I played RTW online about 10 times, and every single time i played it the people i played against used 1 of 2 armies with one of two cheapass tactics.

NUMBER 1 - Spartan hoplites arranged in a pentagon, spears pointing outward, cretan archers in the middle.

NUMBER 2 - 20 units of persian horse archers. I assume at this point they just set them to FAW and skirmish and went to take a dump or have a cup of tea or whatever. There is no way to beat this army and horse archers should be banned from multiplayer, if not banned then literally, LITERALLY limited to 1 unit.