"
What do we have left?" - I know what you mean. Our tried and true series have died a major death in search of "mass-market" appeal, who if you talk to any of them they only want to play for a couple of hours at most to get a result.
I, and many other "Strategy Gamers" here want to play a game that will take days to conclude and try different strategies, etc. By its very nature these are long games where you play your wits against a computer or human opponent, and many of us have been "chess players" as well. i.e. we want to think about our moves, etc.
I play Civ 4 mostly on "marathon" mode and on "huge" maps, so I can manage my empire for longer, have more depth of experience and also, if the going gets tough revert to another strategy mid-game and try to win. But really it is playing the game that is more important to me, then winning the game. Its the enjoyment of the experience.
When I got Civ 4, I was initially disappointed, because it was not like Civ 3 and also, it was very slow on my computer. But I persevered, playing Standard maps and none of the scenarios. When BTS game out, I played Next War alot and as it seemed a bit like "Test of Time" with extended techs. Later I discovered "Road to War", but due to my slow computer, I had to turn off all the effects like "bitter winter" and "battle effects" to be able to play.
When I finally got a new computer, I started to mod my
own version of Road to War in January 2009, whereby I initially worked on changing
Dale's Ultimate Edition. Firaxis released an unexpected 3.19 patch, which encouraged me to write for the original version in BTS as opposed to the Ultimate Edition (
recompiled for 3.19 by Deanj). All this work eventually led me develop a comprehensively new version called
Road to War - Historical), which has led to my version been downloaded over 3,000 times. Which is quite an achievement for a novice modder like me.
The point I am trying to make here is the Civ 4 is just so good because of its mods and modders, and if Civ 5 is not good enough for experienced players like ourselves, who have an interest in modding, there is not much of a future. Civ 4 is so good because of its rich variety of mods. As I said earlier in this thread, I am playing
Final Frontier Plus 1.651 and there are still so many other mods for me to try.