[CharonJr]

I have to second what has been said before.

Basically once you understand the "rules" nearly as good as the AI does you will have no problem to win most of the times unless you seriously handicap yourself.

An AI which is able to play a game of this depth even at close to human level is years away IMHO (I think chess is fairly easy compared to the complexity of a game like this).

But the great depth of the game (due to the large number of spells, nations, units) will give you a very good value over time IMO.

And since you can play this game via email or online I can find no reason why you should not be able to play vs. others players as long as you both can agree on the pace of the game.

CharonJr