I actually did play Civ4 for a while. I was hooked for a while, but it got to be the same thing over and over eventually. The replay value wasn't super high...how many times can you research the same tech. Once some good strategies were figured out, I moved on.

I'm trying an open source game now. The Battle for Wesnoth. I like it so far. Graphics aren't the greatest, but the gameplay has been good.