Well, I probably mentioned this a hundred times already, but I'm definetely moving to CivIV, at least not anytime soon. I have the same problem with it I had with other great Strategy games, which were IMO ruined after they were converted to 3D, such as SinCity and Warcraft. The games themselves may have gotten new characteristics which made them more realistic, or more fun, but at the end, the conjunction of some bad features with heavy and ugly graphics didn't work for me. I still eventually play SC4 and WCIII, but not nearly as much as I play the older versions of both.
Regarding just to graphics, I always felt there was a special magic about 2D graphics, which isn't present in 3D, but might still be in games like CivIII, which makes use of 3D generated graphics in a 2D (but 3D looking) environment.
Now, even though I'd like to play CIV to try some of its new features (the good ones to see if they are as good as they sound, as well as the bad ones, to see if they are as bad as they seem to be), I find some of them might just spoil the fun for me. The fact that artillery works in an awful way is an example of that.
So, in the meanwhile, I'll just resort to playing some CIII games and mods, specially some similar to the Native American one: mostly changing the graphics to suit some specific area and era, as well as the tech tree, units, etc. There was some talk about doing an Asian one, which sounded quite interesting at the time. So, if anyone's up to the challenge....
