what's your favorite part of your 4x games?

[dead0man]

the first dozen or so turns is fun for the discovery part, but nothing much usually happens and you don't even really know if your early decisions on first city location and build options will pay off for another 200 turns (or whatever).  I think I like the early meat, ya know, you've got your core cities, you're ready to really start doing the thing you're going to do that wins you the game.  You've got important choices to make, with quick confirmation on whether they were good ones or not.

The late mid game can be fun if you have a decent rival or three, but that doesn't seem to happen very often for me.  I'm either giving up or running away with the game at this point.

The end game is almost always boring.

[John Dule]

Option 2, although I have enjoyed playing as Russia in the late game recently.

[Aurelius]

The early-mid game when you've settled most of your cities and you're starting to consolidate and maybe fight an early war. The end game is very boring and nukes are the only redeeming factor. (Civ 5)