I've always enjoyed 4x games and some of the Civs have been the best among them. It's ultimately a minor gripe and sort of needed for the game to function, but

I've always enjoyed 4x games and some of the Civs have been the best among them. It's ultimately a minor gripe and sort of needed for the game to function, but I don't like how they represent history as a linear progression from the Neolithic to the present in the sense that technology A necessarily proceeds to technology C via tech B. The history of technology, as I understand it, has not normally progressed in such a simple way. Technologies are lost and regained and lost (look at the Maya or the Rappa-Nui) again in what seems like a some random movement towards an unknowable and not necessarily pleasant future. It's the one simplification in the game that irks me because some people really do believe, contrary to the evidence, in humanity's direct, unstoppable progression towards a utopian future. I find that degree of optimism dangerously blind to the threats that could be posed by innovation.