Coming from you that's illuminating .... I just might try it again with all the updated packs. I got Civ 5 and Pack 1 - but I did a runner at that point, it was driving me crazy and I had been a "Civ Guy" from and including Civ 2.

Having got that far with Civ5 (Pack1 incl), I feel deflated after the huge success of Civ3 & Civ4 - especially the latter,

I still play Civ 4 (great game).

Did I understand you correctly that you left features from GCII because you had no tooltips?

Civ V was just boring. The AI was dumb as rocks, to the point that if the AI didn't have more than a 2:1 unit advantage the outcome was a foregone conclusion. One game I took out an entire AI invasion with just two cities, an archer, and a spearman (and I simply bought the spearman when the AI declared war). Why? Because the AI kept walking between the cities with melee units and I'd simply kill them with no risk.

Civ IV's combat system is a lot simpler with the stacks of death, but the AI understands how to play it. That matters a LOT. The AI never really understood how to fight in Civ V before I got bored of it.

Also, their multiplayer implementation sucked compared to IV, with diplomacy not working right (the AI would never contact you) and unit animations being removed entirely.

So.. between you and me, did you wanted to have carriers in GalCiv II? 

CivV is a fantastic game. It tried to recreate Civilization without changing its core aspect, and I believe it suceeded. Its tactical gameplay is soooo better than Civ4's stackofDOOM. 

CivV's early gameplay (like, immediately after the release) wasn't optimal. But it didn't took too long to be tweaked and optimized.

Gods and Kings really made the CivV experience a marvelous one to  me. I had so much fun with it; the religion mechanics were AWESOME.

Brave New World? Blew me out of the water. CivV has by far become the single best Civilization game to me. I believe CivV's problem was that people compared its initial coming out (with all the bugs, unbalances etc..) to Civ4's final state, with 2 solid expansion and years of tweakings.

CivV final state vs. Civ4 final state is a clear win for CivV, in my opinion.

I agree the sentiment.

Unfortunately Civilization has been hijacked by Corporate types, who live in an In-Year fantasy world that's driven by the In-Year Salary Bonus, thinking games fans will follow like lemmings just because its the better option for Shareholder balance sheet. The latter is not true, never will be - they live in a Fantasy World of In-Year Bonus driven dreams.

I hope Sid still has sufficient control left over the Civilization Franchise, that he can fight back with Civ6 and regain Civilization's reputation. Millions used to buy Civilization "sight unseen" ... no chance now .... the bad blood left behind by the meddling of Corporate Types with Civ5, seeking to maximum in year profits to enhance the personal annual Bonus with an Industry Icon, has wreaked havoc with Civilization's reputation.

I hope Sid can salvage the reputation with Civ6 and get back to traditional numbers in the fan base. It may not be feasible due to the effort that's going to be needed, because he has a right to a Life like anyone else, and he's not getting any younger.

One thing is for sure, Civ6 will need to be something freaking amazing right out the Starting Gate to repair the damage done by the Civ 5 debacle.

tbh the real kicker for most 'hard core' people was the multiplayer aspect that was pretty terrible at launch. I mean there are plenty of mods for civ5 and the workshop makes using them totally a snap. but without the multiplayer i think most hard core civ fans felt really bummed.

I think if civ6 just has a devoted multiplayer team and comes out with hotseat/pitboss WITH a separate server and expands on civ5, I think it would be a win for everyone.

Also Sid hasn't really designed a Civ game in ages.

And I guess we should get back on topic too? As the title of th theead says, we should "Keep it GalCiv" huh? I hope the team isn't as easily distracted by shiny objects or... Oooh look at those clouds.....!

Comments like this were understandable in the days and weeks after Civ V's launch.  But now they sound kind of ridiculous.  Civ V with it's expansions is fantastic.  Remember, Civ IV wasn't perfect until it was tweaked with expansions (warlords, BTS)...

I'm sure devs know what they are doing.  One thing, please don't make the game look to cartoonish!