Early units are quite a lot cheaper

Barbarian units spawn faster, but mostly with weaker units

More happiness in general--and most especially in the form of Houses civs can now build

Civs can now expand and protect their territory through building forts that go up quickly

Cities are easier to build but start off weaker

Basic diplomatic options are now available from the start

Plus a number of changes to some of the most clunky and annoying game mechanics



The Warrior and Worker are half the price they used to be, and the Settler is also much faster to produce.

The Scout is now so cheap that you'll be able to build one a turn from the beginning of the game, even on Marathon speed--but they're also now much weaker, so they now have the Withdraw Before Melee promotion to increase their survivability. Pathfinders have been similiarly modified.

I've also added the Raider, which is between the Scout and the Warrior in both cost and strength, useful for light combat.

All civs start with an Ancestral Settler with 15 movement, allowing them to explore their starting territory to try to get better placement for their first city.

All civs will also start the game with a Spy, and receive an additional spy at the beginning of each era.

All civs start with some gold to help out with early purchases and maintenance costs.



The barbarians have also had a number of changes.

The barbarians can also build Scouts now, as well as Raiders, and the rate at which barbarian units spawn has been much increased (I recommend not playing with Raging Barbarians on your first attempt).

I've also removed the limit for how much experience can be gained from attacking/killing barbarians.

Barbarian ransoms for units and stealing from cities are less than before.

Barbarians will now attempt to keep 6 units within 4 tiles of their camps--previously they would only try to keep 2 units nearby.

All of this means that you should expect more barbarian units than before, but most of them will be much weaker--but trying to take out their older camps will typically be something like trying to reach your hand into a hornet's nest :)



This mod adds a total of 19 buildings to the game: the Palisades, which is a cheaper and weaker precursor to Walls, providing 500 city defense; and 18 Houses. The houses each increase a city's Happiness by 1. Later houses cost more Maintenance and Production than earlier ones. The first house is available from Agriculture, and then two houses become available in each era thereafter from researching two different technologies, and finally Future Tech makes the final house available.

I've also made a few changes to existing buildings, primarily: Walls provide 1200 city defense instead of 500, and Palaces give 1250 instead of 250.



I've added two new fortifications, the Motte and Bailey and the Fortress. When adding these in I felt it necessary to make some changes to the Fort and Citadel as well. All four of these fortifications now claim territory for the civ, thanks to preffect's Fortress Borders mod, and they will also do some damage to any enemy unit that ends its turn adjacent to them.

The Fort is a much faster improvement to produce, taking 1-3 turns to build, but only giving 15% defense to units stationed there.

The Motte and Bailey is now much more like the Fort used to be, providing 50% more defense.

The Fortress is very powerful and expensive, giving 100% defense and taking many turns to construct.

The Citadel now adds 150% defense instead of 100% and still requires a great general to build.


Roads, railroads, farms, and pastures all require less time to build.



Settlers can now be produced from any city--before a city required a population of 2 before it could produce Settlers.

Minimum city range is now 0--you can build your cities right next to each other if you really want.

I removed the tech cost penalties for building new cities, and the culture and happiness penalties are now much reduced.

However, cities now only get 200 base city defense instead of 800, and only get 200 defense from hills instead of 500. So while cities are far easier to build, they now need to be defended more carefully--with units, fortifications, palisades, etc.



All civs can now accept embassies, agree to open borders, and create defensive pacts from the start of the game.

Civs can create research agreements once they get Writing technology, and the research agreements cost around 1/4 of what they used to in the Ancient, Classical, Medeival, and Renaissance eras. I left the costs untouched in later eras.



I added four ancient ruin types back into the game: civs can now receive Scouts, Warriors, a little experience, or Healing, in addition to all the other options.



Many of Civilization 5's game mechanics have felt unnecessarily ponderous and annoying to me, and I've changed many of those to what felt more natural and fun, as follows.


Rivers produce more food--in the base game rivers don't actually increase the food production of tiles that border them. Now, river tiles produce more food and are much more vital for fast growth.

Less unhappiness per city, more happiness from natural wonders, and lower penalties for unhappiness.

3 units per tile instead of 1, excellent for aiding units in maneuvering.

The promotion base cost is 2 instead of 10, for much faster promotions.

Deals now last 30 turns on Marathon and Epic speed--previously 90 and 45.

Religion can expand 12 tiles from a city instead of 10.

Civs founding pantheons increases the cost of pantheons for other civs much more slowly than before.

Finishing the Liberty policy tree will increase tile improvement construction speed by 25%.

Supply for each city increased to 15--normally 2 or 3. This means you can build a lot more units before incurring a supply penalty. The maximum penalty for going over your supply limit is also lower.

Reduced conquest penalties--normally when a city is conquered it loses 50% of its population and 33% of its more common buildings. This mod changes the population and building loss to 15%.



I believe that covers all the changes in Fantastic Ancients, though there may be some minor ones I didn't list here.