[jharger]

I feel the same way, and have been playing Civ since about 92.

One of the reasons (I think) that Civ 5 is not quite as much fun is the fact that the City no longer really has that sense of individuality.

In previous versions, the City was IT. Each one had its own production, trade, corruption, waste, polution, etc. It had personality! If a particular city had trouble, it could shut down or become extremely inefficient at production. The new game doesn't have this, only the aggregate of anything matters.

For me the game lost a bit of its personality, and that's why I like the older ones better.