I just wanted to butt into the conversation here with Pickles.

Re: Luck

Yes, this game does depend pretty heavily on luck. Though everyone is on the same 'bad luck' scale. Where you are getting flooded, your opponent has his temple burn down on turn 2. While another player has a knight attack on his only high income provine on turn 6.

I used to get very frustrated in with this when playing MP (I seem to have a magnet for events), but eventually I found that I was able to compensate for it by everyone elses bad luck and those few good luck events that really put things into perspective.

A more determining factor than luck of events is luck of starting position/provincal defense. I find that has more of an impact how I play than random (un)lucky events.

P.S. When are you going to start making maps for Dom2?!