Its even worse because Amplitude was already a successful "Civilization at home" company. Endless Legend is a very good game that manages to successfully turn Civ into a fantasy game that its all around pretty enjoyable. Except for the combat, we don't talk about that.

So they clearly knew how to make the game functionally, and something about the unique elements made it fail. Making it even more baffling that Firaxis thought taking one of those was a good idea.