what is streamlined?
You mean, if you take a path on those games you'd better follow it? I hate that.
Hate.
I love to change my mind. GAMERS LOVE to change their minds.
Tell me. What is streamlined.
Alright, where to begin?
Mind you, I say this as a CIV3 player, which was a few years back. I tried Civ4 and BTS made the game very playable, I have played hundreds of hrs on Civ5, but only finished 20 games or less.
I love to change my mind too in games, but what do you change to in the newer iterations. Maybe BTS still have a sense of intelligence, where you can change civics and such, but the AI hates you from the word go, if you happen to be in a different religion, just an example, and you can spend the whole game trying to convince them that you're their friend. They won't EVER buy that and Civ5 is even worse, now an AI can just "find" a reason to hate you.
Civ3 is deadly on higher levels, but the AI was fair...if you give in to demands, they let you alone for a number of turns. If you traded fairly, a huge AI could still like you enough to deal with you and let you build up your empire in peace. Not in Civ4-5.
Streamlined: Especially Civ5 is very much so, great options are taken out and the AI can "covet" your lands and being grumpy from 30 tiles away. Rubbish. It's no "No Win" button in Civ5 either, you just bribe 10 CS at the right time and you instawin.
Or go culture, whore the CS's again and you get another win. Changing policies in this game does very little, compared to Civ3, where changing government could mean your survival. Even if Civ4 tried to make the option in civics/religions a way to make "your" game change, it did very little against the AI. Well, now 3-city Xerxes loves you, but others lost interest.
On a sailing cruise you meet one person, trade open borders, the next turn you meet this other guys that HATES you for trading with his worst enemy...and so on.
In Civ3, you actually have to use your brain just a little bit.
Civ4/BTS is pretty good, but Civ5 is a disaster. they took away most of the fun for vivid gamers like me, to entertain a broader audience, who doesn't want to think deeply about the next move, if they had to they just run to the shop and buy another "easy" game.
Theov, it's not easy to explain things like this, but as I see it, the CIV series is not as it should've been. Frequent bugs in BTS that was never fixed and 5 is much of a joke, compared to C3C no matter SODS or whatever. It's a feeling when you play a game and something broken turns up, you just think wtf?
Now, shut up, gozpel!!!!