So I grew up with this being advertised all over pc magazines but never had a chance to play it. I really really wanted to play it growing up and now is my chance.

I got the apolyton mod. As a person that grew up playing civ from the very first game what do I look forward to? What made the game unique? So far I am really liking this interface and the battle scenes.

It's quite long since I last played so I don't remember all unique asects but here's few:

Instead of building workers you allocate part of your empire production into public works. This production is converted into public work points you can then use to build roads, farms, mines etc. There are several levels for most buildable terrain improvements you can research (road -> railroad -> maglevs).

Tech tree spans from stone age to future meaning futuristic units/buildings/wonders and terrain improvements.

In addition to tax rate you'll need to manage food rations, workday lenght and worker wages.

Sea tile improvements/undersea colonies. You can build sea tile improvements and eventually undersea roads and colonies. (CtP 1 had space layer too but it was unfortunately removed in CtP 2).

Armies/battle mechanics: unlike civ2's stacks of doom, CtP2 allows you to form armies (up 12 units per army?) and all units in army take part in combat. Combat hjappens in separate combat screen. Units are divided into offensive, defensive, flanking and ranged units and that decides their position in battle screen and who they can attack each combat turn.

There are phelora of stealth units with unique abilities like slavers. abolitionist, clerics, spies, lawyers(!), corporate branches, infectors, eco-rangers, eco-terrorists and then more.