Thanks a lot for your reply, Chonaman. I am sad that I got into this game so late. It's because it was poorly advertised. I played EE and was waited for EE2 to come out thinking it would be the sequel to EE, but it was not very much like it and I was disappointed. It was only this disappointment that caused me to look for what might be the next chapter in this style and I found empires (too late) and RAF. Empires is the obvious true sequel of EE, but I had never heard that even though I was a big fan of EE!
So I missed out on all the early discoveries and patches and strategies being put through the crucible by the top players. I think they assumed that a game must have constant tweaks to balance and attentive support to be playable, and they forgot to try many possibilities and counters that could have made the game more fun even as it was or is. Instead many gave up and left way too early in my opinion.
This is so sad, because I think you have a very good game that was never fully tapped into and now its missing a player base.
I would love to try these strategy but I've never even been rushed in a U.S. v france or U.S. v russia game in such a way that I feel like I needed to use these. They are inspired by very old replays showing close calls and devastating rushes. I don't even know if I can even use these in MP player nowadays.
Maybe as I improve in skill I'll start finding a level of play where people exist that can use this or at least try it out. I really hope such a group of people still exists, because this is a really good game and it shouldn't be abandoned like it was.
I hate that the player base left because of unbalance when I feel that WWI is so good and the balance is fine.
P.S. I still feel like China is pretty outmatched, but I really want someone to prove me wrong.