Hrmm.... I wonder how many other people around here played AoW.
Good game. Fatal flaws. Long live the Humans
But in general through that game and several others I have found that in general you do end up playing with those of like mind. It's only an issue in the beginning really and then everyone splits up into different Groups that like to play in certain ways. Turn based Simult, lots of micro management... lots of managers. All these things end up ballancing out eventually.
I would enjoy a TCP/IP option greatly as a large number of the people I know are quite a ways off distance wise and Email would take forever on the scope and size of game we like to play... *sigh*