Alright, full disclosure before I post. Over the winter, Rome Total War took over as the strategy game I play the most and I still rank it as the best strategy game I have ever played (although the Civilization 3 is a close second, I never did get to play Civilization 2).
Personally, I like the idea of the large unit frames although I must say, the scaling down to 75% did make the graphics look cleaner. In the interests of not having this game require exorberant amounts of RAM and large video cards, hopefully they will provide a scaling slider in a graphics preferences menu.
One thing I do not like about the unit graphics is that they do not look good stacked on top of cities. Going back to Rome Total War for a second, the armies are similarly disproportionate to the terrain but when in settlements, the army disappears. In order to see it, you must click on the settlement and the pictures of the various units in the army appear below in addition to various pieces of info (experience, equipment upgrades, number of men). Perhaps that would also help to clean up the graphics a bit for Civ4.
Other things I like:
New government system - I think the civics idea has huge potential and am quite excited about this. Not only will it add new elements of strategy to the game but it will really allow players to customize their empires in new ways.
Religion - I think that they have done a good job in introducing religion but also balancing it in a way so that no religion will have preference. I would have had no problem if they invented religions to further prevent any issues arrising from it but I believe the system in place again shows quite a bit of promise (don't let me down Sid!)
New Culture System - Culture level tied to happines...hurray!
Trade - Using rivers as roads is a great idea. With rivers giving +1 commerce last time due to the justification that rivers can be used for commerce, allowing trade over them simply strengthens this element. Well done! I also like the idea of having to agree with a leader to give trade rights and then allowing automatic trade. This is taken directly from the Rome Total War model and I am very pleased by this too.
Food as Health - I agree with one of the people above, this could make seiges much more interesting. Perhaps this is one of the ideas they had in mind to eliminate the infamous "stock of doom" battles.
Hybrid Artillery Units - I want to see more about this but I am glad they have changed artillery. I found artillery relatively useless in Civ3. In order to be useful, you needed far too much of it.
New Unit Properties - When gaining experience, units gain new abilities--AWESOME! Also, I love the idea of units being stronger or weaker against certain types of units and eliminating the a/d/m statistics. This should make combat less about crunching equations and more about using certain unit types strategically. New military strategies are a huge bonus!
5 types of great leaders - I liked the addition of scientific leaders, we shall see what these bring. Not a bad idea though
Diplomacy - Looks like some nice changes to the model from last time, should be good.
Espionage - I love it. I am very very pleased about having actual spy units. I am assuming that we will move spy units on the map and be able to plant them in cities for long periods of time. That way we can gain complete information about that city and conduct missions. I am assuming that is how it will work, again, applying the Rome Total War model (and I think the designers certainly looked at that model).
Missionaries - Maybe similar to the spying model I put above? I wonder if you can plant missionaries in cities and try to convert their culture slowly? That was the system in play in Medieval Total War, if religious characters converted enough people in your provinces so that the religion of your empire was substantially in the minority, the provinces had a good chance of revolting. By this token, will that mean we can use missionaries in our own cities to destroy other cultural influences?
Tech Tree - goes back to the government argument
Moddability - one word - WOOHOO!
What I do not like:
I haven't heard anything about changing the method in which you acquire money. I would much prefer income tied solely to improvements. This would mean that if a city has a resource, it could build an improvement to exploit that resource and make money. By that token, I also haven't heard any mention about being able to hire mercenaries which is a disappointment.
More to come later, I have to run, I am EXCITED!!!
Personally, I like the idea of the large unit frames although I must say, the scaling down to 75% did make the graphics look cleaner. In the interests of not having this game require exorberant amounts of RAM and large video cards, hopefully they will provide a scaling slider in a graphics preferences menu.
One thing I do not like about the unit graphics is that they do not look good stacked on top of cities. Going back to Rome Total War for a second, the armies are similarly disproportionate to the terrain but when in settlements, the army disappears. In order to see it, you must click on the settlement and the pictures of the various units in the army appear below in addition to various pieces of info (experience, equipment upgrades, number of men). Perhaps that would also help to clean up the graphics a bit for Civ4.
Other things I like:
New government system - I think the civics idea has huge potential and am quite excited about this. Not only will it add new elements of strategy to the game but it will really allow players to customize their empires in new ways.
Religion - I think that they have done a good job in introducing religion but also balancing it in a way so that no religion will have preference. I would have had no problem if they invented religions to further prevent any issues arrising from it but I believe the system in place again shows quite a bit of promise (don't let me down Sid!)
New Culture System - Culture level tied to happines...hurray!
Trade - Using rivers as roads is a great idea. With rivers giving +1 commerce last time due to the justification that rivers can be used for commerce, allowing trade over them simply strengthens this element. Well done! I also like the idea of having to agree with a leader to give trade rights and then allowing automatic trade. This is taken directly from the Rome Total War model and I am very pleased by this too.
Food as Health - I agree with one of the people above, this could make seiges much more interesting. Perhaps this is one of the ideas they had in mind to eliminate the infamous "stock of doom" battles.
Hybrid Artillery Units - I want to see more about this but I am glad they have changed artillery. I found artillery relatively useless in Civ3. In order to be useful, you needed far too much of it.
New Unit Properties - When gaining experience, units gain new abilities--AWESOME! Also, I love the idea of units being stronger or weaker against certain types of units and eliminating the a/d/m statistics. This should make combat less about crunching equations and more about using certain unit types strategically. New military strategies are a huge bonus!
5 types of great leaders - I liked the addition of scientific leaders, we shall see what these bring. Not a bad idea though
Diplomacy - Looks like some nice changes to the model from last time, should be good.
Espionage - I love it. I am very very pleased about having actual spy units. I am assuming that we will move spy units on the map and be able to plant them in cities for long periods of time. That way we can gain complete information about that city and conduct missions. I am assuming that is how it will work, again, applying the Rome Total War model (and I think the designers certainly looked at that model).
Missionaries - Maybe similar to the spying model I put above? I wonder if you can plant missionaries in cities and try to convert their culture slowly? That was the system in play in Medieval Total War, if religious characters converted enough people in your provinces so that the religion of your empire was substantially in the minority, the provinces had a good chance of revolting. By this token, will that mean we can use missionaries in our own cities to destroy other cultural influences?
Tech Tree - goes back to the government argument
Moddability - one word - WOOHOO!
What I do not like:
I haven't heard anything about changing the method in which you acquire money. I would much prefer income tied solely to improvements. This would mean that if a city has a resource, it could build an improvement to exploit that resource and make money. By that token, I also haven't heard any mention about being able to hire mercenaries which is a disappointment.
More to come later, I have to run, I am EXCITED!!!
) but bigger cities? Concerning terrain improvement and trees it has to be de-scaled to maintain a good overview! BTW these screenshots are very likely zoomed in to a high degree so if you want to see a more strategic map just zoom out! Great! 
). Let's take a look at the Civ3 swordsman just to compare how far things have come:
. Nevertheless I don't believe this will turn out to be a bad idea; hasn't been in SMAC, won't be in cIV...
