it's not supposed to replace the pc version. it's supposed to be a superfast, streamlined, visceral take on civ -- a flashy arcade version of civ. i think it compliments civ 4 nicely.
It does the superfast , streamlined thing very well, for sure. It essentially replaces the numerous small decisions with bigger, more meaningful decisions to do so. The real tradeoff in the game versus the PC version is that granularity of choices, which does result in fewer potential options given the current challenge at hand.
That being said, I never feel like CivRev gives you too few choices, so it never feels really dumbed down. Instead of stopping each turn to do eight or ten alter your actions to meet your plan, you can pretty much barrel through each turn tweaking one or two things and moving some units instead. Which results in a faster game.
The one aspect that is particularly interesting is the way that the game uses positive reinforcement instead of negative reinforcement. It's a trend carried over from the Civ4 design and continues to work well here. Penalties in strategy games are largely unecessary-the adventurous player will always go for the path of greatest reward anyway, which results in the same net result (attentive and careful players being rewarded) without the potential to send a less-skilled player into a nosedive if things go south due to penalties accuring.
