Acton Institute’s PowerBlog reviews Civ IV, and offers some of the same critiques I might offer. Don’t get me wrong — Civilization IV is one of the greatest games ever produced (and Beyond the Sword is an excellent addition), but the fact that a command-and-control economy seems to be the most optimal set, or that the free market is given short thrift are problems that one simply suffers through.
Some of the other problems in gameplay (an emphasis on conquest, for instance) are unavoidable. One wonders how an armed society would react to an “invasion” as opposed to an unarmed society… and while BTS does structurally provide for such values, no one has gotten around to creating the truly tailorable government, then smashing them against one another.