I feel like it wanted to try a lot of new ideas, and they came together in unexpected ways.

City-states, for example. Maritime city-states are HUGELY broken. Get a couple of those in your corner, and all of that extra food makes your population skyrocket.


I also feel like the game is more about being punished than about accomplishing things. Like, if you work hard and build a robust road network? You get taxed off your ASS.

Happiness Luxuries are the same. Civ 4's luxuries were all about getting bonuses. In Civ 5, you're basically just trying to constantly negate the ever-increasing happiness penalty.


The social policy system is a neat concept, but I always found myself getting frustrated with the amount of time it took to get them. Plus, the whole "gets exponentially more expensive" thing always bummed me out- it's that whole punishment thing again.



It is beautiful, though!