Thx for the response. I think I should pratice more with shang to see its real strength -
In AoE, my best bronze time with Hittite is under 12 min, and my average bronze time with hittite is usually less than 1 min slower than assy. If shang bronze about the same time as Assy, I will certainly go for assy becasue of the archer bonus.
In RoR huge/gig map, I guess most players boom, and 16 min bronze is quite normal.
And dshea, we have in fact played another game (though I guess you did not intend to win in that game). It was me, Moe, and Hari vs you and 2 Ex_xxxs. One of them was shang, bronzed under 12 min and ironed around 19 min. He said later that he should have rushed us all :-) Anyways, he attacked too late and he could not match hittite. - It was really a nice game. I found you early next to me at 4:30 or so. I was counting in sec when I waited for tool, and put a large effort walled in my base. And I kept check the archivements and saw you tooled with 36 vills/boats or so. Moe was also shang and was asking if he should go iron directly, but we urged to him to attack the boomer - I think he hit your base at 4:30 at around 18 min, but you probably already moved base to 12 where the sea was (another example of bad inland map). ---my point is, if shang missed the attacking oppoturnity - shang is in trouble.
And my point in the first post is - shang is not good in every ones hand. It requires more skill to play shang, to maximize its advantage. And in lower-mediocry hands, the weakness of shang might be a major drawback. Other civs, like hittite, is easier - just build up and make a strong army with quality - there is less timing, at least not as much as shang.
A good player can certainly beat a shang who is less skilled - which means shang is not any secret weapon that who ever hold it win. In equal skilled hand, like Omni descirbed in other way, I am still doubt its effect in gig map team game - as many others mentioned, many other civs can boom almost as goog as shang, and they have millitary bonus.
In 1 vs 1 and 2 vs 2, large map, I centainly agree that Shang is just too quick. But in team 3x3 (4x4) and gig map, I wonder how many players play shang ? And to go Wonder, shang is the best in gig map - just imagine 18 min iron, 20 min wonder up and 30 min game over....hittite really have to hurry up to get those super units and send them after the wonder.
Stooge_Farsan