I'm fairly new to multiplayer, though I bought the game immediately after it was released (always found the damn AI to be painfully stupid ) but I've found that usually when you host people play by the rules. If they don't, you try again. The first time I played MP my opponent was a War Elephant Spammer, and he still lost! People spam because they don't have skills or don't want to use them, so I doubt they are very fun opponents anyhow.