The early rushes happen in tool because of leather armor, which makes villagers unable to fight back.
And your point is?
"Real" warfare happens in bronze because of stone throwers. Before that, walls can cause serious delays.
Iron is rarely reached in expert or even inter games, because they go all out in bronze. They either win in bronze, or die trying.
"Real" warfare happens in bronze because bronze has camels, compies, cavs, CA, and all the other major units. I've never seen anyone ST rush me
Um, Iron isn't reached in expert games? Since when? Please, get some screen shots of you playing with guys with AoW and _dream_ and Vow_of_ in their names. And people like Zor and Baumchen and all the other experts where no one gets iron. Expert games go like this:
Lots of fighting in bronze. Around some point, the players on each team who have been doing the least amount of fighting (usually players in the pockets) will hit iron. They start doing more fighting. Leaves other two players open to iron themselves. Wait you haven't played with experts before, and you haven't even played competetively for 6 months.
Swordsmen+slingers vs compies+STs: swordsmen die to compies, slingers die to STs.
What kind of answer are you looking for Wedsaz? If I make a horde of compies and some ST and you don't have the res to match my army you lose. Sorry, that's how the game works though. And btw, try compies + cams + ST vs that army and see what happens
More STs vs compies+STs: more STs will cost more resources, which you may not have assuming an equal startup. Even if you can afford them, your falling into the pattern of same-unit wars. Where did all those other wonderful units go?
Hey modern day wars Wedsaz. If the enemy is attacking with jets obviously we need to counter with our own jets. Do you see modern military powers going "Oh we can't just send in fighters, that's not a 'balanced' army"? No they go "Hey their fighters suck, let's claim air superiority and bomb the hell out of them."
I'm not saying AoE is severely imbalanced. A few changes can fix the biggest problems. For example, consider the effect of +2 cavalry shielding on the rock-paper-scissors equations.
It would make cavalry beat archers, so now instead of seeing compies + ST you'd see compies + ST + 4 or 5 camels. Then you'd go on about how camels are imbalanced. Then how cavs beat camels too badly. Then on how archers are beating cavs to easily again. Everyone plays by the same rules in RoR so it *is* balanced. Leave it be