Elaborate, I’m intrigued.
Relevant part of the page:
Civilization Tiers - The Power Rating system rates the civilizations in tiers. When playing a multiplayer game, the civilization you use is also rated in that game. All Spanish players, for example, will affect the ranking of the Spanish civilization by winning or losing games. The civilization ranking looks something like this (only two civilizations are used to keep the example simple):
Spanish Tier 3 (level 25+)
Spanish Tier 2 (level 10-24)
British Tier 3
British Tier 2
Spanish Tier 1 (level 0-9)
British Tier 1
This ranking is dynamic and is updating constantly throughout a day, adjusting to game results.
In the example above, Spanish tier 3 (levels 25+) is rated the highest while British tier 1 (levels 0-9) is rated the lowest. A player using a higher ranked civilization who defeats a player using a lower ranked civilization will gain slightly fewer points, and vice versa. The idea being that players that use the civilization that wins the most will be more likely to win the game, and so will earn fewer points.
The above makes sense in AoE3 because each civilization in that game has an almost entirely separate set of unique units and many civilizations have very unique play styles.
In AoE2, the differences are pretty minor in comparison, and your overall skill carries pretty well from civ to civ, so it isn’t necessary to split them up the way they have done there.
In contrast, many players in AoE3 have to main one or two civs in order to climb the ladder, whereas in AoE2 playing random civs was the meta for the longest time, this never existed in AoE3.
I wish we had a level of transparency like the one in your link with regards to how our ranking systems work, though.