Tonight I played a game that clearly demonstrated the shang dominance.
It was continential, huge? I teamed with choson_teal against dr_grand and green (cant remember his name). I was shang, choson_teal and dr_grand were minoan and green was hittite.
I got a pretty good spot, forest about 4 tiles away from TC. I boomed in a tipical fashion. tooled around 9:30, then send 4 fully upgraded scouts to harrass green and killed over 10 of his vils. In the mean whlie, I found I had enough resource to go bronze. I bronzed at 14:30, the first to reach bronze, with 36 vils and boats! Needless to say, we won.
Booming + rushing + first bronze, shang totally kick ass. That's too scary. Admittedly I am a good player , but I cannot do it with another civ.