Apologies if this has been mentioned before, but as a new player of Civ V due to the recent free weekend on Steam I just noticed that in the Steam Workshop there's a player mod for Civ that lets you play as Heroes, Arachnos, or Praetorians. Haven't tried it myself, so this is not a recommendation -- just a notice for any Civ V players who might be interested.
Did someone active here on Titan develop this?
I like how most of the player comments don't say much about the quality of the mod and instead just share in the sadness of CoH's passing.