Bibor
Doomsday Machine
Realism. Scale. One unit per tile. Archers shooting over lakes. Et cetera.
My argument is that realism is not needed or even wanted in Civilization 5.
What is needed is solid relations between entities.
Time scale in CIV is not designed to relate to unit movement speeds (i.e. 10 tiles take 500 years to complete). It relates to technological advances and eras.
Unit production costs do not relate to improvement building costs. They relate to costs of other units. Also, all unit costs relate to their designated power or ability.
Similarily, an archer unit shooting over a lake is not what it seems to be. Because archers, and their target do not relate to the lake. They relate to each other.
The lake, a tile, relates to other tiles. Lake is impassable terain for land units. It relates to other impassable terain like sea, and also to passable terrain like hills or plains.
City sizes or their number doesn't relate to actual sizes and numbers. They only relate to cities of other civilizations.
etc.
Civilization game (and almost all other games) deliberately cut relation between different groups of entities (concepts) because its a very, very wise thing to do. This way, we get to focus on the important aspects of each concept (war, culture, growth etc. in CIV case). The weak, arbitrary links between concepts are still there, skewed to match the ignored relations.
Sure, cities might be represented as a very very tiny dot on the map. And the map itself could be vector, not hex or square-based. Units could be dots too, rivers could be realistic. But seriously, what would be the fun in that?
My argument is that realism is not needed or even wanted in Civilization 5.
What is needed is solid relations between entities.
Time scale in CIV is not designed to relate to unit movement speeds (i.e. 10 tiles take 500 years to complete). It relates to technological advances and eras.
Unit production costs do not relate to improvement building costs. They relate to costs of other units. Also, all unit costs relate to their designated power or ability.
Similarily, an archer unit shooting over a lake is not what it seems to be. Because archers, and their target do not relate to the lake. They relate to each other.
The lake, a tile, relates to other tiles. Lake is impassable terain for land units. It relates to other impassable terain like sea, and also to passable terrain like hills or plains.
City sizes or their number doesn't relate to actual sizes and numbers. They only relate to cities of other civilizations.
etc.
Civilization game (and almost all other games) deliberately cut relation between different groups of entities (concepts) because its a very, very wise thing to do. This way, we get to focus on the important aspects of each concept (war, culture, growth etc. in CIV case). The weak, arbitrary links between concepts are still there, skewed to match the ignored relations.
Sure, cities might be represented as a very very tiny dot on the map. And the map itself could be vector, not hex or square-based. Units could be dots too, rivers could be realistic. But seriously, what would be the fun in that?
). And to be honest a game called Civilization needs to have some realism .... But not too much, otherwise things can get unplayable fast 
