I don't agree with the Civ5 "dumbing down" argument really. It did simplify some things, but it also made some other things more complex, especially combat. In Civ4 you can just make a ton of tanks and move them all at once on one tile and steamroll everyone. That was simple, and boring. In Civ5 a military victory takes actual tactics and placement.

Each game has its strengths and weaknesses.

I don't quite think so, sure, there were some tactical elements, but it mostly came down to who could throw more units at a chokepoint/city
Not that different from previous Civs, except the process is slowed down alot

Civ4 was literally rolling your tile of 30 armies to their city, attacking one by one from that tile, then rolling to the next city. If nothing else Civ5 adds placement and movement for each army to the mix, and I think it adds a lot more than that.

Regardless, the point is I think Civ5 is simplified in some areas, expanded in others, and overall is a great game.

I'm a major TBS fan, starting with the original civilization, but even I was bored when I played AC for the first time 2 years ago (I only played the demo a bit when it came out originally). What made me get real involved in it though, was consistently having my butt handed to me by the AI. I wanted to beat the AI fair and square in at least one game, and this caused me to start playing with meticulous planning and strategy. Consequently, I really got involved and started to enjoy the game.

I've played all the civ games extensively, except for the 2nd one sadly (still crying myself to sleep at night for missing it) and for a long time civ4 was my favourite. It still might be, but civ4 has made some design choices I really like. In contrast with Civ IV, in Civ V there can be a real incentive to wage a war over resources. Only got one iron unit and can't trade for more? Well then you will have to conquer a city state or neighbouring civ to get some deposits. The fighting is also a lot better I think, but I still want to see it improved. Perhaps two units should be allowed on a hex? I dunno, but the whole thing about archers shooting over rivers and stuff takes me out of the moment. It makes the board feel small somehow.
Another thing I don't like that much from civ V are the religions. I think that they ran way too far with the idea.
I do miss three things from civ IV though:
1.) Corporations
2.) Hamlets that grow into towns
3.) Wonder videos!

Civ 5 was in the base version maybe a tad more simple than Civ 4 but now it is on par and I totally agree that it is a great game. But unlike the original poster suggested I think there are many great strategy games out there.

About the combat in Civ 4: the trick that gives this a huge complexity is that even a huge army attack must first come close to your city, so you with your own huge army get one free shoot at them. But knowing this nobody would attack you unless they have a really huge army but in turns gives you time to build a really huge army. In the end combat was all about clashs of really huge armies. This can be a lot of fun in itself, although it is also quite time consuming.

Now in Civ 5 the AI sends still armies in waves but since the hex fields are so big at least in the later game it is outright easy to kill all oncoming waves. Most of the time there is a traffic jam anyway. How often have I cursed because two units exchanged places while moving and I didn't want that.

My feeling is that Civ V would be even better if civil units would not count on the limits and the limit would be a big higher, maybe 2-3 units per hex field. This would give a good mixture of the combat dynamics of Civ 4 and Civ 5 and I imagine this would even be better.

I'm convinced Civ V will not be the best strategy game ever. Civ VI will hopefully be even better (with a higher number of units per field limit).

Agreed on the complaining part, but I do feel that the single unit combat has impacted the game negatively.. The real issue with CIV5 single unit combat is how it impacts tile value in the cities. There was a great write up on it, I will have to dig it up.

The franchise has exhausted itself. Civ II and Civ IV were good games for their time. But that time has passed.

Every odd numbered Civ game was rubbish. And back in the day you could say every even numbered game was worth a try.

But now that the franchise has run its course, you can't say that anymore because if and/or when there's a civ 6 you'll be asking yourself the same thing everyone said about Civ V - what went wrong?

Just like in this thread! People are still asking what was wrong with Civ V?

It was a good little franchise (sometimes) for a while - but now its over.

You get over it. You move on. That's life :-)

Well but in addition to that you needed units with the right abilities to defeat city defenders and/or sacrifice artillery to weaken them (later in the game bombers do the job). You also need to include defenders in your stack if you don't want your attackers to get picked out by cavalry who retreats out of reach afterwards. Then you have to use defensive terrain and/or fast units to demolish roads and rails if you don't want your super stack of units to get hit by the enemy's super stack in the open.

For my taste the combat was complex enough for a game that is not primarily about combat. I would have appreciated a more complex economic, diplomatic or social system over combat improvements any day. And "one unit per tile" is just not realistic if one tile has the size of Belgium.

If you feel that a tile is the size of Belgium, you get the issue of archers shooting several hundred miles with amazing accuracy.

:) But this is typical and special for Civ series. Since Civ 1 a hoplit can win against a battlecruiser.
Even the lead designer Jon Shafer once wrote that this might be the weakest part of Civ V. There is simply a scaling problem because Civ spans such a big time period in civilization. Basically in the beginning the distances between the cities would be too far or in the end the crowding of the map would take place. So in scenarios it works okay because they do not scale so differently. Additionally the AI has problems with 1UpT when tiles become too crowded. Traffic jams occur.

What you would have to do is starting with 1UpT in the beginning and ending up with more UpT in the end. Another approach would be to make the tile grid finer and increase the range of the units. Maybe this is all for Civ 6. I don't think the Civ franchise will die. Not with the strong sales of Civ V.

I'm not sure about Civ 5 but in Civ 4 this was more or less the case. There are serveral scaling problems within the game (e.g. city size compared to country size, unit movement compared to time axis) and trying to do tactical combat on the strategic map adds one more. Combat in Civ should aim for more abstraction, not for more detail.