If Civilization 5 didn't exist... i could be a bit easier on this game... since it would at least be unique. But it does some of what Civ 5 does but all less interesting and less fun. The leaders are boring and so few of them, they all seemed the same to me and i didn't like any of them. They even say the same dialogs that they did in Civ 5, how hard is it to re-write a few lines of text?
Its graphics are more dull, its units are weak and not interesting. You never feel that you are getting that much more powerful, you may unlock a slightly stronger unit, but it will still move at a snails pace of 2 moves per turn. Back in Civ 5 even early tanks you could move more then that, and later on tanks even more mobile.
The happiness has been replaced with health... same effect. But you will be building nothing but biowells to counter this most of the game until near the end when you unlock enough culture to have enough buildings and unlocks to health with the health problem.
The trade routes are a big time sink, I wish they would give options to pick how many turns you want a trade route to last instead of constantly making you repick a route so often... you get 20+ cities 3 trade routes each one... your in for hell. But this could be said about Civ 5 also, just its too bad they didn't improve it at all and same system exists and not improved.
Some areas of this game look like some effort was put into it, like all the dialog being read each time you unlock a tech. But other things are lazy and re-used from civ 5 and for the most part this looks like a mod of Civ 5 which 1 motivated person could have done and released for free.
Also the music in this game is very ambient and forgettable... the music in Civilization 5 is epic and memorable to say the least... there's perhaps hundreds of hours of variations of music in Civ 5, this game its just ambient background noise you don't even notice, again a lack of effort in sound compared to Civ 5.
I think this is maybe worth a playthrough if your a Civilization 5 fan, but i'll never waste time in this game again, i'll just play Civilzation 5, its infinitely more enjoyable.
Not sure what else to say, this is a dull game. Spend your time in Civilization 5, not this mod quality game.