Worst Civ ever inho. Chaotic, map hard to read and concept from Civ Revolution. Wrong way like for me. I'm back to civ4.
Minuses:
-chaotic structure of civs- I dont like new conception taken from Civ Rev- like for Germany- taking advantage on barbs- differences for me are to big- civ to civ. Just don't like it
-graphic- It's sweet make- like for old school fantasy games. Map is really hard to read and I don't feel that joy while expanding. Fewer units and fewer option/benefits in terrain improvement makes it dull and boring.
-new strategy/1 unit per tile is really time taking and I prefer much more stacking and combining melee units with other type of bonuses (axe/spear) then playing fool on map. Embarking... that option sucks... you can send 10 units from the farest part of map just after discovering optics... and they all build ships in 1 turn.
-whole structure/adopting policies is much much more unpredictable. Should be able to change policies. Game is completely sucked out of realism. It's really hard to control costs and happiness while in war now.
-war- fewer units doesn't make it easier to play- I would rather say it's harder to control now cos 1unit on tile rule. You have to click on every single unit now to make shoot order/attack/embark...
-ships with infantry that looks like super battle ship can be sunk by barbarian trireme cos 0 strenght for embark unit (if I'm right that's zero)- thats just insane
-new unit from resources could work but I rather prefer old system- it works with so big unit limit but in reality it's stupid that you can't build new units with mine- like they where constantly provided with Iron or Oil
-City States- a lot of effort and low profit- it's something that just drag your attention from normal play. Also they have the same tech that you have straight away after you discover something- how it works in real world??? 1 City has same tech that whole empire and if you are leading in tech- they may be far far more developed then any other civ...
-AI is just so stupid that they use bombard unit next to your melee unit and they won't even move if it's 1 on 1. I played on Prince level- so it's just disaster
-generally I feel much more joy playing civ4 then civ5. Yes it's keeping you playing but I think after 3 games now- I will pass. I can compare it to Heroes of M&M 3 and 4. Heroes 3 was perfect in my opinion. New part was destroying this perfection and bringing mixture of conceptions in chaotic way. Yes it was playable cos overall game concept was the same. But it was big step behind- so is Civ5. Game completly overrated and done like by some Rookie game makers...
Pluses- can't see any honestly, unless...
-Leaders speaking in their native languages- (plus for children 11yo)