It soon became evident to me that I would get no challenge whatsoever so I declared war on ALL the ai powers simultaneously. Literally the only defence they provided was infantrymen, destroyers and guided missiles. Resources shouldn't have been a problem either, there were plentiful aluminium and oil in many of the ai city boundaries. Only Japan had fighters (zeros) and they were out of my attack range.
Which is why the late game is such a boring snorefest, I cant get myself to finish I game anymore knowing it I am either in for the usual domination war which you can usually do with 5 units or an even more boring next turn click fest.
I have come to the conclusion that that CiVs greatest flaw is that it is so utterly predictable, in its strategy, diplomacy, combat, building order city location and golden age control. There is NO RISK, no randomness. I may as well be playing chess. It is like every game is fully mapped out with no real uniqueness other than a random map. Earlier civs seemed to be far more exciting because the decisions you made every turn the situation could change. In CiV the wonders are not critical, city location inst critical, specialists aren't critical and military campaigns arent risky. There are no pressure from famine, disease, war (barbarians are a joke), natural disasters. This coupled with the fact that the game is SLOW really lends itself to be a snoozer.
What CiV needs (in my own opinion) besides the upcoming AI fix
1) Some kind of randomness to the world beyond terrain, like events and great people that arent "built"
2) More variety to combat - I wont ask for complete randomness (that just results in spearmen vs tanks all over again) but war by its nature is uncertain. Right now wars are just stompfests.
3) Make wonders more pivotal and desirable - they dont feel epic and in many cases they are utterly useless.
4) Location location location. Where you place a city matters so little in CiV that ICS just becomes a brainfart strategy. You can stick city in the middle of a desert or tundra somehow it becomes viable even in the ancient era.
5) Buildings like wonders need some serious love. They are just as bland and they build so slowly you could almost care less about your cities. Most of them just seem to have a poor cost/benefit ration. In many cases they provide so little that in the end you may be compelled to build one in every city to see any substantial benefit.
6) Keep global happiness but cool down the rate which it drops and provide some kind of local benefit for the cities' happiness buildings. Right now 9/10 CiV 5 strategies involve absurd ways to work around this broken mechanic.
7) Haggling and more rewarding diplomacy. The AIs trade mechanism is more an ATM than a trade process. The AI doesn't need luxuries and resources and thus will only pay <10 GPT or 300 gp (less for raws). In contrast, it wont part with a city or help in war, provide resources unless it is for absurd amounts. (example I offer a size 10 city near its borders for a size 5 next to mine) and even with 500 gp in bribe it says no. or it had 6 cotton and refuses to sell it for less that 25 gpt????)
Rat
I never really payed too much attention to this. I always build planes, battleships and carriers too. I wonder if it has something to do with what the player is building? Reason I wonder this is because I had 2 carriers with 6 jet fighters and bombing the AI units. My jets were basically wreaking havoc on everything. Then eventually, I remember I seen them get intercepted a few times. Makes me wonder if I don't build any plans then the AI won't but I am not sure it works like this. Maybe the map type has something to do with the AI not building certain ships.
