In preparation I'd watched quite a few replays, both "expert" and "general", and was fully prepared to be rushed, obliterated and generally stamped on in my first few online games. However, so far it hasn't turned out like that. I don't want to bore you all, but here are my impressions after seven games, all with Dutch and set up via ESO Quicksearch.
1 Spanish, Carolina, Conscript. The enemy created only 14 villagers, of which he somehow managed to lose 5 during Age I (how???), and 6 minutemen which he used to attack treasure guardians. Resigned after 7 minutes when I killed the minutemen with my 4 skirmishers and 3 hussars.
2 Dutch, Rockies, Lance-Corporal. Aged up reasonably fast and attacked me with 8 pikemen, who met my 8 pikemen and 10 skirmishers en route and were all killed. He then tried to turtle, just sending envoys out for my hussars to hunt down. Resigned after 24 minutes when my falconets backed by skirmishers, halberdiers and hussars knocked down his outposts and town centre.
3 Ottoman, Texas, Corporal. I expected to be rushed, but no - so I attacked, killed lots of settlers and was crushing his army when the connection was lost - don't know why. I was winning, but the game's recorded as a defeat.
4 Spanish, Texas, Conscript. This chap was very slow and hesitant. He was down to no troops, no town centre and one villager when the connection failed. Although I'd overwhelmingly won, the game's gone down as a defeat.
5 Portuguese, Bayou, Sergeant (I think). Best game so far; I got both Cherokee trading posts and attacked early in Fortress with riflemen, falconets and Ruyters. He had a fort up but on the wrong side of his base, and resigned when his second town centre went down.
6 British, Great Lakes, Lance-Corporal. Started quickly, with both launching Age 2 attacks. While my pikemen, skirmishers and hussars were attacking his base, his pikemen and musketeers were attacking mine - all at about 9 minutes. Both attacks failed, and he seemed to give up after that so I had plenty of time to build up and overwhelm him in Fortress.
7 German, New England. Again no aggression; I attacked in Colonial with pikemen and skirmishers, had my first real taste of micro-management in taking out doppelsoldners with skirmishers, and destroyed his base. He fought on for a while, building a new base far away, but once I'd found it and started taking it apart with falconets he resigned.
Now, I know I'm not a good player, from watching the recordings. But in those seven games only two opponents even tried to attack me, and both of those were rather half-hearted (some of them have played lots of games, too). I'm two-thirds of the way up the ratings ladder! I've read a lot on these forums about how easy it is to beat the AI, but from my online experience so far none of these players is anything like as tough as "Hard" AI, let alone "Expert".
No doubt I'll come down to earth with a bump when I meet good players, but there must be an awful lot of bad ones about. I see that the chap at the bottom of the ladder has won 12 games and lost 334 - I admire his tenacity.
One thing I wasn't prepared for was lag. In single-player games I'd experienced no lag at all, but there's been some in all the online games. I'm not at all technically-minded so I can't judge whether my computer or my opponents' is to blame. Presumably it will be worse in games with more players.
I tried chatting to some of the players, and a couple of them responded but most didn't. Is that normal? Is it customary to send a message at the end of a game?
I'd welcome any comments from more experienced players - are my experiences typical, and what can I expect in the future? I'll probably be able to play only a couple of games per day. Can I expect to lose the connection in a third of games? And how is it decided who "won" the game in those circumstances?