Well, that's sort of a three part answer.
1, I initially asked because I think I encountered this guy and he was, well, a jerk. Did stuff like wait until my random partner and I had hit end turn (with no active fighting occurring) to move several units into range of a city (from the fog of war), attack, and immediately hit end turn. Which gave me all of like, I don't know, 3-4 seconds to notice his units and respond? And since I wasn't paying rapt attention to the screen (due to having hit end turn) I failed to un-end my turn before he successfully ended the turn for everyone. He was basically trying to abuse simultaneous turns and effectively get two turns in a row. So I mentioned that due to his antics I would no longer be ending turns early -- the consequences of him having terrible sportsmanship. He and his partner got rather upset. Called me a "noob" and several other things which would violate the forum guidelines if I posted them here.
2, he and his friend were clearly just looking to beat up random people and get their kicks from that. When I entered the lobby he had himself and his friend on different teams so I put myself on his team (since it was team 1)...and then once the other random joined he apparently switched the teams to put myself and the random together and said to ready up without mentioning that fact. Yeah, I could have noticed that he changed the teams at the last minute but I didn't expect I'd need to look for that type of behavior. They also picked this "Skirmish" map which claimed to be intended for 2v2 but had more land area than a 6 person Pangaea map...possibly even as much as an 8 person Pangaea map. So they literally just spammed out 10+ cities each and then pumped out Chariot Archers (until they ran out of Horses) and Composite Bowmen. While constantly insulting my random partner and myself and bragging about how amazing they were. In all fairness, my partner wasn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed (went Liberty and made three, maybe four cities -- and not in the "3 city NC then expand to 6+" idea or whatever...just those cities, period, as Liberty) but that doesn't justify being arrogant and condescending.
My partner then wound up launching a pretty terrible attack as I was fighting over one of my cities and claimed the other team was cheating and quit. I honestly wasn't really paying attention to that battle but I doubt the other team actually changed the game code or something. Worst case shift-clicking -- but like I said, wasn't watching closely (and my teammate quit as soon as he declared they were cheating). At that point I was annoyed enough with their attitude and antics that I just left the game running and went to run an errand.
All that said, there are dozens if not hundreds of people on Steam named "The_Borg" or something very similar so it very well might not have been the OP here...but you can see why I'd want to know before saying I was interested in playing Civ matches involving that person (and given the attitude I've seen in his posts on this forum I suspect it is in fact the same person).
3, if all you (general you, not you specifically) want to do is have fast matches that are primarily focused on combat and spam 1-2 main units at the start of the tech tree with little to no attention paid to science/culture/faith/etc...there are a hell of a lot of better games for that style of gameplay (such as the Starcraft and Command and Conquer series) which offer far better combat engines, controls designed for that gameplay (like, say, the ability to select multiple units at once...crazy), more depth (due to more units with unique traits, counters, synergies, and so on), etc. So I wouldn't, for one, and I know quite a few other people who wouldn't either.
But it's more like city spam into chariot spam until xbow spam. This is team play at its highest levels.
The fact that you presumably wrote those two sentences (in a row, no less) with a straight face highly amuses me.
Are you not familiar with how team games work?
Sure I am. There are pre-defined factions that share technology, have automatic open borders, share war status, and share victory or loss. It avoids the threat of getting backstabbed by a temporary "ally" and the concern of every other player ganging up on you if it appears you have an advantage. There's a few other things but that's the main gist of it.
Oh, but you were trying to dictate a specific definition to how they SHOULD work? Well, let's look at my experiences so far...
1. I've played 2v2s with real life friends both involving all humans and involving two humans vs two AIs. Ditto for 3v3s. Some of those games involved war in later eras if someone got a clear tech lead, some of them involved a race to science victory, some resulted in Diplomatic victory with repeated World Leader votes amongst City States being wiped out in war, etc. None of them involved Chariot Archer spam...hell, none of them even involved Crossbowmen spam.
2, I've played 2v2s and 3v3s with some people I've met online (not random public games). A few of them involved crossbowmen rushes, none of them involved meat grinders with chariot archers, and mostly definitely none of them involved maps where you spammed out 10+ cities to feed a said meat grinder.
3, I've played some 2v2s in pure public lobbies, usually on the East vs West map (not games I hosted, games I joined). People had 5-6 cities max and usually 2-4 (depending on terrain and how many cities their teammate had). Never chariot archer spam, very rarely crossbow spam, usually no direct warfare until at least frigates or beyond.
All of those games also involved city states, barbarians, and ruins.
But go on, tell me how the "true" definition of team play is a map with massive amounts of land per player, everyone going Liberty and spamming cities, and then everyone vomiting out Chariot Archers and Composite Bowmen...without city states, barbarians, or ruins of course. Naturally, since we're trying to be perfectly optimized everyone is also going to be Attila, right?
Let's sell this to a new player!
"Dude, you should totally try Civ V multiplayer, it's awesome."
"Huh. Tell me about it."
"Well, your entire goal is to use an army to wipe the other team off the map."
"All right, what types of units will I use?"
"You're going to spam these ranged units called Composite Bowmen and attack the enemy with them."
"Okay. What else will I use in combination with those?"
"Uh...some Chariot Archers if you have Horses."
"...and how are those different?"
"Well, they can move farther per turn, are slightly cheaper, and upgrade into something worse than what Composite Bowmen do if your initial Zerg rush fails."
"Oh, cool, you can upgrade units! What do Composite Bowmen upgrade into?"
"Crossbowmen."
"Okay, and what changes with the upgrade?"
"Bigger numbers."
"Sure, it's stronger, but what else?"
"Nothing."
"So...it acts exactly in the same manner...just with larger numbers."
"Yep!"
"Right. Um, what other units will I have? Siege units to attack strongholds? Melee units to shield the ranged?"
"No siege units, they basically suck until Artillery and the game should be long over before you reach the last 70% of the tech tree."
"Oh, but melee units then?"
"Like...maybe a few because you need them to capture cities, but 90%+ ranged units."
"How can you shield the fragile ranged effectively, then?"
"You don't, the entire battle is about ranged units vs ranged units. Ranged units beat melee units, siege units, and other ranged units."
"...okay then. Well, at least I can do things like tell four of my bowmen to simultaneously attack an enemy bowman to instantly destroy it so it can't retreat."
"You can't do that either."
"...yeah, I think I'm going to go play Starcraft 2 instead."
"But this is team play at its highest levels!"
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