The Civs in Civ5.

[ScrotusMaximus]

Naval warfare is much more interesting in MP games then in SP games.
The idea that all land armies can transfer into ships is very interesting! It'll definitely increase naval combat and intercontinental battles!

Yep yep. A lot of games are settled by navies. You've got a powerhouse economy and an unmatched army. Great - now, let's see if you can get it to me :-)

[Provost Harrison]

Bonus civilisations depending on what version of the game you buy? That's silly, and almost sounds like Albert's parody he made the other month. I wonder if we will get prostitutes in the game as well

[Adagio]

I agree that adding a bonus civ if you buy a certain version of the game is silly

As others have mentioned, I would prefer special abilities to be something that is added to civs throughout the game. I would prefer it a bit more "randomly"*, where you at certain points in the game is added a special bonus, depending on how you run your civ and how the surroundings are
Like if you have many units and there are many forests/jungles inside or near your borders, then you're more likely to get the bonus movement in forests. Or if you have many ships or you're near a lot of water you're more likely to get a ship bonus. If you go to war a lot, you can get one of the unit bonuses
Each civ can get two bonuses. One would be given out 1/4th into the game and another one halfway through. Two civs shouldn't be able to get the same bonus

*They could also make it so that you get to chose between those that fits your civ

[cpekerkan]

I can understand the economics and the marketing behind it. But I was hoping they would remove america from civ in this revision...

[Sava]

Bonus civilisations depending on what version of the game you buy? That's silly

I'm surprised more people aren't upset about this. Rigoddamndiculous is what it is.

I wonder if we will get prostitutes in the game as well

God willing.

[Sabre2th]

I'm surprised more people aren't upset about this. Rigoddamndiculous is what it is.

I'm not thrilled about it, but there's not a whole lot we can do at this point. The industry is moving toward downloadable content and civilizations are about the only thing that a Civ game can do that with (I doubt scenarios would pull in enough money). With 2K's influence, some amount of this was inevitable. Let's reserve judgment for after release, at least.

[MxM]

What I would prefer is to start the game without any bonuses. But at any point of the game you could select any bonus, but only one time. This way, you would see, that if you are on the continent with lots of forests, you would select the War Path, and so on. More over, one can make it more interesting if any given ability can be selected only by one civilization. (Or by two on large maps with 16 civilizations).

From another side, I do think that current setup makes civilizations and leaders more distinctive, more close to their actual counterpart in real world.