I wonder if some things about Civ V would be improved by providing certain information in a better way, without actually making changes to the game's mechanics.

For example, currently we only have "food" to represent growth. Mechanically this is fine, but some people miss health. The thing is, hospitals affect food because food is growth and health is growth, therefore food "is health".

This could be addressed by renaming "food" to "growth" and having a tooltip on the city screen explaining where the growth is coming from. X growth generated by farms. Y growth generated by health infrastructure. Z negative growth from unhappiness.

Happiness might also benefit from a name change, to something more like "stability". X stability from happiness (things like coliseums and stadiums), Y stability from loyalty (probably generated by policies and leader traits), Z stability from law (courthouses, policies like Police State), A negative stability from population, B negative stability from number of cities, C negative stability from occupation. This is basically how it already is, but it would be sorted under different headings and make more sense. (After all, an oppressive police state doesn't really make unhappiness disappear. I think we all understand the mechanics of it, but it's jarring to read "Police State reduces unhappiness." With a little name change it can be "Police State suppresses instability from occupation.")

Expansions and mods could later add functionality to the yield sources, but just to start with, it would help bring a civilization to life if yield sources came from different flavors and were written in a way that's pleasing to read.