I spent most time in Civ4 as a sub-par nation that kept very solid relations with neighboring countries and catered to few cities within it's borders. I never tried to win the game, I have completely entertained myself optimizing and developing what little I had in my humble part in the universe (actually, when my nation grew too big, I just became detached and didn't enjoy the game anymore). I usually just watched other nations grow, fight and die. It was fun. I loved it. And you're saying Civ5 is pretty much designed to NOT be played that way. ... Well, saved me some money I guess.

Fantastic posts Psyringe!

I'm not that 'extreme', but I play much the same way you do. Prefer big maps with many civilizations and I love the economic, scientific and diplomatic parts of the game. Usually fight some wars too, but it depends on context and I always try to keep them short. Rarely have big armies, so long wars wouldn't be great for my playstyle anyway.

You explain very well why Civ 5 put me off too. They removed too many features I liked. Feels like there is no information any more, and the UI was just horrible. The whole game basically became about money too, which I didn't like. 4 handles that part much better too.

I'll concede the 1UP changed the combat tactics a bit, for the better, but like Psyringe I don't like to wage wars so it's not really a good change for me. The AI was also so utterly ret*rded that it didn't really change much. With big armies it also became a nightmare to manage the things, with just about the whole map covered with units. Try moving stuff around then. Not cool.

Unfortunately my computer couldn't quite handle the big Earth-like maps that I preferred playing, because my games are looooong so it became very slow at the end. Waiting 30s+ for the AI to make its move gets boring quickly. But I loved Civ4 because of its depth and all the options it gave me as a player. It was fun just browsing around the cities and checking out information about how they were all doing. Some of the mods were great for that, the UI mod in particular.

Civ5 need the modding community to sink its teeth into it, but I'm not sure they can do what is required to make it nearly as good a game as Civ4 is. The UI and underlying gameplay have changed too much I think to be fixable by the community.

So frustrating when great games get 'ruined' in follow-ups because of a new writing/development team with different ideas, who throw out everything that is good and focus on other aspects instead - usually combat. It's probably the prime reason why I dislike ME2 and (soon) ME3 too. But I'll enjoy the old-ish classics instead :)

Theres actually policies and a nation designed around the premise of staying small and out of the way ;)
So play ME3 in story mode simple combat with emphasis on story

That may be the 'optimal' strategy, but it's often possible in many games to experiment with house rules to restore some challenge without being too onerous to monitor.

It just makes the combat easy, it doesn't remove the emphasis on it

I always found that to be quite tedious in Civ games, I haven't played Civ 3, 4 or 5, but I found it to be pretty tedious at times in Civ 1 and 2 as well as Alpha Centauri. IIRC, same goes for FreeCiv

So Religion might actually be a real part of the game this time, and not just a lame decision for a new Civ perk at the cost of 1 whole turn of unrest? Cool.

I didn't like the way religion worked in the last title, it was just kinda bland. This looks like it's more interesting.

Also, I hope they make city-states more interesting because right now they're just unnecessary annoyances.