I agree on that The debate of wich civ that are the best or most powerfull is is simply a bit ridicilous.
However its perhaps slightly more easy to see what civs are best for war and what civs that are best for teching fast.
China is one of the best because it leaves so many options. you can rush with them, you can expand fast with them and tech fast. And so on. However their bonus are more or less the most boring ones in the game(my opinion) The mongols have the most intresting bonus..
The question isn't realy which civ is the strongest. Its more like How to use the choosen civ in the absolute best way its possible. If mastering this all the Civs are more or less equal.
One important thing here is that what people think of certains Civs might give you the oportunity to surprise them.
I mean if you see a Zulu, arabs you more or less expect an early rush and start to build alot of defence. This the Zulu player can take advantage of and instead choose to not be agressive and start teching like crazy while his opponent are wasting hammers on alot of defence..
Another thing if you play the French people maybe don't expect an early rush from you.. Well you can use this and do a rush with the french and they wan't understand whats hitting them before its to late
To Anarak.. It would be cool if there were an serie, MP leage that you only could play random civs. This means the top player in this serie is the ones that can master the game best... and just not a certain civ best and do the same horse-rush over and over again in every game..
also the games would be more fun with more viarety and we would se MP games with Indians, Mongols, Russians and French in the same game... cool eh