This is why we have PCs
People ask me why I game on my PC, why not just get one of the gaming consoles that are MADE to play games? Well, if I did that I would miss out of the truly unique and epic games such as this. This is so different than other strategy games, and when you compare this to console games you see just how different this is and how impossible it would be to throw this on console. For the console games you have overly simplistic game play and control, on the PC you have a bit of complexity, a comparison can be made about setting the two up as well. Consoles you take out of the box, plug it in and go for it. PC you have a bit more work to do, and this game reflects that, its more than just killing everything that moves, and if you win by diplomacy, culture or science in this game you get a different kind of satisfaction that shows that you were able to pull something off that throughout the whole game seemed impossible.
It has big problems though, for one I found the AI that puts civilians to work is an idiot. late in the game when I want to boost production to get units and buildings done faster, setting priority to production automatically will give, for example, 70-80 in production with no civilian growth, i do it manually and get 110-130 with slight growth. Also the AI is a bit aggressive but there are ways of dealing with this, get allies early and befriend the city states, also you can build a military and not use it, when Rome starts putting troops on my boarders, I just move my troops there as well and there is usually a standoff for a while, I then ally with any city state near his boarders and that gives me time to draw out the stand off without really losing track of my main goal (usually science of culture, I haven't play fully combat yet). The AI does attack a lot though and often call my nation pathetic even though I pump out the most wonders and are technologically centuries ahead of the rest, my militaries are small but powerful, nothing like 2 battleships and a few destroyers to wipe out coastal towns as tanks, APCs and chopper gun ships move on the main land against swordsman and civil war era musket men and cavalry (almost seems unfair).
Special people seem a little over powered, chaining together super long golden ages with generals, merchants, and artists while getting free research and nearly instant production with the other two seem just way over powered, they get born super fast and allow for rapid sustained boosting. or maybe I just need to turn the difficulty up a bit.
Over all this is a good game. It is my first step into the Civ games (I played Civ 3 but not enough to say I was a Civ player) and I have to say I missed out of a good series, better late than never though. and this will keep me occupied until GT5 comes out for the PS3 and while I train Super Carriers 5 in EVE online. And probably further still! this is a truly masterful game, and with a few patches all the kinks and knots can be worked out of the programming and this can finally run past the year 2022 without crashing!