@Philbowles:
Thank you for your extensive reply. While you adress many of my points, I naturally come to quite different conclusions and fail to see my main argument refuted in any way. I find it interesting that despite picking apart my post in your usual meticulous fashion, you leave most of the core features I mentioned and criticized uncontested. Which is not surprising, since it is hard to argue that things like city states, social policies or global happiness represent anything that has been constitutive for our history. And in the core features you do pick up you fail to point out that Civ 5 is even remotely modeled around how our world actually functioned and functions.
You mention that Civ 4's combat system has unrealistic elements as well. And it does! In particular, the way siege weapons are handled is odd, to say the least. But given the frame of the game, in which units live forever and need no supplies, it is otherwise fairly decent in representing real wars and the clash of giant armies. Civ 5's combat however completely leaves any kind of historical representation. This doesn't change by saying that parts of Civ 4's combat are unrealistic too.
It's a similar case with war weariness. You criticize its implementation, yet your argument that it only has existed in modern times is plain wrong, which jjkrause has pointed out. Even if it is improvable in Civ 4 (to be honest I think it is already implemented in a very accurate way), it's a fact that Civ 5 leaves this important element of human history out of the equasion completely.
Regarding diplomacy, you once again don't argue that Civ 5 is realistic, but criticize Civ 4's system instead with, quite frankly, rather weak arguments. I don't see how being able to fight an enemy in an ally's land is a sign of a bad diplomatic system. If your enemy is your ally's ally and you are fighting in his land (a constellation which occurs extremely rarely) then ok, a small diplo penalty may make sense. But this is a very specific detail that hardly deserves the attention you give it.
You argue in favour of research agreements over tech trading, while in 95% of human history it's the latter which was predominant, albeit usually not occuring officially over state leaders.
And finally you understate the importance of govermental and religious similarities and differences. Throughout history, sharing the same government and/or religion has formed a kind of bond with the participating nations. That doesn't mean that they weren't in competition and would refrain from going to war against eachother occasionally, if the circumstances allowed and demanded it (quite similar to Civ 4, where Civs that are pleased with you may still attack you if it serves their plans). But they were (and are) certainly closer together than nations with different governments and religions.
You also address many of my minor features. Some, you say, will be fixed in the newest edition. Well, it's about time! One or two I was mistaken about. And with some you accept that their inclusion is based on fantasy, like the two mythical wonders and GDR. Anyway, even if my list of unrealistic features was somewhat shorter, it's hardly enough to show that Civ 5 is modeled around history in any reasonable way.
So while you have shown that Civ 4 also uses a certain level of abstraction, you have neither disputed that, at the base of its features, it is based on actual history, nor contradicted my statement that Civ 5 with its core features does not represent the development of our world but instead largely relies on elements of imagination and fantasy.
@eternalblue:
I can only repeat what I have said before. I am strongly criticizing Civ 5 for its lack of realism because this is an important point for me personally. As a game I don't like it for many reasons, but mainly for this one. But there are others who don't care about the historical aspects and find it is a good game. If you ask me, then of course I'll say get Civ 4 and enjoy it! But who knows, you might find Civ 5 more fun. I agree with jjkrause that you'll just have to try it out for yourself. In general, if history is important to you and you want your empire to function in a way that makes sense and is historically plausible, rather than the majority of core features being based on fantasy, then you'll prefer Civ 4.
Thank you for your extensive reply. While you adress many of my points, I naturally come to quite different conclusions and fail to see my main argument refuted in any way. I find it interesting that despite picking apart my post in your usual meticulous fashion, you leave most of the core features I mentioned and criticized uncontested. Which is not surprising, since it is hard to argue that things like city states, social policies or global happiness represent anything that has been constitutive for our history. And in the core features you do pick up you fail to point out that Civ 5 is even remotely modeled around how our world actually functioned and functions.
You mention that Civ 4's combat system has unrealistic elements as well. And it does! In particular, the way siege weapons are handled is odd, to say the least. But given the frame of the game, in which units live forever and need no supplies, it is otherwise fairly decent in representing real wars and the clash of giant armies. Civ 5's combat however completely leaves any kind of historical representation. This doesn't change by saying that parts of Civ 4's combat are unrealistic too.
It's a similar case with war weariness. You criticize its implementation, yet your argument that it only has existed in modern times is plain wrong, which jjkrause has pointed out. Even if it is improvable in Civ 4 (to be honest I think it is already implemented in a very accurate way), it's a fact that Civ 5 leaves this important element of human history out of the equasion completely.
Regarding diplomacy, you once again don't argue that Civ 5 is realistic, but criticize Civ 4's system instead with, quite frankly, rather weak arguments. I don't see how being able to fight an enemy in an ally's land is a sign of a bad diplomatic system. If your enemy is your ally's ally and you are fighting in his land (a constellation which occurs extremely rarely) then ok, a small diplo penalty may make sense. But this is a very specific detail that hardly deserves the attention you give it.
You argue in favour of research agreements over tech trading, while in 95% of human history it's the latter which was predominant, albeit usually not occuring officially over state leaders.
And finally you understate the importance of govermental and religious similarities and differences. Throughout history, sharing the same government and/or religion has formed a kind of bond with the participating nations. That doesn't mean that they weren't in competition and would refrain from going to war against eachother occasionally, if the circumstances allowed and demanded it (quite similar to Civ 4, where Civs that are pleased with you may still attack you if it serves their plans). But they were (and are) certainly closer together than nations with different governments and religions.
You also address many of my minor features. Some, you say, will be fixed in the newest edition. Well, it's about time! One or two I was mistaken about. And with some you accept that their inclusion is based on fantasy, like the two mythical wonders and GDR. Anyway, even if my list of unrealistic features was somewhat shorter, it's hardly enough to show that Civ 5 is modeled around history in any reasonable way.
So while you have shown that Civ 4 also uses a certain level of abstraction, you have neither disputed that, at the base of its features, it is based on actual history, nor contradicted my statement that Civ 5 with its core features does not represent the development of our world but instead largely relies on elements of imagination and fantasy.
@eternalblue:
I can only repeat what I have said before. I am strongly criticizing Civ 5 for its lack of realism because this is an important point for me personally. As a game I don't like it for many reasons, but mainly for this one. But there are others who don't care about the historical aspects and find it is a good game. If you ask me, then of course I'll say get Civ 4 and enjoy it! But who knows, you might find Civ 5 more fun. I agree with jjkrause that you'll just have to try it out for yourself. In general, if history is important to you and you want your empire to function in a way that makes sense and is historically plausible, rather than the majority of core features being based on fantasy, then you'll prefer Civ 4.