Ok, so I looked through the threads, and the topics seem to be hexes, leaders, civs, stacking, cries for diplomacy and economics not to be overlooked, and people pondering the removal of religion.

I've not yet seen a dedicated thread to Civics. Now, I personally reckon they should be got rid of.

Steady your pitchforks, please.

Now the reason I think this is I see potential for a new mechanic that can serve both civic and religion needs. Simply put, a selection of policies. Rather than choose a stance on an overall area of government, you adopt or drop policies that are not necessarily mutually exclusive. For example, are all people allowed to vote (Women, slaves, nobles)? Who owns land? What is your stance on immigration? On families?

I would propose this system extends to religion and economics too. You could set taxes separately, on peasants, nobles, industry, corporations, imports, exports, etc. If you are a religions leader, you set 'moral policies', which followers of that faith should adhere to. If you are not a religious leader, but follow a religion, you must follow those policies, or schism, at the risk of upsetting other leaders of that religion (think Henry VIII, Catholic to CoE). This way, real religions are not used, so they can be mechanically dissimilar. This is a part I love about Fall From Heaven, which cannot be used with real religions for fear of reprisals.

All these policies would have effects similar to civics, but smaller and subtler, tweaking yields from various buildings and improvements, affecting happiness and health. Comparing policy with other civs could then also have similar diplomatic effects to religion and civic choice in civ4.

While these discussions may not effect the devs at all, what do you reckon about my idea?

They've announced, civics are gone, set by social policies.

Huh. I feel a bit silly, now. Any chance you could link me to this announcement?

Your propositions actually sound to me like I would imagine Social policies (which are in instead of civics). But most probably I am imagining it wrong ;-)

Regarding the panic about "city defence with one unit per tile" I was thinking of these social policies something like

Militia an automatic free non-showing non-movable defense unit in each of your cities
Professional Guards Better Militias if Barracks in city
Professional Guards and Monarchy both active at the same time: Even better Militias if palace or a wonder is in the city.
Patriotism Chance to spawn Partizans if the city is conquered (for the next x turns).
Nationalism Able to draft one unit per turn
Nationalism with Mass Army cheaper better draft.
Mercenaries Mercenaries allowed to be purchased.

Now each of those would cost, some would be exclusive, some not, some would be better with other policies, some would cause unrest (overall happiness) with others at the same time active.

I think you get the idae. But most probably, it will be different, although I would think this were a nice way to incorporate some of the funnier civ2 aspects (partizans ;)).