the reasons for me are simple enough; this game is in no way evenly matched between civs, imho what good is a great late game economy if ur getting rushed by the Germans French or Ottomans < i have watched replays of ppl playing as brits, and not one of them showed a rush like happens to me these days, i think now it is common knowladge that if you get a small band of troops together early on against the brits there screwed. Its a simmilar story with the french and of course the ottomans, and as i pretty much always use quick search 1on1 all i ever seem to get is germans or french, and i last about 10 mins. Now dont get me wrong i dont think htere is anything wrong with playing these civs, there in the game, there great fun and there effective, hell why shouldnt you?! This is a personal sadness for i realy realy realy wana be the brits, ive tried germany but i couldnt get out of my head the unfairness i felt on the reciveing end of another ulan rush followed by skirmishers wrecking havoc (and crikey, it deffinatly works.) when growing up me and my mates would not allow any one to be the 'easy' characters in games ie; Eddy in Tekken 3 or Odd Job in Goldeneye. we liked the chalange, but if the chalange was more of an unfairness then we'd stop playing. Ok i've ranted enough, let me make it clear that i am not saying this is a crap game, or that its wrong or bad to choose one of the civs i have mentioned above, thats what makes us all different, if we were allt he same civ the game would be dullas dish water, i guess what im saying is ES should take a serious look at what i consider to be some broken multiplayer mechanics which have sent me back to World of Warcraft. thanks for listening and enjoy your Civs whatever they are
As an example this is my usual conundrum when facing a german opponent is what to do about the inevitable FF, if i try and defend against his ulans by training pikemen i've slowed my progress to fortress age and he will be all over me with skirmishers and ulans etc and i cant do jack about it, if i try and FF with him i still dont have the cards in my deck to defend against what he's gona be able to throw at me, and if i've turtled and are FFing hoping for the best and dotn reach it before him, i know for damn sure my settelers are gona be dying to the sound of skirmisher boomsticks in the very near future. i've played briefly with the germans and so i know what they have up there sleeves to a certain extent and know for damn sure i cant get my head around anyway of stopping them. 11 longbowmen at fortress age cant defend against the same number of skirmishers plus the bonus ulans, whooops there goes my military option, now i get to sit back and watch my civvies get massacred.