Well just finished 1st 3.17 game - Noble difficulty.
Played Victoria (English) and wow she rocks - financial & imperial.
The imperial trait is great - fast production of settlers and 100% on great
generals.

Had a good start location - stuck out on a peninsular with 2 clam, 1 fish,
gold and cow all on hand.
Initially worked the water tiles (2 food / 3 coin) and managed to get Mytic
then Poly techs to found Hindu.
Then got masonry and then Mono so had both Jew & Hindu holy cities in
capital.
Who says it's hard with 3.17 to found religions?

2nd city (also on coast) had horse, clam and 2 sugars.
Immediately did a barracks then started on archers and chariots.

Nearby the Dutch kindly built Stonehenge and started culture pushing on me.
In went the chariots collecting their workers and hanging near their only
source of metal.
Pillage pillage pillage - lol.

Desperate for some metal - my 3rd city was very remote but gave iron, fish,
pig and rice.
Once the iron was mined and roaded I started on Axes and Swords and started
properly on the Dutch.
Just prior to taking their capital (Amsterdam) they got the oracle so I
ended up getting that and the henge.

During the rest of the game (domination win) I noticed a few differences
with the 3.17 patch:
- Trebs seem far more powerful than they were before - city defences go down
much quicker.
- % chance of kill on mouseover seems much more reliable - if it says 75% or
more chance you kill, previously it all seemed very add hoc & unreliable.
- much more barb activity on water, frequent barb galleys appearing.

Finally, Game Copy World now has a no DVD patch for 3.17 so if like me you
want to leave the DVD in the cupboard get the patch.