So, I use this fine occasion to finally create a forum account and pop out of lurkerdom.
Regarding the naval assault:
I don't remember the exact formation of his defensive units, but I think on his northern coast were some ranged-units. I guess assaulting from the sea would have ended in a waterloo (hahaha), for the AI, because of transports being civilians (one-hit-wonders, as far as I understand). The eastern coast was guarded by his samurai and the city-state. Driving a loop to the western coast of africa seemed to be too clever for the AI.
Regarding the lack of content:
Sure a lot of things are missing. But you shouldn't forget that Civ4 in it's current state has had two addons. Vanilla Civ4 had neither espionage nor random events (if I recall right).
I for one am impressed by the amout of inovation that has gone into CiV, just by the change to the sliders, the combat, the culture, etc. Compare that to other sequels of the recent time, which all stagnate in well traveled waters. (chase studies: Modern Warfare, everything EA makes, amlost every Fps out there, Starcraft II) Or even better: Sequels that ruin everything that was good about the previous titles and resort into cash-making. (Napoleon: Total War, I am looking at you).
But I have questions to contribute to the discussion too:
Has anybody else noticed the wierd looking borders? The controlles area seems to be a lot more focused on utility, than in Civ4. What I mean is that the cities seem to built brides of tiles to resources (such as the marbel, seen in the stream), to gain controll. While this might be a nice thing gameplay-wise, I dislike the shape of that thing. I love to see a colorful dot on the map grow, as my empire increases in strength and slowly devours anything else. I don't want the map to look like someone spilled colurful pasta.