Grew on me fast
I started out like most dedicated Civ 4 fans. Hating on this new edition of the game for the absence of my Byzantine civilization (which is expected; I know that they are at best an expansion pack faction), religion, corporations, city health, and various wonders I had come to know and love in over 500 hours played of Civ 4. About a month later, I'm up to 200 hours played in this game, and have grown so used to the changes that I'm not as in a big a hurry to return to Civ 4 as I originally thought I was. I miss all the old features and find a lot of the new ones here annoying (happiness), but the addition of city states, civilization bonuses and (most importantly) combat that is actually FUN has kept me playing it non-stop. I must stress that combat is actually fun in this game. In Civ 4 I'd always groan when the computer declared war on me while I was busy with early expansion and wonder construction. I sort of learned the army threshold at which it wouldn't identify me as a weakling and just leave me alone until I could start assembling my stacks of doom. I actually want to fight now, and don't just feel like loading an autosave from turn 1 the turn after he declares war. Combat in this game has been described as more "chess than risk" in some reviews, and that certainly applies. It feel more like Panzer General to me. The one gripe that I have at this point is the computer's inability to put together a large enough army to seriously threaten me. Various mods are apparently working to address this problem, and I look froward to trying them out once my current game is finally finished. If you are a Civ player that has been reluctant to buy this title because of the initial bad press (mainly from disgruntled Civ 4 players like myself) I urge you to give it a try anyway. Odds are it won't make you retire Civ 4 forever, but then that (in my opinion) is a good thing.
