With "we" I mean a group of 4 Friends and me

Our level varies but it ranges from mid to low level in the genre of Real Time Strategy games

We started playing about a week ago, and we played some matches since, we've played free for all and teamed up vs the AI.

We played some random "faction" matches, in wich the person who got Atlanteans ended up winning unless focused by the others, they ascended so quick, and were ready to attack very fast.

The same happened against the AIs when one of them got the mentioned faction, they just progressed so fast and Russhed us when they were un Classical

We decided to ban picking them, so we can't select them, but can get them using Random, and risk getting the Norse wich we don't know how to play.

So, are they really Thaaat good? Or it's just our low level of experience at the game? And how can we counter them? So they are not so unfair to play against

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I've been playing AoM for a very long time, but I've never really noticed this before. I was playing a few random map games and I saw that my resources (particularly wood) were slowly trickling down for no apparent reason. Is there something I'm obviously missing? It only happens in late game when I have quite a bit of resources so it's not exactly detrimental just more confusing. I noticed it a Kronos run and a Poseidon run, just wondering if there's some mechanic I'm not familiar with.