Still, I also know that I, as a bad player who can't keep track of all this stuff, will probably never learn all these intricacies, and I too will play the same way with a lot of the civs. I think each of these civs is far more different from each other than in AOE2 - even if they're not each individually doing something that's never been seen before (and.
Looking at the devs play and high level play from pros, it's clear that different civs really have to change how they approach things based on their opponents, their map, and whatever. It's interesting that there are different impressions of the assymetry between civs.