This thing about the Mongols not being a Civ, not true IMHO.
They destroyed European armies routinely, and it's said one in four Mainland Europeans have Mongol blood today as a result of Mongol conquests. They went home undefeated and probably bored!
That's quite an overstatement, since they only faced european east european armies, which were (Hungarians) coming from the same part of the world. After the battles, they withdrawed for one major reason (not only the death of the Khan):
even if they were able to destroy the Polish and Hungarish army, they never managed to seize european fortress and castle, which were much stronger than Chinese ones. During their withdrawal, hungarian chased them and destroyed all their reargard.
The aftermath was that Hungarian accelerated their 'europeanization' and started using european armors.
The main reason for 1/4 of european population having mongol genes is to be related to Attila and other barbarian waves under Roman Empire, not the mongols themselves. The myth of the guy on the horse destroying everything is easily proven wrong by some famous battles: check Richard of England in Palestina, Frank heavy cavalry against arabs and mongolian....
About mongols in Europe, check wikipedia...
"Though victorious, the Mongols were horrified by their losses and decided to withdraw their army out of fear that a fresh army should attack them, leaving their fallen behind.
Some western historians attribute European survival to Mongol unwillingness to fight in the more densely populated German principalities, where the wetter weather affected their bows. The territory of Western Europe, with more forests and with many castles along with many opportunities for the heavy cavalry to counter-attack possibly made Western Europe a more formidable opponent. Also, despite the steppe tactics of the Avars and early Hungarians, both were defeated by Western States in the 9th and 10th centuries. A significant number of important castles and towns in Hungary had also resisted the formidable and infamous Mongol siege tactics.
In the mid-1280s Nogai Khan led an invasion of Hungary alongside with Talabuga. Nogai lead an army that ravaged Transylvania with success, where cities like Reghin, Braşov and Bistriţa were plundered and ravaged. However Talabuga, who led an army in Northern Hungary, was stopped by the heavy snow of the Carpathians and the invading force was defeated near Pest by the royal army of Ladislaus IV and ambushed by the Székely in the return. As with later invasions, it was repelled handily, the Mongols losing much of their invading force. The outcome could not have contrasted more sharply with the 1241 invasion, mostly due to the reforms of Béla IV, which included advances in military tactics and, most importantly, the widespread building of stone castles, both in response to the crushing defeat of the Hungarian Kingdom in 1241."
People saying US sould not be in-game are joking (who made the game?) and I'm a very nasty anti-americanist, always planning thread attacks against america.
And even if saying that Nederland were a major european power is quite an overstatement, neglecting them is quite a joke too. They were a major contributor in destroying the Spanish/Austrian superpower. And then the French superpower. Who's next? Another reason is they are the only one to have lost an entire fleet to a cavalry regiment. It was during Napoleonic wars, if I remind correctly.
