Choson can actually survive pretty decently. Alocating a few vills to stone, and two to towering, they can make a nearly impossible to penetrate front. And your ST may be DA SHIT, but unless their Mace, sumi or Hittite, those towers will cause some paingage. And dat just sucks. And while your pounding their towers, their either breakign out with cheapo priests, baiting your ST in, or baiting your CA in. Or they may bust out with their own ST. Or Cav rush your ST, and if they have priests there, your camels can become their camels. and then, If they pull off a decent iron, before you iron, or even after you iron, provided you weren't 10-15 minutes faster to iron, their LS will SHRED anything in the bronze, 'cept for Hoppers. And your hoppers are there to be converted by their priests. They can quickly reach the legion upgrade(1400 food, 600 gold ain't *too* hard to get with 20+ farmers), then yer really hurtin.
Carthie and greek ARE loser civs. Carthie can fight in the bronze, If only cuz of camels. But they also have pyscho Hoppers. Those hoppers can take a beating(with bronze shield, it takes a CA 50 hits to kill a hopper. Hopper ar cheaper than CA. Ick. and since the stable is required for hoppers to be built, guess what a good player should be doin'? Making camels. Camels murder CA. In a 1.0 enviroment atleast. However, lack of economic bonuses hurts carth. Bad time. It don't make'em slow, but they just don't have an economy and their army is, well, slow.
Greece, well, their just up shits creek without a paddle, or a boat. They have NO decent option in bronze, 'cept for hoppies. And those suck. They won't make it to iron. And their just ****ed. Simple to realize.
Persia: Their decent, *IF* you hunt. You don't need exceptional spots to get a decent speed boost. Remember, only in mid-bronze is their economy weaker than yours. In tool and early bronze, their pretty much equel, and if played good, they stand a chance to hit bronze faster than you expect. However, Boat booming should be limited. 5-8 FB ain't too bad, and ain't too expensive, and you should get their worth before WG show up to ruin your day.
Mace: How can anyone say they suck? slow? Gold dependent? Their no slower than Hittite, and their much better on the military scene. nobody knows how to use Mace, thats all. And the wheel isn't as great a benefit as you make it out to be. If you use tactics, you can save villies without the wheel. And the wood cutting bonus isn't too big, since most of the time, mace shouldn't need too much wood.
Palmy: Thier damn good. Just use'em right, foo. Most people underestimate palmy. Stoopid mistake.
Now, abotu dependency: There is a civ in RoR/AoE that has a hideous dependence on one resource. It HAS to have this resource, or all its fancy power units, won't be made. This civilization is know as: Hittite.
Don't gimme this "wood is cheaper than gold BS". eah, it is cheaper, When the gold is gone. I've only run outta gold once or twice in the bronze age. Gold is simply common during the Bronze Age. Wood is common the whole game, but when your more concerned with the Now, than the Soon, which you should be, having a resource dependency like hittites is hideous.
Hittite can't Defend the sea and attack/defend on land effectively, unless It uses non wood land units. One reason, all things beign equel, Minoa is the perfect counter to hittite.