This is subjective. I very much like the choice of focusing units on terrain first and advanced stuff. It requires you to play the game differently. You want to set up specific units for specific areas of combat...
If you are fighting in the plains and deserts of North Eastern Africa and the Middle East, you want to have lots of open Terrain specialized units.
If you are fighting in the jungles of the Amazon in South America, then you want the rough terrain promotions.
It is dynamic and and interesting. Ambigious all purpose promotions that unlock everything tend to end up as a no brainer to just click through with no thought in civ IV.
This does not belong on the list.
It doesn't mirror how military forces work, train or prepare in real life. Since Firaxis rebuilt most of the combat system in CiV, I would have liked them to make the units truly flexible with regards to promotions.
An example: your rifleman has gained 30 experience points so far - you could make the unit skip a turn while in a city and assign the promotions best suited for the task at hand. After x number of turns you are free to choose to 'strip' the unit of it's promotions (but not the number of earned XP points) and reset it until you go to war again. Then you might give the unit different promotions because the task/enviroment/etc... is different.
I really don't see the point in building a riflemen suited for warfare in hilly terrain, a different riflemen suited for warfare in flat terrain etc. Especially not with so few units as in CiV.
I played Civ IV for years and in all honesty I was merely given the illusion of choice with Civics... 9/10 times there was a "right" choice for what civic you were supposed to be in. But there was some variance depending on what victory path you choose to pursue.
Civ V has basically the same thing, except it doesn't try to pretend you have the option to switch to something else. I prefer Social Policies to Civics any day of the week. I am still experimenting with different combos of Policies. I find when you decide the path you want to take to win, you actually have a variety of options for every victory path. Do you want oligarchy to fight a more defensive war? Do you want to go for a more cultural diplomatic victory? How about a diplomatic city state conquest victory so they can provide you with units (and WOW they give you a lot when you are friends with all the military ones)?
These are all options with different choices of Policies.
Anyway, this point is more a matter of preference, and not an issue with the game.?
Well, unless I've misunderstood something while playing CiV, you unlock certain Policies and certain, specific advantages for every Policy tree you choose. You cannot reverse these choices and very early in the game, you have to make choices that will effect the game until the end. Problem: how do you know at such an early state which policies will benefit you and your overall strategy in the last 2/3 of the game? You might change your mind midgame, but by then you can't access the Policy that might fit best. Civ 4 was much more flexible in that regard. I could transform a peaceful civ heavy in researching, into a warmongering monster if needed or attacked by surprise with the civics. And back again when warmongering is done. Flexibility.
But perhaps I'm using the Social Policies wrong?
What sliders? Removing sliders? They never had sliders in Civ V...
They did in Civ IV? Well that doesn't really matter, since this isn't Civ IV. The game works very differently... There are other ways to get science and culture that can all be acquired directly with gold. The system is different. If you insist on the slider mentality then think of the slider being at 100% gold and 0% science and culture. How are you going to compete in science and culture? Well get it from other sources, and use your excess gold to get some extra.
I did not say that there's sliders in CiV. There are sliders in Civ4, concerning how much of your gold goes into research, culture, espionage or wealth itself. That option does not exist in CiV. I have to open every city screen and make changes if I want that city to focus on research, production, culture etc. That's fine but what if I want to make an overall strategic decision? I have to do this for every single city every time I want to make such a decision. In Civ4 you could use the sliders and perhaps customize what what happens in a couple of cities.
You are right that some of my points are subjective, but I don't think that makes them less noteworthy. I know that CiV is not meant to be Civ4 and it isn't. But some of the new gameplay features really seem like a step backwards.
Another thing: city states - I just don't know what to do with them or the endless stream of messages from them all the time. They always want me to join them in attacking another civ on another continent (which I often have pretty much no contact with) for no reason whatsoever. Diplomacy really feels 'dumbed down' as it is implemented in CiV.