The default tier of AWS glacier uses tape, which is why data retrieval takes a few hours from when you submit the request to when you can actually download the data, and costs a lot.
AFAIK Glacier is unlikely to be tape based. A bunch of offline drives is more realistic scenario. But generally it’s not public knowledge unless you found some trustworthy source for the tape theory?
What kills Civilization for me is the phase in which I just wait for production or other stat to fill up and there’s nothing interesting to do for couple turns.
Civilization Revolution is kind of black sheep of the Civ family, because it’s “dumbed down” and “not a true civilization game”, but IMO it has much better pacing.