Same here. Rise From Erebus gives Civ 4 new life, I find it somewhat strange that the OP doesn't like it. Oh well, to each his own. In any case, this game looks like it will be amazing and will provide me another way to brutally butcher my free time.
If you like the CivIV so much, you should also test the fantastic Fantasy MOD for it: Fall from Heaven 2. I'm sure you'll like it. The creator of this mod is now working at Stardock making their new fantasy game: Elemental: Fallen Enchantress.
My thought reading the OP was exactly the same...."man it sounds like FFH would be perfect for this guy."
I have to be honest here, this is what really confuses me. From everything I read or heard about it, the way people talked about it, I thought it would be awesome. Exactly what I wanted. I know the guy said it actually sprang from a D&D campaign he runs or used to run.
I tried it expecting to love it. I thought it was terrible. I wanted Warrior, Thieves, Wizards, Clerics, Paladins, Dragons; learn spells, fireballs, slow poison, summon monsters; finding enchanted swords & armor, staffs, rings of power (no, not that one!)...I guess the best way to say it is a Baldur's Gate in Civ IV form. Those classes (or close, doesn't have to be D&D per say, but something along those lines), the kind of monsters from those worlds, researching chain lightning, and archery, and mounted cavalry with lances, that was what I was wanting and expecting.
When I played it, it was this odd frozen world, with very strange characters, and yeah, I saw some groups of goblins, and some spiders, but it just wasn't fun.
I don't know if that makes sense or not, but I wanted to love it, and thought so much it would be awesome. It was terrible.
In effect, I think I wanted what this game is (from what I've seen), and I know people have all kinds of differing views on how it relates to other games, but to me it is very Civ V oriented (the way it tells you what is next, no unit stack, the general feel of play). I think I will love this game a lot, but if ever given a choice, I would have preferred this "type" game with the Civ IV overall model.
Regardless, from what I've played, and if this game at least does decently sales wise, I think this will be a gem in the making.
One thing; does anyone know how to zoom in closer? Sometimes I just like to see the artwork of the creatures/buildings/etc., but as of now it does not zoom in that far. In Elemental, you could completely disable zoom limit, and Civ IV you can get a lot closer. Is there a setting that would allow me to cause zoom in further, perhaps the *.ini file? If it is there, I couldn't locate it yet.