I recently bought Rome: Total War and rebought the Civ IV complete edition off of steam and i'm reminded of the things that i love, and dislike, about those types of games. i've never liked the military in the civilization games and playing rome: total war made me realize that it's not that i don't like military units in empire building games; it's that Civilization IV is horrible with its military aspect. so i for one am really excited that the military will be, idk. just better.  
I  haven't seen too much gameplay or anything but i'm also hoping that they will make each civilization more unique. like, all the viking units should have horns on them or something. Only having one unique unit in Civ IV is kinda weird.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the expansion packs to Civ IV introduce multiple unique units?  In any case, I'm curious about the hex system.  I don't see it really affecting the overall game terribly much, but I'm definitely curious about it.

What am I looking forward to?
Better looking mushroom clouds over the various cities and nations that foolishly dare to oppose my will.

I'm looking forward to the hex system where range of units matter, and I think the "not more than 1 unit per tile" adds a lot of strategy to the placement.
 
Oh and better graphics are always nice :)

just gimmie civ 5 already!

The whole 1-unit-per-hex system and range system. I hope it will make fights much more tactical and believable.  I so much hate the "stack of doom". I often play a Civ4 game only until my enemies ready their giant stack of doom of cheap (but well composed - i have to give them that) and run over my defense. No more full health mechanized infantry run over by maceman. Finally shelling cities with artillery and more importantly with ships! Heck, thats what the US Navy brought the USS New Jersey back! 
 
BTW: Civ4 (I only played it with all add ons - do not know about vanilla) had a unique unit and a unique building. Each simply had a modifier bonus over the original unit/building. There where different "skins" for units though. Like a eastasian knight looked like a mounted samurai, in contrast to an european knight, sporting full plate armor and the usual. In Civ5 there will be 3 unique "things" per civ. Either a unique building and a unit or two units, plus a unique ability. They are said to be much more unique - like roman Legions can build roads and forts.

Second the absence of the stack of doom. Nice to see unique buildings in vanilla too. And that gorgeously clean looking art deco influenced interface. Cannot wait.

HEXXXXX!! 
 
Edit: and the range system that looks really awesome

Yeah, one unit per tile seems like it could really mix up the strategy of everything. I'm also really looking forward to the UI improvements. I liked Civ 4 a lot, but Civ Rev really opened my eyes to how much simplifying the UI can really make the game flow a lot smoother.

I'll also say the lack of the stack; worst part about civ 4 imo.

The stacks in Civ 4 was so bad. Glad to see it go.

i am most interested in the lack of stacking and the ability to fire from range with units because that will really make defense a much more legitamate thing rather then just having to spam units like them to prevent attacks.

Seeing what the Catherine II of Russia model looks like. 
Oh and the usual Hexes, interface, no more stacking, ect

Hexes, interface, the improved combat and nicer animations.

Well,I suppose the removal of stacks seems like a universal thing now,so that.I also wouldn't mind seeing what new mods come from the community and seeing old mods(Final Frontier,Fall From Heaven,etc.)ported over to the new game.

Do you guys think we'll still be seeing situations where spearmen are able to take out tanks? I know Civilization isn't mean't to be realistic, but I think it would make sense since the art style in this one seems to be a more serious tone and I just cringe when I see medieval units take over modern-day stuff >_>

Stacks were only bad in Civ 4 if you didn't have tac nukes.
 
Muhnuhahahaha.

" Do you guys think we'll still be seeing situations where spearmen are able to take out tanks? I know Civilization isn't mean't to be realistic, but I think it would make sense since the art style in this one seems to be a more serious tone and I just cringe when I see medieval units take over modern-day stuff >_> "

" I'm really looking forward to the new military, the new diplomacy view, and the new AI. I'm one of those guys that cannot and will not play an online civ game, I just can't bring myself to do it, and in my oppinion, offline is a lot better. Seeing new, leader specific, AI introduced is a good step forward. As for military, it's now more like advance wars, a game I like, and it's also looking to be a lot more strategic. "

" Seeing what the Catherine II of Russia model looks like. Oh and the usual Hexes, interface, no more stacking, ect "

i can roleplay my hero unit! one unit to save my empire! by destroying others..... 
 
but seriously? one unit per hex is a relief. that and city states.

I have to go with most peoples answer, one unit per hex is gonna be fucking awesome. 

new visuals.  the hex system.  one unit per tile.

Ha I've been making stacks of doom since Civ II, it will be strange without them.

Im looking forward to the new tactics that come from one unit per tile, really going to make the combat interesting for me

A few things that come to mind:
-  The combat side of Civ is being completely invigorated.  One unit per tile, hexes, ranged combat, embarkation, limited resources...  This game would be worth buying even if the only victory condition was conquest.
-  City-states are going to be a ton of fun to mess with.  Do I manipulate them to my will, or do I simply conquer them?  Can I wage a proxy war through a city-state?
-  Steam achievements!  As if the game wasn't addictive enough, I know I'm going to go for all the achievements too (all 120 of them).  Goodbye sleep, helloooo "As Elizabeth, sink and destroy 357 enemy naval units, across any number of playthroughs." 
-  I can uninstall Civ4.

I'm most looking forward to the new combat system, for sure. It's a shame the game won't unlock on Steam for another 12 hours though!

• New combat system
• No more Stack of Doom
• Gorgeous breath-taking graphics
• City states; no matter what ever happened in Civilization, weaker civilizations would always be either conquered or made as someone else's bitch.

The number one thing I am looking forward to is multi-core support. Waiting 30 seconds to a minute for the AI to take its turn on a high end PC because they didn't support multi-threading in Civ IV was pretty brutal. I ended up having to use smaller worlds with fewer AIs than was desirable to make it playable. 
 
After that, I am stoked for Battle Isle /   Historyline: 1914 - 1918  style combat with single units in hexes, and also for somewhat streamlined gameplay - I really liked the way they are now queuing popups instead of pushing them in your face all the time, like in previous Civ games.

Completely agree with the no stack and range changes.  The idea that you had to have tons of units to do anything ruined Civ at times.  I almost never played for conquest and simply set up strategic defenses since I didn't want to bother with moving/building dozens of units into place.  And there was nothing worse than having a war started and seeing your technological inferior move 45 macemen into place over the course of several minutes next to your cities. 
 
Not sure hexes will actually affect all that much.  Sad to see religion gone (though mainly because I used to horribly exploit it), but the new social policy stuff sounds like an interesting spin on the standard 5-6 government types. 
 
Now the toughest decision - try to get it to work on my old old PC, or wait for it to come out on Mac.  Don't know if I can hold out.

EVERYTHING, just hope it runs on my less than capable laptop I will not know till the demo launches...