More Brit bashing going again. This happens every so often. The last time we had a major case of it was in November, wherein I responded with this:

What's strong about Brits is how the COM techs align with the CIV techs. With COM1, I can max out at +125 usually with just 2 towns. That, along with the (at this point small) taxation bonus, I can hit CLASSICAL and raid with a stronger economy.

I'll probably do CIV2 before COM2, so I'll likely be getting that third city up before most other civs. This enables me to do some early border pushing or to establish a stake in the center, around whatever key terrain might exist.

Something HalfLotus might like: the longer range of the forts and towers enables British to emulate the Roman aggression strategy as well, by dropping a fort and using the towers, the longer range towers, partly make up for weaker border effect.

Once I've built the third city, I'll fill it out with workers and then research COM2. At this point I have a +187 economy. Researching SCI techs, the production boosters, and COM3 push that pretty high very quickly.

The better economy allows you to do a number of things: build bigger armies, build wonders to press your econ advantage, continue booming, etc. I'm not saying they are the strongest civ, but they are better than a number of them. They are certainly better than Russians. Let's put it this way, I'm happy when I get Brits.

This time EC has weighed in on the issue

O4B pretty much gives them a good account on how to play them already. I've rarely needed to get a Commerce 2 upgrade with them in Ancient Age (giving them the best economy doing a fast 1/1/1/1 Classical Age), and they can have an exceptional start by just doing a SCI 1, MIL 1, HI and LI where the HI goes to harass while the LI is used as a 2nd Scout. This gives them the ability to find more Ruins to help cap their economy quicker, and a 25% commerce cap early in the game for 3 minutes vs. the other nations is a considerable amount of resource advantage.

Our buddy just HL likes to bash British just because he knows I like them.

Our original Guide ot Playing the British is here.
Regarding games of British, you can find some interesting ones here and here.
posted by Tim at 1:18 PM