I'd think about buying the expansions if I could be convinced that it'd be worth it! The tech trees and religion and military upgrade pathways weave a tangled web of confusion in the latter stages of each game that makes it all so hard to keep up with at once. I guess it's got a lot of potential, if I could be bothered to puzzle all that stuff out!
So what do people think about maps, then? Should we go for a randomly generated one or a pre made one. There's quite a few to choose from namely Earth 40 Civs map