Yeah AOEII was great. Especially with Conquerors installed. I was always Britain in AOEII, or Spain. The Conquistadors just own, and upgrade Longbowman have ridiculous range.
Yeah, I've heard of that problem. Which is a shame because the ship battles are beautiful. Try putting your view point to an unexplored, or fogged area.
I haven't tried all the Civis, but I found that if you use the french correctly they are awesome. The trick is to take advantage of the military style villagers, upgraing them with green coat, blunderbuss, and the HCS(Home City Shipment) of 'Pioneers'. Then I have them travel in large packs for each resource.
I'll have to try that... Sounds cool.
Yeah, it's sort of a "what if" situation. Which is why I tend to set it up realistically when playing offline. Like if I'm french, then I battle the English on the New England map. While the addition Home-Cities, and strategy in deck construction is great, I miss all the game modes
What about strategies? I like to try and boom, rushers really annoy me. Which is why I love the Caribbean and Amazonia maps.