia:
Kris swordsman: increased combat strength from 14 > 16, removed random negative promotions
Damage increase will bring it in line with the other unique swordsman. The negative random promotions made this unit absolutely never worth using. Randomness is quite a terrible thing to have so at least now you can only net positive from it.

Japanese:
Samurai: now replaces the warrior, strength changed from 21 > 11 (warrior has 8), can now build oil platforms
Samurai come so incredibly late in the game that either you will not be able to take advantage of them to make fishing boats. Either you wait until you unlock them and miss your opportunity to have early game culture or you waste all your hammers in the early game building work boats. There is no synergy with this unit and Japan’s bonus. Added the ability for the to construct oil platforms so they serve the same functionality as work boats.

Mayan:
Atlatlist: cost reduced from 36 > 32
Cheaper archers did not actually make them better. Still were not even cheap enough to make a decent rush out of them. This should make the discount more palpable.

Mongolia:
Keshik: increased range strength from 16 > 20, increased melee strength from 15 > 16
Keshiks were objectively worse than camel archers and are still worse stat-wise. This buff should make them more comparable and make the Mongols feel like a real threat in the medieval era.

Morocco:
Ability: culture increased from 1 > 3
Early game sending trade routes internally is often better than trading with other players or city states. This should make the choice between trading with self vs others more meaningful and give a nice amount of culture starting in the early game that will make a difference by late game.

Kasbah: +2 culture when flight is unlocked, requires construction instead of chivalry
Kasbah is a good building often times mines, farms, holy sites, or luxuries will be worked instead of them. Having this come online earlier will make useless desert tiles usable.

Ottoman:
Janissary: fully heals on unit kill, gets faith on kill equal to half of combat strength of unit it killed
Ottomans were historically very religious so this extra faith will fit the flavor quite well. Not only that but will help make the more viable. If you have been reading the changes up to this far you will notice a trend of melee units not being that good compared to ranged counter parts, especially the musketman in particular. Full heal will also make the unit more scary and make players think more critically about focus firing down them.

Sipahi: added ability to get faith on kill equal to half of combat strength of unit killed
See Janissary

Polynesia:
Ability: increased combat buff range from 2 > 5 tiles, increased bonus from 10% > 20%
This is an objectively worse version of the Shoshone ability. Shoshone get it everywhere in their territory, polynesia only gets it near the coast. This should make it better and more consistent when compared to the Shoshone’s ability.

Maori warrior: increased melee strength from 8 > 11
Warrior replacement is useless. Warrior gets replaced with better melee unit so early in the game you do not get the chance to fight other players with it. It often is only used to hunt down barbs, escort workers, or demand tribute from city states. Hopefully this makes Polynesia early game stronger and more scary.

Moai: added +1 faith
This improvement is never worked because farms and mines are so much better for getting cities to grow bigger. You could technically put Moai onto bad tiles but the problem with that is you need to settle in and work bad tiles. This should give Polynesia a nice boost and help for later game.

Portugal:
Nau: added quick learner promotion, reduced cost from 120 > 90, added +1 sight
The Nau is a caravel replacement making it a replacement for an ocean scout unit. Extra scout will be nice for scouting and spotting coastal cities since the whole gimmick of this unit is the ability to sell exotic goods. Ideally a Portugal player would want to sell to as many city states and other players as possible to get more gold but the Nau can only trade one time. Lower cost might make creating multiple a valid investment of hammers. Similarly, caravels are not really used for military purposes so allowing it to be made for cheaper won’t break ocean combat, especially since it is not ranged. On that note, because it does not fight, it does not really have anyway of getting xp other than selling exotic goods. Giving it the quick learner promotion will help it get more xp out of selling exotic goods.

Feitoria: added +1 to all yields, now unlocks with astronomy instead of navigation
The defensive bonus never comes into play so the only thing really about this building was getting extra resources. The problem with the feitoria that there is no reason for players to not pillage this improvement. Yes it counts as an act of war but that does not matter when you are halfway across the map for the Portuguese player. On top of that, it is incredibly difficult to get workers to the far edges of the map to build this thing. For these two reasons its common to only build feitorias in city states that immediately neighbor you. The reason for adding the +1 to all yields is that it creates an interesting risk vs reward with building this improvement. Build it inside of city states will greatly improve their outputs and by extension increase their gifts to you. Being allied to a religious city state will grant more faith, being allied to cultural will grant more culture, etc. Another option that this opens up is building a bunch inside of a city state and then taking it over to have a city with very productive tiles. Overall I think base game feitorias are very boring and do not add anything, hopefully this will add a new more interesting dynamic.

