While I would agree with having multiple ways to win the game, there is a minefield to be avoided in that.
For whichever method you choose, there should be a conscious action within that method to meet the win condition and not just win by accident.
Allow me to give an example. I won B&W2 by city building. Whether I liked it or not, I won a land once my cities reached a certain level of development and impressed other cities. What if I wanted to just stop and enjoy developing the land I was on? Sure, I could hold off clicking on the next scroll to the next land, but what if I wanted to keep the status quo on my terms?
B&W1 had this issue also, but it wasn't so pronounced. You usually had to make the bigger effort in order to "win" as opposed to just playing the game and winning by accident. It wasn't necessarily a bad mechanic, but I felt that victories in B&W1 were more rewarding as I made conscious decisions to achieve them. To that end, that is why I believe so many people prefer the old belief system to the militaristic one of B&W2.
On the other side of things, I'd also like my quirky B&W1 creature back too. But again with a caveat.
We all look at B&W1 through rose-tinted glasses, but the B&W1 creature was buggy in some infuriating/charming ways. And here's where the development magic needs to come in. While we want a creature with what appears to be his own mind, we need a way manage him (as opposed to out-and-out control him). That way, he can still be his own trouble maker while still relieving some of the frustration we had in B&W1.
Another example of this was all my creatures seemed to get this violent reaction about the birds/bats circling my temple when I reached a certain alignment. No matter what I did, I couldn't stop him from getting all fire and brimstone on my temple to get them birds. The best I could do was distract him.
Now, if I could train every bad behaviour perfectly out of him with minimal fuss, then we're back at having a B&W2 creature (no thanks). On the other hand, if nothing is done to alleviate these problems, we've got the same bugs from B&W1.
Like a true customer, I don't know exactly what I want. I just know what I don't want :yes .