The best in the Civ series...
Civilisation is one of the most enduring series ever to hit the PC, and it's only been improving over the years.
Several new facets have been added to this latest installment, including religion, which now has an impact on both your civ and in the way that your opponents view you.
The way you choose your civs also impact your relations, in a very similar way to Alpha Centauri.
Other new items are the inclusion of Great People - engineers, scientists, artists - who can give your civ a real boost in terms of money, production, science ... and culture.
Culture is the newest and latest. Your influence is determined by the amount of culture your cities generate ... it's actually possible to capture an enemy city by simply being influential ... and it doesn't matter whether they are allies or not. There is absolutely no negative impact to your relations.
There is also a new horde of world wonders to build and tons of new technologies to research. The graphics have been tremendously improved ... and the control system may take a bit of getting used to for older civ players ... but its really not complicated.
The only drawback to this game ... sadly, yes, there is one ... is the fact that the game does get a bit bogged down towards the end stages ... simply a case of bad memory management in the game coding ... I think. As far as I know there are patches now available to fix this problem ... so it's not really a problem anymore ....