I have to agree. I am really enjoying the hell out of Civilization V, flaws and all.

I've been playing Civilization since the first one came out for DOS. Each one brings something new to the table but what I noticed since Civ III is that each one got progressively more convoluted, brought about by the need to expand more and more (II and III are particularly notorious in this regard). Ultimately this sucked the fun out of the game after a while, especially if you were aiming for a non-military victory.

Civilization IV was a step in the right direction - but - it too got convoluted with multiple layers of minutia (i.e., religion, corporations etc...).

Civilization V is more revolutionary than evolutionary. Firaxis stripped away the minutia and boiled the gameplay down to its bare essentials making for a more fun, tightly focused game. But just as with any revolution, some people will be delighted and others will be livid.

I really like the new gameplay mechanics that force you to balance expansion with social policies. This is great for those who want to focus on cultural/scientific civilizations. Military civilizations can also go on to conquer but it must be done strategically, unlike previous Civs where one can conquer with impunity. Those Alexanders and Genghis Khans among us will quickly run up against a wall of unhappiness if they annex too many cities in too short a time. (Yet, speaking from experience, domination victories are still easily attainable; you just need to do it intelligently.)

I for one do NOT miss transports and applaud the step that the developers took in "borrowing" this idea from Rise of Nations. Transports only slowed the game down. And as another poster said, you must protect units on the water, as even modern armor can be destroyed instantly even by a lowly frigate.

My biggest gripe thus far is that social policies are pretty much set in stone, unlike governments / civics from previous games, once you pick most social policies you cannot undo them. Thus forcing you into long-term planning tailored to your civilization. Some decry this change. It is a rather rigid system that should be revised.

Well I just wanted to throw in my two cents :)

I played the demo, will buy the game eventually.

Love the combat, much less micro intensive and actually has some strategy involved with it rather than steamroll with large numbers. I played Egypt for about 100 turns, those horse chariots they have absolutely rule on flat terrain, they move like 5 squares at a time.

Ok finaly bought it. Done tutorials to catch up on changes, and so far i find it good. Verdict soon about the real gameplay, and the loss of my social life.

What are the major changes in the combat? I have read somewhere that we can't anymore stack units and so on. It's seriously so profoundly redesigned? So far in Civilisation military wars always meant hiring as much the units as I can and just throwing them into one direction :p

Hex-tiles, only one unit per tile, it's possible to survive the combat, takes more time to produce units... all these changes mean that now you have to think and plan carefully. The combat is much more enjoyable, your units actually worth a lot, you don't want to loose any of them. The tactical combat is just introduced into the Civilization series.

And how about the impact that combat have on the gameplay? Is it still possible to win the game as military defensive and culture boosting nation? Or do we now have to be more gunslinging as well?

You can win the game with just a few cities and the culture takes a much bigger part of the picture. So yes, you can win as a culture boosting nation.

That's a box filled with great news! My copy of the game arrives someday this week and I hope that it won't mess my just starting studies big time. So now, when my curiosity became appeased, let's wait for the package :)

A warning, don't try to play the game the same way as you did with Civ4. For example, now the roads and railroads have maintenance costs, so you must not build them everywhere.

For everything they streamlined on the city management front they added tactical complexity to the combat front. It's not a sumbed down game it just had a different focus, and that's a good thing because not every Civ game should be the same thing over and over.

Ok, first few hours of gaming are behind me. Chieftain, regular terms of gaming, French nation as my choice.

Greats:
- Policies
- New military system
- New buildings
- New way of buying units

Not-so-greats:
- Graphic on my notebook :<

Now I will do a break for cleaning my room and getting ready for tommorow assignments but something tells me that my entire evening will just dissapear somewhere between wars, culture boosts and diplomatic dialogues :)

You obviously haven't played with the modding tools yet. Want to allow unit stacking again go ahead and mod it in, want more agressive AI mod it in, heck want to change anything just mod it in.

That is one of the major changes this Civ was built from the start to be modded.

Ok, it maybe seems prozaic but it is absolutely not.

Do you have an idea how to force the game NOT TO play me the intro every single application's start? For some reasons I can skip it by smashing my keyboard only after a certain amount of time (when the old man says "Glorious, glorious..."). Maybe I'm talking only about few minutes of delay but it annoys me like hell.

Is there any way to skip the intro a little earlier or to turn it off for good?

Yes (dont recall how it was a ini file change)... However if you turn it off you stare at a blank black screen. During the intro movie it is loading the game.