These points have probably already been brought up earlier in the thread, but just to outweigh the negativity and the SC2 discussion (lol WTH)...
If you love CIV IV, you will most likely hate CIV 5, here's why:
Absurdly Lacking MP Support
No improvements at all from CIV IV: No dedicated servers, no matchmaking, constant lag issue, framerate problems, no online ladder and rankings, no unit animation, random crashes, no way of reconnecting a game, no way of joining a mid-game through invite.
No reason to play MP at all.
No dedi servers - this isn't an FPS. Almost all strategy games are P2P online.
No matchmaking - IMO, this game isn't really the kind of game that could actually do with matchmaking. The games last an hour as a general minimum (unless you're playing as Germany and kill a lot of barbs, or get a rifleman from some ruins).
Lag/framerate/leaderboards/animations/crashes - I have yet to play online, so I can't comment on this
Rejoining games - This is a disappointment, for sure. However, as far as I know, the devs are patching this in.
Joining game in progress - Again, a disappointment - but, again, likely to be patched in.
No SP Scenario
SP consists only of "Play Now" and "Custom Game". It doesn't get any more plain than this. And it has the stench of "sloth" and "greed" all over it.
... this is really your second point? There are map packs available, as both DLC and pre-order bonus. Personally, I didn't care much for the scenarios, so this is just a difference in opinion, not an actual major flaw in the game.
No Tile Animation
Why the **** is this taken out? Why must players have to go into the city menu to see what tiles are being worked on??
It's an annoyance, for sure. However, without cottages to be concerned about, it would serve little more than a cosmetic function. The city governor prioritises improved tiles and resources.
No Religions
Religions weren't necessary, but it added flavors to the game. It was awesome trying to spread your state religion to the whole world, earning diplomatic favors and gold in the process. CIV IV lovers want the religion system to enhance so that it can impact the game in a more meaningful way, not remove it entirely.
Religion in Civ4, especially on higher difficulties, was very annoying and very disruptive. It was realistic, but that doesn't mean that it wasn't flawed - it was just another reason for Montezuma or Shaka to eat you alive, and just another tedious, arbitrary gameplay element to keep in check.
No Espionage
Espionage was one of the best features to have been introduced in the CIV series. It gave players so many options and alternatives to go against their opponents without the risks of declaring open war: poison their water supply, scout out enemy troop strength, stir up a rebellion, steal their treasury, sabotage their wonder construction, etc. Why is this awesome feature removed completely?
I personally did not care for Espionage and am not sad to see it go, but I have nothing more than my opinion to back up my position.
No Civics
Civics was another extremely well-thought out feature that was added in CIV IV. Not only did it add flavors to each nation (Communism vs. Capitalism, Emancipation vs. Slavery, Universal Suffrage vs. Police State), it provides long term tactical options as well as short term flexibility to players to adapt their empires based on the current circumstance. Deciding and changing Civics was always a weighty decision because each one of them have their pros and cons. It makes each nation unique because rarely do two empires have the identical set of Civics.
In CIV 5 Civics are replaced by Social Policies, which is fundamentally a ladder of perks with bonuses that you can upgrade one at a time. It may still be strategic to decide on which branch of policies and perk to upgrade, but because of the fact that they are permanent and you cannot change them, they offer absolutely no tactical flexibility to players. All branches and perks add some kind of bonus to your empire with no negative side effects, so the decision of choosing which one to upgrade also becomes less significant.
Tactical flexibility? Unless you were playing on a high difficulty, slow speed or with a heap (i.e. 20+) of cities, the only tactical flexibility involved in the civic system was deciding when to switch your civics (or, more specifically, when to use your golden age to do so). There was a set of civics you used for each broad scenario - specialist eco, cottage eco, war mobilisation, wartime (pretty much).
Even if civics were tactically flexible, the new system replaces 'tactical flexibility' with 'long-term planning', something I would say is far more prudent in a game like Civ5. If you have a lot of cities, you won't get too many social policy changes, making your civ fairly inefficient compared to a smaller one. However, the majority of these policies become significantly more powerful the larger your empire is. This alone requires players to think ahead before going off mass-REXing. In a game designed around planning ahead and full-game strategies, I would say this is a good change.
No Hamlets
Hamlets was an important tile improvement in CIV IV as the primary commerce provider. But its greatest strength is that over time it evolves into a cottage, a village and ultimately a town, encouraging players to build them early to reap the benefits.
In CIV 5 hamlet is replaced by "trading post" which has a MUCH uglier model and does not evolve.
