>>2218895
>- the last Civ game to be build as actual 4X; you MUST do all four eXs to win
What X doesn't Civ 4 have?

>civ specialisations,
SMAC did it first.
>culture, borders (sic!)
It always baffled me that you can capture enemy cities by strategically placing libraries and temples in your own cities. That's gamey as fuck.

In SMAC where the borders were drawn as equidistant from different factions' bases is much more reasonable.
>resources that matter
Agreed.

>best version of corruption/maintenance (sorry Civ 4, you suck in early game, trivalising the game)
How so? You have to be smart about your expansion in Civ 4: if you don't secure your economy by settling valuable river valleys or sea coast, you'll go bankrupt from settling worthless deserts and tundra. In Civ 3 cities are always net positive no matter how much worthless settlements you placed in every permafrost nook and cranny.

>- the only Civ with truly locked on eras, shifting the gameplay significantly
Significant how if you always can backtrack missing techs? Besides the gimmick of scientific civs getting a free tech, or barbarian uprisings when someone goes medieval, I don't really see the significance of it.

>>2219019
>ALWAYS trade techs.
Good advice in general but needs clarification. AIs have a preference for techs giving new units and government types, which gives you a leeway to research important but less prioritized techs that can be brokered around. For example, you'll almost never outresearch AI to iron working or horseback riding on higher difficulties but you absolutely can beeline to philisophy and get techs and good cash from AI for it.

If you sell a tech to one AI, it's guaranteed that he'll sell it to its other contacts in the next turn. So, if you're selling, sell it to all AIs that know each other.

Counterpoint: if you have contacts with AIs on different continents, you may hold on selling techs to one or another group of AI if they don't have something good yet.