I'm in Europe and have downloaded the demo and am already bored after 80 turns...
Although I like some of the new changes and although I would love to like Civ V more, I just really miss having to deal with:
- religion
- pollution
- espionage
- more different civs
plus, Civ IV really did give you a feeling of a board-game, this one just doesn't. I know I'll need to get used to it, but it reminds me too much of games like Age of Empires or Empire Earth - which are great games of course, but the clue about Civ is the turn-based part and I really can't get into it...
The hexes are a good change and look of course better, but if one actually pays attention, squares give you more options about movement. Social policies look pretty good, but I think there's still some improving possible (I don't know exactly how yet but it feels a little shallow, it looks like a lot more but is in fact less.)
what I absolutely LOVE is the restriction of one unit per tile/hex. It requires a lot more strategy and is not just about who has more units stacked on one tile anymore. also I love the ranged attacks, as they make a lot more sense now...
other than that, I don't know... the animation of the leaders are fun (although it seems like nothing can upset them, in Civ IV you actually started to like and dislike leaders just bc of the way they were acting and that was fun.)
I also believe (as mentioned by a few above) that the civs and leaders don't stand out enough, which was better in IV. The whole tile/territory-buy thing is a nice idea, but requires all that money that I keep on not having (and I'm not SUCH a bad player
)
City-states: GREAT! probably the best change to the new version...
well I probably am also being unfair, since I'm just playing the demo for right now and probably not giving it enough time to get used to it. but I did have high expectations after Civ IV and the BTS expansion. To me, it has been the best game I've ever played.
I know I'm probably repeating a lot of things that have been said before. but for right now, if I had to choose between the games I would choose Civ IV a hundred times over Civ V. Which is why I'm about to play IV again