Was it? I'm not convinced. There are a couple of places in the game where it feels like they've rounded down a corner to make the game more approachable, but only a couple1. There isn't any major change in the tone and timbre of how the game is presented, there's no attempt to make the game take a shorter, more "casual friendly" time, there isn't any "gentle easing into" the strategic concepts and they've actually trimmed away a lot of the eye candy (wonder movies, unit voices.)
More importantly, the main thrust of their advertising campaign has been traditional and "industry centric." There hasn't been much work done in changing the perception of the game or in attracting the "people who don't play video-games" crowd.
No, I think the target audience of Civ V truly was us old-timers. Sure, with an added contigent of "and as many new people as we can get", but that's just good business sense. It was still the three million people who've bought Civilization IV who were the main audience for Civ V.
[1] The "feel" I get for the rest of the stuff that's been chopped off and pared down is more "balanced for multiplayer" with a side dish of "simplified for your convenience (and ours)" rather than "aimed at new players."
Methinks you are straying off topic a wee bit but I'll indulge you since you are polite and respectful.
Civilization 5 is basically Starcraft Civ.
You've got 1UPT in both games and the idea is to swarm the opposition with military units.
You've got paranoid, xenophobic opponents who know literally nothing about diplomacy. Starcraft is much the same.
You've got flavourless resource depots (they are called cities in Civilization 5) to collect resources in both games.
The tech tree in Starcraft actually might be deeper than Civilization 5's.
You've got Giant death robots in both games.
Etc, etc.
Don't get me wrong. Starcraft I and II are amazing games. They aren't Civ games though. They are simple games for people that like beer and pretzels games. Nothing too stressful on the old noggin.
Starcraft I and II sold extremely well. Firaxis and greedy 2K Games took note and tried to emulate them.