Which Civilization game was the first for you to lose franchise "core identity"

[P_S_]

Anyone remember the pre Civ V era, how the AI would suddenly raid you with multiple naval transports packed to the brim with 8 (or was it 6?) land-based units?

I still remember a civ 4 game, I was playing a tsl game as england and catherine was one of my opponents.
She acted friendly but hit me with a massive surprise attack (and I mean massive)

Reminds of that one game around 2011ish I had in IV on the Earth18Civs map. I was playing as Germany and in the late game created a sort of EU/NATO-thing via a network of defensive pacts with Spain and France. Then Montezuma, who (as always) had killed the Americans early, decided to invade Mali with a giant army that he brought across Atlantic. It was an Aztec Blitzkrieg, his troops landed somewhere around irl Liberia and he waltzed right through Mansa's cities. Mali was allied to me, so I assembled all my allies and we went down there for brutal desert warfare with the Aztecs. Eventually we pushed Montys tanks and Infantry back into the sea and liberated Mali; I'm not sure if nukes were used. Afterwards we continued the war on the high seas against Aztec convois and battleships, until the Aztecs sued for peace. It was peak.

The only remotely similar moment I had in later Civ Games were the ones where I was the one coming across the ocean to reign hell on my opponents.

 

[aieeegrunt]

For me it was 4.

If I ran the franchise, and I think if they want to turn the franchise around, they need to go back to 3, and add in the things from iv and v that worked. I would also incorporate ideas from the more popular mods.

Return it to grand strategy civ building.

That is exactly what I would do as well.

The humble sliders worked a thousand times better than all the clumsy board game nonsense that was designed the way it ways primarily because it had to run on a cardboard processor.

Same thing with specialists; you want a scientist or an elvis, it was literally two clicks.

The culture flip mechanics worked way better than loyalty.

There was actual diplomacy.