I hated Civ4 BTS, I know i will now be shot down, but i thought it was very one dimensional and shallow, but this was covered up by making it complicated. Big stacks, diplomacy that only relied on what religion you were, massive 'build everything' cities. Heck i even hated the wonder movies, and the terrain looked so dis-jointed it was awful. I much prefered Civ 3, and before that Civ 2 was great too, both of which didn't feel the need to add things to the game that actually had no impact, but were just padding to make it feel complex.
So i hope the game never is at the same level as BTS.
You're entitled to your own opinion of course, but could you explain the reasons you thought it was one dimensional and shallow a little more clearly?
For me, your explanations seem to rely on taking an extreme point of view.
Big stacks...fair enough, but it is something that has become debatable now that we've experienced 1upt in Civ5. I don't think that it was a gamebreaker for Civ4, just something that needed a little thought and attention.
"Diplomacy only relied on what religion you were"...Sorry, that is a false statement. The variety of reasons were increased in the various mods, but religion was by no means the only diplomatic factor [although, IMO, it was historically perhaps the most significant]
"Massive Build Everything Cities"...only if
you built everything, and your terrain improvements were so good that the production rate allowed it, or built them over a long, long period of time. [The cities are meant to represent regional capitals of large civilizations...why shouldn't they have a large range of buildings in any case?]
You
hated the wonder movies? I never had a problem clicking on the "Don't show wonder movies" button in the option menu...so why should they be an issue for you, others enjoyed them.
"Terrain"...did you use the blue marble mod? Even then, sure, it is probably the weakest point of past civ games and a point of improvement in Civ5.
As for past Civs not adding complexity...do you recall the trade system in Civ3?...That only lasted the one game before it was removed and replaced by a more abstract system.
