Played the game now. But first, riflemen from ruins!? Their warriors?! I haven't seen a cpu run around with a single warrior unit ever. It's like they have spearmen starting at turn 1 at worst.
Anyway I think I like this game more than civ4, but it's too early to tell. The gameplay balance seems better, as well as the lack of odd looking cartoony graphics for the characters, but other than that..ehh. There was something about Civ4 that made it feel "bigger", I mean just the menu screen alone is a good example.
Can't have more than 1 unit on a square/hex anymore:
I thought I would hate this but it wasn't so bad actually. Most importantly it makes city sieging more fun and technical.
Ranged units having actual range now:
omg yay. This is the coolest thing that has happened to civ ever. My only beef is the relative lack of mid-game ranged units. I mean bowmen can shoot 2 squares away, as can horse/chariot/camel archers, then crossbowmen, etc. But then you get musketmen, who for some reason can't shoot more than 1 square away (and are actually weaker than the longswordmen which they are supposedly an upgrade from to boot!). After musketmen are infantry, which STILL can't do ranged combat, then Riflemen...which still can't again. It basically makes hititng the gunpowder era of military units semi counter-productive when you're still facing off against older style units. Though granted the strength boost you get once you hit riflemen or so is so large you can just bum rush earlier units, but still...
Cooler setup options:
I can't wait to play a gigantic map set on marathon speed! nuff' said.
Tech tree seems lacking:
I don't know, the whole tech tree seems like it has less stuff. I'm not sure if it actually does or if it's just my perception.
Social policies:
This is really cool, I like it alot. I'm not so sure I like the complete abolishment of the government system though. I mean they kinda killed them in civ 4 too I suppose, but this seems to have been taken a step further. I mean something where you could choose between governments as you needed changes done. But now it's like just direct upgrades you tech towards which can't be undone once you choose em.
audio: Music seems pretty quiet and hard to notice, it's pretty forgetful really. And no leonard nemoy wtf! whyy. I don't want to hear people say that it suits the game to have no music. That's not true. It's just no music suits a game better than bad music, but take Civilization Call to power for example. Very excellent music for the game IMO.
I still think I like Call to power best. Granted it wasn't as balanced as the "main" civ games (it's not even technically a civ game really), but it definately felt like it had the most "stuff" in every catagory. I think I'll enjoy this game alot though, and what its lacking I'm sure is easily fixed with some mods!