A good Civilization game, evolved from Civilization V, with great mechanics on a bad implementation.

I liked a lot the addition of districts, cards and differentiation of social and science advancement trees. I also welcomed the new religious victory condition (even if it's kinda flawed, will write about it later).

On the other hand the new graphic style and the lack of “penalties” for large empires (the game actually forces you to rush creating new cities in your empire, will write about it later) dragged things a bit down for me.

So, in detail, the overall mechanics of this new Civilization game are very good, overall positively evolved from Civilization V, but since the game forces you to rush on city building you get a few very bad side effects:
Capturing cities feels like a joke, for example you may end up capturing 10 to 15 cities in just a few turns with no real side effect on your empire.
For the same reason (too many cities) religious victory condition is a mess, you will see 3~4 priests per city battling (yeah… that is lame) for religious supremacy which is beyond annoying.
Again for the same reason it's just easier to colonize to get certain resources rather than initiate trading with other empires or trying to acquire influence over state-cities.
To get you the idea, totally forget about Civilization V Enrico Dandolo play style, it's just impossible with the current state of the game.

Something I was worried about, because so many people pointed that out, was bad AI, but I have to say that in my 2 games AI was quite good, just a bit too aggressive, in everything (e.g. Teddy building a city in a tile between two of my cities, ending up with a oblong, space crippled city or Hojo declaring war just to move through my territory).
Finally I have to say that at the moment leaders offer you a little bit of variance only at the very start of the game, middle and ending phases of the game are more or less the same whichever leader you get to play: huge empires, fought at least two or more wars, fairly high in all compartments (science, culture, etc).

Would I recommend this game, yes, no doubt about it, but don't get it right now, wait till a few DLC are out (or even better a GOTY edition “final” pack) because there are both “flaws” and lack of diversity at the moment.

EDIT: My review for this game is a bit dated and should be totally reviewed now that a few expansions came out, but as I wrote back then... now it's time to buy it and never regret it

A good Civilization game, evolved from Civilization V, with great mechanics on a bad implementation. I liked a lot the addition of districts, cards and differentiation of social and science advancement trees. I also welcomed the new religious victory condition (even if it's kinda flawed, will write about it later). On the other hand the new graphic style and the lack of “penalties” for large empires (the game actually forces you to rush creating new cities in your empire, will write about it later) dragged things a bit down for me. So, in detail, the overall mechanics of this new Civilization game are very good, overall positively evolved from Civilization V, but since the game forces you to rush on city building you get a few very bad side effects: Capturing cities feels like a joke, for example you may end up capturing 10 to 15 cities in just a few turns with no real side effect on your empire. For the same reason (too many cities) religious victory condition is a mess, you will see 3~4 priests per city battling (yeah… that is lame) for religious supremacy which is beyond annoying. Again for the same reason it's just easier to colonize to get certain resources rather than initiate trading with other empires or trying to acquire influence over state-cities. To get you the idea, [b]totally[/b] forget about Civilization V Enrico Dandolo play style, it's just impossible with the current state of the game. Something I was worried about, because so many people pointed that out, was bad AI, but I have to say that in my 2 games AI was quite good, just a bit too aggressive, in everything (e.g. Teddy building a city in a tile between two of my cities, ending up with a oblong, space crippled city or Hojo declaring war just to move through my territory). Finally I have to say that at the moment leaders offer you a little bit of variance only at the very start of the game, middle and ending phases of the game are more or less the same whichever leader you get to play: huge empires, fought at least two or more wars, fairly high in all compartments (science, culture, etc). Would I recommend this game, yes, no doubt about it, but don't get it right now, wait till a few DLC are out (or even better a GOTY edition “final” pack) because there are both “flaws” and lack of diversity at the moment. EDIT: My review for this game is a bit dated and should be totally reviewed now that a few expansions came out, but as I wrote back then... now it's time to buy it and never regret it