It looks like they may have stick-saved CivV for the time being with G&K, congrats G&K developers.
That success only further highlights what a bad, bad idea 1UPT was for the Civ series. Now it is easier to build and support larger, more varied armies, and that means the appearance already in my present Carthage game (Emperor, continents, early Atomic Age now) of mini-blobs of doom trying to squeeze past the terrain and other civs units. I have a large containment army arrayed against the smaller and more backward Celts to my west, Boudicca snarling at me in her cage. Didn't want to wipe the Celts out to avoid the diplo hit. That's because the #1 civ, the Inca, lay directly to the south of me across a 5-6 hex width of land. Inca are ~200 points ahead of me (1200 to 1000), they are powerful but not runaway - yet.
That's because, 1) I nabbed Vienna (yay no Austrians
), directly on my southern border, before the Inca did, when I saw they had opened up an attack and were already dinking the Austrian capital - receiving the diplo hit for wiping out the capital and the civ, which is why I didn't want more diplo hits - and 2) the Incas, who then declared war on the Celts - the games' hated dogpile civ - and whom had open borders to cross my land in a NW direction to get at then, was forced to squeeze single file past my units on the Celt border. This allowed Boudicca to pick off the superior Inca units one-by-one as they approached her city (rifles + city vs GW inf, MGs, cannon etc). The Incas never could mass a solid front to assault the city, thanks to the placement of my units - deliberate, of course, as I wanted both Celts and Inca to bleed, but certainly did not want the Inca to capture another city. As an experiment I moved some units out of the way to the north of the target city, and the Inca eventually found this 2 hex hole and pushed 4 units through in an assault from the NE. It looked like they had the Celts on the run, but then the Incas suddenly withdrew from this front.
Of course I had a lot of fun playing Rubic's Cube trying to move my own units around the swarm of Incas crossing my land to get at the Celts. Actually not - I just left them in place and let the AI play Rubic's Cube. The heck with that - if I wanted to play Rubic's Cube, I'd get a Rubic's Cube.
Instead, the Incas tried another approach from the south against another Celt city, moving through another 5-6 hex with of land, but this absent a mob of my own units, but partially occuppied with CSs, one of them conquered by the Incas (yeah, that'll make room). These two widths of land were separated by a medium sized inland sea located south center of the continent. I was the only one with cities (2) on the coast of that inland sea, shared with the Incas, meaning I could rake the Inca side of the sea with battleships produced from those ports. That's for the future.
One thing of note: The Carthaginian settlers pack a free harbor with them when they settle. I got free harbors in the cities on the inland sea. OK, but now get this: I also got instant trade routes with the capital, even though the capital was located on the opposite side of the continent, facing the ocean. There was no road connecting to the capital, nor was there any sea route possible as this was an inland sea. So the Carthaginian UA is not just getting a free harbor, but also getting an instant sea route no matter what, so long as you settle on a coast. Huge cost savings over the long run: no harbor build time/hammers, no coin maintenance, no need for roads, generally, so long as you are on a coast. Civ4 GL revivicus!
Note: if you are playing the CS ally angle, avoid defensive pacts! The AI loves to play this angle: make DP with you, then temporarily get a CS to switch allegiance from you to an AI civ already at war with the AI civ you've DPed with. The CS declares war on your DP partner, forcing you to auto declare war on the CS that was your firm ally just the turn before. As if that wasn't bad enough, here's the pissy kicker: you will also receive a diplo hit with the AI civ the CS temporarily allied with; they'll pop up on the screen and tell you so, condemning you for your "aggression" against their ally CS. It is not a small hit. It not only wastes all your efforts in making the CS an ally, but will waste all your efforts cultivating good relations with that AI civ as well.
So beware: DPs are implicit aggressions against CSes, and the AI loves flipping/whacking CSes!
On the plus side, I like now having the option to establish decent relations with a neighbor on your continent via spreading your religion to them, if you can. I did that in my first game as Byzantium, with fellow Greek Alex as my neighbor. In Vanilla that means Forever War if you can't snuff him out early, something more difficult in G&K. I did fight 2 massive wars with Alex up to Medieval, getting along like the Hatfields and McCoys, but eventually he calmed down, went Neutral and found better things to do, giving me some real breathing space. BTW, I had use for the Citadels for the first time, they are effective and likely made the difference between survival and defeat. I think nerfing GAs from GP save Artists was a very good move. Too many GGs, citadels situational? Save them for when the situation arises. Note also that citadels instantly develop any strategic resource upon which they are built. Conversely, I've taken to bagging the Louvre mid-late game for the 2 Artists, which are burned for 2 back to back GAs at a time when the extra coin is needed, especially for upgrades. The AI doesn't seem to prioritize this wonder, and that includes wonder hog Pachacuti. This works well with getting the Hermitage around the same time as the reqs are less onerous.
Finally, G&K succeeds apparently in busting up the whole no-brainer GS/RA tech blitz to Stealth. Thanks! However I plan to do Babylon in the next game just to see how far one can get with it.