If this game had Sid Meier's name on the box then I would be sending it back for a refund. The only reason I'm sticking with it is because I like Stardock and I think they will eventually fix the gameplay to a reasonable standard (whether they will turn it into the classic that it could be is another question).

Yes, there were some problems with the Civ 4 release, particualrly the disks etc. BUT the actual game was complete and had compelling gameplay.

Elemental had many more and just as serious crash bugs as Civ 4, but more importantly has huge balance and gameplay mechanic issues.

I personally aren't really fussed about the stability problems with Elemental, they will get fixed. Improving and polishing the gameplay until it gleams is what I want to see.

I heard it will be free - it's somewhere around here and was posted by Brad.

That said, I do think 4 is too low, but I didn't have a lot of the issues other folks had, even on release.

6 seems like a fair score if you didn't have tons of problems. It could be a 8-9 rated game, but not there yet. It's like a raw prospect still in A-ball, lots of potential but he hasn't developed and reached it yet. Can't call him an All-Star when he hasn't even made the Show yet.

Yeah, stability fixes are almost a given. It's the rest I'm waiting to see also.

If it had Sid Meier's name on the box you wouldn't be able to send it back for a refund.

Also Civ IV still even to this day isn't balanced. The AI is ridiculously stupid.

Hi, I'm going to declare war on you during 1800AD. I know you have gunpowder units stationed in all your cities, but I don't care. I think my elephant and catapult with some archers will do just fine! *Loses his "stack of doom"*. Oh hey this was purely just a misunderstanding! Can we call a ceasfire? What? I'm supposed to give you gold or something for you to sign this? Pffawh just sign it and call it a day! You don't want to sign it? Well fine! *Loses all but his last two cities.*. You want me to be your vassal? Well I think we're doing just fine on our own!

Yeah... anyways. I just love how the AI still spams cities all over the place. Single tile island in the middle of the ocean with no resources near it? That's a city! Two tiles of tundra in the one spot of my continent that my borders haven't swallowed up yet? That's another city! And when you go to war with them, raze their cities you can watch as settlers walk past your armies and plop another level 1 city with like one guard. Yeah don't emphasize on building a defensive army or anything, build more settlers!

The "higher difficulty" just penalizes you and buffs the AI. They don't get smarter and are still just as stupid unfortunatly. I'm willing to bet that's exactly what we get in Civ V.

Every game has some degree of AI and balance problems, it's just a matter of perspective. I've seen the GalCiv AI do even crazier things (ie gifting me a whole bunch of warships a turn before declaring war on me, which I then use to wreck havoc on them) and most consider it to be pretty good. And most of your complaints there boil down to the AI making your life difficult, which is often the whole point. Personally I would consider calling the civ 4 AI riduculously stupid a gross exageration, but then I've seen people say that about every single game in existance at one time or another. I personally find the Civ 4 AI to give a decent challenge even if it's not perfect, and that is certainly something everyone seems to agree that the elemental AI is still an extremely long ways away from doing.

You are talking about the group that fired a reviewer for giving Kanye and Lynch a bad score because they took a pay off from the publisher.