Having just played through the majority of a game (got to the point where I can't really lose, and I'm taking a break after playing most of the day), I can say right now that between Maritime city states, 36 workable city tiles and the new-found usefulness of gold, cottages would be so ridiculously overpowered that (to shamelessly tag along with the SC2 discussion) making Ultralisks cost 50/50, require a spawning pool, take 1 supply and run twice as fast as a speedling would probably only barely be more OP'd.
Golden Ages with a sizeable empire are already insanely strong as it is, and they're just increasing gold production by 1 per hex.
No World Wonder Movies
Now all we get is a still picture and some quotes that most people don't give a **** about.
Cosmetic change, so not really an issue. I'm a bit bummed as well though, I have to admit.
No End Game Cinematics
Players sit through 10 hours to beat the game and you can't even make a 10 second animation to reward and congratulate them?
Again, cosmetic change... and tbh the Civ4 movies were something of an anti-climax.
No Commerce, Research and Culture Sliders
Commerce, Research and Culture used to be interlinked in building your empire. Any of these resources can be distributed freely using sliders to let players develop their nations in the exact way they want.
In CIV 5, commerce, research and culture are completely separate entities. And the only decision players can make is to decide how much of each resource to produce.
No, the sliders were an easy-mode method of economy management. If you were running out of gold, you put your slider down a notch then build a couple cottages. That's it. Now, essentially, the slider is global happiness. You need to pay to keep a large empire happy (in building maintenance). If you want to increase your research, you get more population and again, pay in keeping your citizens happy. The economy actually requires management now, rather than a click of a button.
No Random Events
Random events provide small bonuses and surprises to your nation in the way of additional income, one additional food resource, increased culture, etc. Those bonuses are no way game-breaking, but they make you smile every now and then and make your empire feel like a real nation inhabited by living breathing people rather than some numbers and data on the screen.
Random events were absolutely terrible and annoying. I lost so many games of Civ4 because of a barb uprising or because I had a slave riot in a city one turn away from finishing its archer defence, and the odd black pearls or parrots or whatever weren't anywhere close to being enough to make them fun or enjoyable.
User Interface
Firaxis might have thought that they were very clever in making the UI much more streamlined and linear, but it is NOT! This type of UI may have been ideal for the console version of Civ because of the limitation of the controller, but for a PC CIV this kind of UI brings more inconvenience and frustrations than otherwise.
PC gamers want data and information easily accessible, laid out clearly right in front of them, instead of clicking through menus and menus before finding out what they want to know.
I will agree that the UI takes some getting used to, and that some important elements are missing or hidden. I'm still getting used to it myself, and until I have, I'm not commenting on it. Civ4's layout was a bit confusing to start with as well coming from civ3, but I got used to it after a day or two.
City States
I really question the point of implementing City States. It may be fun to interact with them and build a good diplomatic relationship with them, but more often than not it's much easier, simpler and faster to just conquer them and take their resources than to waste gold buying their friendship.
The importance of City States as allies in war times is extremely limited too, considering that now military units cannot stack, and City States have such a small territory, their army size and strength naturally become very restricted.
You obviously have not actually bothered to make a city state your ally. In the game I'm playing right now, I've allied with 4 Maritime and 2 Cultural city-states, and they're literally feeding my entire 30-city empire, plus I get their resources anyway. I suspect that in high difficulty or multiplayer games, every single city-state will have gold thrown at it for the entire game just to get their bonuses. City-states are a brilliant addition, and if you just conquer them, you're just not doing it right.
Framerate Problems
Even on Medium settings, and according to the requirements of the game my PC is more than enough to handle this game on High. It's painfully obvious that this game wasn't optimized.
I agree with this point.
No Leader Personality Traits
It provides a historical and semi-realistic flavors to each leader. And although some traits provokes controversies and debates amongst historians for their accuracy, it's part of the fun too.
Haven't played enough to notice any traits, but Montezuma has been in both my games and has been warring like crazy in both. Might be coincidence, or it might just be good ol' Monty. I haven't had a peek at the code yet either, so I'll reserve judgement on this for now.
One Leader Per Nation
Is it really that much to ask for to have at least two leaders, even for a Vanilla pack?
I always saw that as laziness on the part of the developers who could easily have picked another civilization and added them in. Perhaps two leaders for a particularly well-known civ (such as the English or Chinese), but definitely not 3.
All in all, I think it's too soon to say whether or not Civ5 is better than Civ4. It'll likely still be too soon until we see the second expansion pack released. We're essentially comparing two games' and five years' worth of content to one 3-day old game here. =/