Rome:
Ability: one less unhappiness per city
Playing wide is a very interesting play style and this will make Rome extremely good at it. This will also help their early game immensely as happiness is the major blocker to founding new cities. This has the potential to be very strong but I want to see how much of a difference this makes.

Ballista: increased range strength from 10 > 11
It’s a replacement for the catapult. Catapults are very bad because they are almost 2x the hammers of warriors or archers, do not get terrain bonuses when defending from attacks, and need a turn to set up before they attack. Even at 10 combat strength they are pretty bad so an extra might make them worth using.

Russia:
Krepost: removed maintenance
Building this in early game is just going to lose you gold to maintenance. The benefit of this is only useful in the early game. Removing gold maintenance will help incentivise making it earlier.

Shoshone:
Pathfinder: reduced cost from 45 > 35, reduced combat strength from 8 > 7
Even though the combat strength is nerfed, this is still a buff. Scouts cost 25, and the pathfinder is a scout replacement that cost 45; that is nearly 2x the cost. Pathfinders are basically better warriors and Shoshone players never use warriors for anything since for 5 more hammers you get a unit that is objectively better in every way. The fact that this unit cost way more hammers than a regular scout hurts early game scouting and can mean that sometimes a Shoshone player will get less ruins than other players.

Siam:
Wat: removed gold maintenance
Its a university that gives culture after researching education. That is quite a way into the game to be taking advantage of the culture but something free is good I guess. Removing gold maintenance will add more impact to this building and make it feel better.

Songhai:
Mandekalu cavalry: reduced cost from 110 > 100
A reduction in cost from 120 > 110 is pretty vapid. It also has the bonus of no penalty when attacking cities but you use ranged units to damage cities, not melee units. So really all you have here is a cheaper knight but the price reduction is paltry. At least with a bit more of a price reduction you effectively have buy 4 knights get 1 free.

Spain:
Tercio: reduced cost from 160 > 150
Bonus against mounted does not really come into play that often. There is no reason a unit should cost more for effectively 2 more combat strength, especially when civs like France get more for less.

Conquistador: reduced cost from 135 > 120
Units that are embarked get screwed by attacks anyways so extra defense does not actually help them not get screwed. Extra sight is nice. No penalty attacking cities does not matter since you use ranged units to attack cities. Founding a city would be a cool thing to have if this unit came before Chivalry. Almost everyone will be done founding cities by the time you get this unit out. So all you are really left with is a knight that has extra sight but cost more.

Sweden:
Bias: removed tundra bias
Tundra is a terrible biome to settle in civ. This is probably the worst starting bias, with jungle being second, at least jungles give 2 food instead of 1. Also geographically, most of the alpine tundras in scandinavia are in Norway, but Sweden does have some. There is not really any reason for Sweden to have a tundra bias when they have no way of making use of it.

Hakkapeliitta: increased strength from 25 > 28, increased movement from 4 > 5, given 50% faster great general generation promotion
This unit has bonuses that synergize with having great generals but do not actually have a way of getting them. When you do not have great generals, this unit is functionally identical to the lancer, which is a unit that already does not get used much. These are some pretty big buffs that will make this unit more scary and give Sweden a decent power swing when they get metallurgy.

Carolean: combat strength increased from 34 > 38, given 50% faster great general generation promotion
Melee units are mostly blocker units so they will not be doing a lot of fighting so the promotion might not make a huge difference. At the very least having more great generals will synergize with Sweden’s ability to gift great people.

Venice:
Ability: starting settler movement increased from 2 > 4, capital has +10% bonus to all yields
Dear god is Venice a terrible civ. The ability to not settle cities is absolutely game losing. You can not create buffers between you and warmongers, you’re limited in terms of military production, faith production, and the amount of available strategic and luxury resources. These downsides are incredibly easy to exploit when playing against other players. Even when playing against AI who do not, Venice is still extremely mediocre. Giving the settler extra movement will let you move your starting settler and found the city on the same turn. Even with coastal bias Venice sometimes does not start adjacent to the coast, or sometimes you wish you were on the other side of a river. The increase in yields is purely to help make up for the lack of production not having extra cities will incur on Venice.