Where to start.
I have waited a couple of days to post this review in order to give myself a chance to play the game properly.
Units and building now take ages to build (as do land improvements) which puts paid to the old strategy of grabbing as much land and resources as possible at the beginning of the game.
Too expand your territory around your cities now you actualy buy the surrounding tiles one by one. Don't panic as you have a steady income of gold to start with and if you capture Barbarian camps (which there are plenty off) you get 90 gold for each one.
I quite like the overhaul of combat. It is no longer possible to form the dreaded stack of doom. Instead you can only place one unit per tile. So move your melee units up close with your siege and ranged just behind them.
This forces you to use a variety of units to get the best out of your army and works better than it sounds.
Cities are harder to capture as well. You really have to wear them down and they can start launching barrage attacks at your units as soon as you move within two tiles of them.
I have been playing the game on quite a high level and am glad to say that I have yet to encounter any of the blatant cheating from AI opponents that blighted Civ 4.
A couple of gripes.
My PC is pretty decent but I am having to play on low settings to avoid the game slowing down too much.
Also the game has crashed a view times when I have tried to skip the intro on bootup.
Something that will please most people is that the huge maps are now just that, HUGE.
All in all this is a great game and a big improvement on Civ 4.
It plays a lot differently and takes a bit of patience to start with but I think it is better for the changes.
Still, I must go. It is time to teach those Frenchies a lesson for daring to inhabit the same continent as me!