I find it tough to play in Europe as I remember in 4 having the ability to push your borders out and eliminate the others that way. As that isn't possible in this game, I've found it much more fun as the others around the world. I want to play as everyone before I start judging any choices you've made, too. China is a blast, especially when Siam and Korea declared war on me at the same time and boats and troops were swarming me from all sides as I tried to hold my coastal cities. And the initial happiness penalty is a nice thing to have to overcome so I had no issues with it. I've almost finished that one, have any one of the civs you'd like a run through documented? I may try germany has he was eliminated really early by Russia and Justinian in this game... Arabia eliminated France too... which was amazing, to think of the camel archers marching the streets of Paris hahaha!