I had to load the game to see the text and got ....stuck. 
How-duh-no-sow-nay?
so you just ignore the fact that the Meado/Persian empire was one of the great early empires?
So Germany is one of your favorites, too, right? I mean, been around for less than 200 years, and all they can really say is that they've lost two World Wars in a row. And Spain and France got their respective empires ripped to shreds. Britain doesn't have an empire anymore, either. And Russia is pretty much a goner .... Well, let's just look at the empires that *aren't* "underdogs" ... uh, the US? I mean, Rome had its thousand years, but it basically fell over and died, and doesn't even really have the excuse of foreign invasions, as it was internal problems that really killed it. China? Owned in pretty much every war since the 1200s. Korea? Barely distinct from China for much of its history. The Celts? Kicked to the curb by the Romans and Germanic tribes, after fighting amongst themselves way too much.
And they went to city-state size over the course of a thousand years of existence - yes, the Eastern Roman Empire continued to exist long after the Western Roman Empire had fallen into the dirt, and probably the single biggest cause of the "city-state size" is the disembowelling suffered during the 4th Crusade, which carved up the Balkan territories into Latin holdings.
My eccentricity (or insanity) is that I never stop perfecting maps/units/stats for my scenarios... I'm not kidding fella's, I can work on those things for years!
Example, my first scenario from 2002(!) is a World War II scenario (well, we've all tried doing those, right?). Current version is called 8E World War IIh. Like my big version of Rise of Rome I completely wiped away the first versions and started on a new map a few years ago.
Spoiler :
I bet I'll never ever finish this.
In my mind the reduced population is due to people fleeing the tyrant, not working themselves to death. I won't be a tyrant always, so this works for me. But I know the advisor says "... will cause the lives of x citizens."
Wow, that is just impressive. Wish I had that kind of skill!
I have a hard time declaring war on America and I know my games suffer because of it sometimes. On the other hand, if they declare war on me fiirst . . .
You poor man.
I'm actually playing the damn thing right now. Usually I just play the first few turns, then quit to fix something that irks me, but this time I'll try and see how far I get.
Usually, it's the opposite for me. I deteriorate my position by going out of the way to destroy America. Of course, that's coming from a Mad Canuck.
