3. The military training bonuses (block training etc.) you get when you go Isolationism remain even after you change relations and go with the Dutch. The Dutch are the other and possibly better allies but their wagons are mostly age 3 and 4 so you could afford to wait.
5. I usually start by going to colonial with the WC strike, because he's a big part of your army early on. Fortress depends on how things turn out:
Fast aging for when I'm FFing against another civ's naked FF
Warhut and Nobles Hut politician for when I'm turtling or recovering from a failed rush, or on a water map. If I'm far behind the curve scorewise I will age up with the farm poli here, make a large army during age-up, and first card will be Agrarian Ways.
Industrial means I'm falling behind no matter what I do (due to superior European/Asian economy) so I like to save the farm politician for as late as possible.
I don't use the Skull Knight poli anymore. Sometimes they can give your opponent headaches in an early raid, but most of the time they get focus-fired to death by lbows or MM when you could have had a lasting bonus to your warchief or buildings it seems kind of a waste.
Crunkatog on ESO
Bart331 balance suggestion: aztec: remove civ
Voltiguer: Ender, Sioux in 1.04 will be a top civ, no matter how many layers of Sioux goggles you put on
schildpad on Elephants: ...their mansabdar unit sucks so hard it looks like a black hole
Crunkatog on Steam.