They need to beef up the AI, or else the multiplayer has to be superb, or else I'll pass.

And no turn processing that takes forever!

Hopefully they're not just pushing this date up to get money. Civ III was largely unfinished until 2 expansion packs later and a lot of fan mod support in between.

Still, for fans like I, it is a great upgrade from any of the expansions and normals.

Alpha Centari (about at the level of Civilization 2.5 feature-wise), could use a revamp along the lines of Civ3(more detailed terrain and more detailed entities, e.g. with battle damage being modeled on ships and with dying soldiers actually dying, )+Civ4(3D + quick zooming in and out - for super detail).

Hopefully they're not just pushing this date up to get money.

Considering a later release would be sooner to Christmastime, I have hope this move is because the game is actually coming along nicely and not because they have high sales hopes for a certain release date.

I hate to say this, but I think Civ4 will be a flop.
I enjoyed Civ3, but what I have seen of Civ4 makes me think it is aimed at young kids.
Kids who are not interested in turn based games.

It also seems to me that there is less interest in PC games than there used to be.
Maybe I am getting old.

The PC game industry is definitely in a lull right now.  Publishers are just not willing to put forth the money to create many games exclusive to the PC anymore, there's just too much risk. I'm not confident of some of the design choices that the Civ team has made (they seem to have over-simplified combat aspects IMO), but time will tell.

I hate to say this, but I think Civ4 will be a flop. I enjoyed Civ3, but what I have seen of Civ4 makes me think it is aimed at young kids.

Graphic-wise, maybe, but then imo Civ3 was already aimed at kids much more than civ or civ 2 (which were largely the same game, except civ2 added some graphics and modding capacity). Civ4 proposes some innovations but graphically I don't like it either. I have great hopes, though, because it will come with powerful scripting abilities and thus it should be easy to mod. Considering what people managed to do with Call To Power 2 which sold poorly, I think there will be enough people to mod Civ4 into something really worthwhile even if it's crap out of the box.
Now combat looks overly simplified, and mostly seems to lack a real combined arms approach, but I'm still optimistic.

Did you play Civ 2 or Alpha Centaury? I found Civ 3 very dissappointing in comparison to those earlier titles.. It's playability was crap.

Civ III didn't hit full stride until after its 2nd expansion pack.

I now play Civ3 with Conquests expansion and it really improved the game for me. I do wonder about the Civ4 combat simplification and the taking of armies out of the game. However, having many different resources available to boost your units might add some complexities back in. Guess I'll just have to wait for the reviews

The main thing that annoys me with Civ4 is the way the religions are played. Being a non major religion person it annoys me that I have to play as one in the game. Yes, in the previous games there wasn't much of a choice either, but at least there was a choice of not building say cathedrals in your cities. I admit I wouldn't mind if there were more religions available for the player to choose, like oh say belief in the Olympian gods for the greeks/romans/etc. You get my point.
I am afraid I might not buy this game solely for the above reason.

Funny trailer for the game

religion

You can certainly mod the religions to add your favorite one or replace an existing one in the game.
I'm a bit concerned as to whether you have to have a state religion or not (granting bonuses). And whether not having one may be a good choice (freedom of religion), at least in modern times. Many states have no official religion without necessarily being lay states.

I hope one of the religions is Atheism Else I might have to stick to communism and uproot all the conquered churches! There should have made a concept fo state control vs spiritual control and made em mutually exclusive. Either way it is opression, just have to choose what side you want. And all free governments shoudl have a penalty to religous buildings, since we see can plainly see the effect freedom and prosperity has on religion.