Okay... should have read the reviews here first...
I decided to "try" this game out earlier because i've heard so much hype, and I have played for 9 hours. It is positively AMAZING and completely IMPOSSIBLE to stop playing.
The only reason I'm giving it a 9 is some stuff that I think people have mentioned before, but I just tried to take over India... which was considerably less advanced than me, and their knights and musketmen were completely MAULING my Tanks and infantry guys. okay... what?? come again?? yeah... you read that right. Although, if you've played CivIII you've probably had the exact same experience, and the exact same reaction. As a matter of fact, that was finally the reason why i ended up turning it off. Hopefully this sort of thing will be fixed in the expansion pack.