Originally Posted by
Gray Mage
I have both Civ V and base Civ VI and I've quite liked the new things that VI does. Well, for starters VI has some of the improvements you've listed (spies and many religion choices incluiding religious victory are in the base game). Spies have more functinality compared with V (they can sabotage enemies' districts). VI's expansion I think adds more diplomatic options (incluiding diplomatic victory in a similar fashion as V) with the governors, I think. Cultural victory is achieved through tourism like V's expansion, but they've separated the great artists into separate entities (based on writing, painting and song) that I think is different from V, at least (it has been a while since I've played V).
The main thing VI does differently is having districs and wonders occupy a spot on the map, so it makes picking cities' locations more relevant and it prevents you from spamming every building on every city and most of your wonders on your starting city. That, however, means that VI has a bigger bias towards wide empires when compared with V.