I've only had this game for a couple days, but this thread is bringing back fond Civ II memories. I LOVE the fact that the Wonder movies are back, but miss the hokey "real people" advisors. Elvis especially. "The treasury is full your majesty, and the people live happily in your kingdom..."
I also miss a lot of the non-war "real world" stuff that was in Civ II, but has been sacrificed since. I was one of those perverse kids that liked moving Caravans/Transports and Diplomats/Spies in Civ II. Manually loading up caravans of wine onto your galley for a dangerous but profitable trip to China was a nice bit of realistic fun, and raiding the enemy's supply lines while they were ramping up a Wonder was cool too. I also liked how the barbarians would evolve from shaggy woodsman warriors into artillery-wielding fundamentalists -- who says Sid held off on religion until this version? I liked using diplos and spies to steal tech and bribe units, which was a good strategy when you were an underpowered but rich Civ. It kept things from falling into the "only one way to win" tedium that seemed bigger in Civ III, where the game inevitably turned into a "who can build the most units" race in order to get that valuable resource before your neighbor could exploit it.
The rail lines were unbalanced in II, but the fact that they don't work for you at all now is kind of sad too. It was always fun landing a bunch of tanks outside St. Petersburg and then speeding towards Moscow. It also let you (or the AI) try interesting strategies to stop that, like creating heavily garrisoned chokepoints or playing a "scorched earth" strategy where you pillage your railroads to stop their drive. Again, that's pretty realistic -- a country with a great, poorly defended transportation infrastructure is pretty vulnerable in the real-world.
On the other hand, I really like the new focus on culture in Civ IV. I've always been intrigued by the "peaceful" game (mostly b/c when I start fighting, I don't stop till it's like me and one other Civ and THAT gets boring), and this game seems to have a lot of options on that end. Like I said, I've only had the game for a few days, and I'm grooving on some of the features, but I don't think any strategy game has been as complex and free-form as Civ II.
but i got a chinook now 
