"Cartoony" sounds so harsh; like something is foolish and not to be taken seriously. Stylized is a much better way to describe the game's artistic direction.
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Westwall, the environments were indeed beautiful and I don't dislike them. My choice of words to "ditch" them was a little harsh too. It's just that, if given the choice between having them or not, I'd lean a little more towards not having them, personally. (And my love of BE has nothing to do with that, haha... I wanted this before then and was very happy when we got it in BE. But BE is a different beast all together, and environments to display a civ's culture wouldn't work as well and would be less iconic.)
I felt sometimes that the environments sometimes overpowered the actual leader. I also didn't like the leader scenes with a very small leader in it (like Darius's) as much as the others. My favorites were the ones were the leader is taking up the screen and not distanced from you. Also, frequently contacting different leaders at times, and returning to all these different environments over and over again with the full screen frequently changing was (for me) a bit too much. It's just smoother to have the leader pop right up over the map and disappear without disrupting the rest of the screen too much, and it's also nice to have the main interface still visible if you want to jump somewhere immediately.
Actually, I think a cool thing to do would be to show a cinematic-style introduction to each leader when you first meet them, within their environment and oozing with their culture and personality -- it could have a much more dramatic effect. But, you don't need to keep seeing the same thing; after that, contacting the leader would just pop them up over the map ready to chat.
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TPangolin, I certainly don't want "goofy" caricatures either. Stylizing the leaders would just accentuate things a bit; one of the most important, most expressive part of each leader is their head/face, which contains all their expressions and reactions for the player to read. (Oh! I really hope they don't speak again too... I actually disliked that in BE as well and they get annoying quick.)
Personally, I think these examples would look nice with perhaps a little more enhancement:
I think if they kept the same style as Civ5, it would certainly clash with the game from the looks of those few screenshots Firaxis released. Not just the lush coloring of things, but the forms of everything are pretty stylized. Even the view itself is stylized with everything popping off the map and in perspective (like it's on a small, little world) rather than a more realistic flat look to things from the sky. Trees/buildings on the right side of the map are very noticeably leaning towards the right, and on the left side these things are leaning the other way. I think it looks great, and I'm glad to see things go in a more expressive and artistic direction.