- Use of armies next to single units.
- Overrunning weaker enemies without the loss of a turn
- Artifacts
- Economic victory and the various rewards for getting to a new level
- Nearly every tech has a 'first to research'-bonus

I never had the time for the epic scale of previous civs (although I have played them pretty often), but I really like a 'round of civ' with this game.

- Road building system is pretty neat.
- Ability to finish a game in a few hours
- Easy to pick up and play for people new to the series

- playable pace for multiplayer

- A nice amount of diversity between each civs units and cities, many of them look unique to that civ.