pretty fundamental flaw :crazyeye:

Conquered both french (6 cities) & dutch (4 cities) with a force of just 4 dragoons in around 10 turns =/
They typically only have defences in their capital, everything else is left undefended.

What difficulty level have you been playing at? I've only tried Explorer and had exactly the same experience. The Spanish were killing me with culture...but then my 5 canons took their 4 cities....

It depends on the size of the map and the difficulty level. On a larger map it takes longer to find the other Europeans so they have more time to develop, and at Revolutionary level I have seen them defend a colony with up to 10 dragoons plus soldiers with 4 frigates on patrol.

That's not to say the AI is any smarter - they just have more units to play with.

I just played a game with the same size map and level. This time the other European colony overwhelmed me in the first few turns with five dragoons.