"The game really isn't about being civilized. The competition is what makes the game fun and the players play their best. At times, you have to make the player uncomfortable for the good of the player."
Sid Meier, writing about the combat and conflict between the player and Civs in Civilization 1.
This combined with the strategic scale of the game has been lost in editions 5-7 leaving the series with a limp noodle of a product. The game is now a small scale snoozefest that plays like a scenario or two that in better days would be tacked on an expansion or provided by a mod. It is impossible to suspend disbelief and become immersed in the game. One more turn has been put in mothballs.