I held out from getting sucked into Elemental until 1.2. I'm having a great time, however I keep running into a really bad problem: my opponents get high levels of Armour quickly, and then declare War on me. Unless I've dedicated all my research to only Military, giving myself also advanced Armour and Weapons with enough damage to actually hit the, my Units can't even hit the attackers! In three seperate games, an Army of literally two guys wipe out my entire Kingdom because I simply can't hit them.
I feel like I'm beating my head against a wall here, and I'm sure there is something I'm doing very wrong. I didn't have this problem pre-1.2, or at least I don't recall having it. I don't like being forced to simply research Military - that's not how I play.
So, can someone offer any advice as to how to get around this?