I know this game is old and I know some of the expansions *AHEM* Penumbra and Awakening... are broken and not very well balanced but this game has a lot of interesting quirks and lore to it. There are many different strategies one can take and they're almost all viable, plus, the strangest things can happen.

I went into this game without much expectation. I was convinced by a friend to play it even though I thought of it as a dumb simplistic
basic strategy game.

However, it has become my number one game over the last two years. It's got a tremendous amount of depth that you can never
see through just hearing about it. It's vibrant, beautiful, well thought out, and constantly updated. The big Expansion mods really change the game too and I feel they're worth the price.

Firaxis feels like one of the last bastions of caring development staff that actually deliver as much as they can without cash cropping.
(That being said, I'm not talking about the civ faction packs, who needs those and why so much XD)