6 of the 8 civs were discussed and we were informed that US and Swiss are not in the game.
British - start with more vils + a free vil for each house built
Dutch - start with less vils but can build a bank to generate coin
French - easier to ally with natives, courier who is tough and expensive villager
Germans - tech not needed to get mercs, occasionally TC produces unique cav and a super vil with a wagon
Portuguese - get 2 covered wagons (which turn into TCs), get vision GP in some form
Spanish - baseline civ but shipments from HC are cheaper
Some info on gameplay
3 resources are food, wood and gold. There are silver and gold mines on maps too. It did not say if these were extra resources.
You begin with all the water areas of the map explored every game. You start with an explorer who has a sharpshooting ability to instant kill a unit (can be set to auto cast or player controlled), he learns other abilities as the game progresses. If he dies you can revive him for a cost.
There are five areas of you HC that you can improve through techs, etc: Economic and naval techs are researched at the trading company, soldiers are improved through the military academy, the cathedral improves buildings, "the manufacturing plant unlocks the factory (an advanced building that will steadily create the resource of your choice) and other special abilities", the harbor is where you can customize the visualizations of your HC.
You can recruit native american civs to fight with you by building outpost near them. Once allied you can get pop-free soldiers from the natives to fight along side you(sounds a bit like WC3 creeps).
There are trade routes accross the map where you can build an outpost to get constant coin income. You can later upgrade the route to stage coach and then train.
Once Victory Condition is to get 4 outpost built near trade routes or Indian villages and hold them for a set amount of time to win.
Formations effect the stats of your units in the game. In bombard formation damage recieved is spread accross the whole formation (alla armies in Civ3). In cover formation units take less damage from artillary but move slower. In defend formation hit points quadruple but units cannot move (and can only melee attack).
As said before ships are going to be huge and will allow you to control almost all the map by controlling the water (like in AOE). Also boats can train units.
There were several maps announce in this article too: Amazon, Caribbean, Carolina (lush green coastal map), The Great Lakes (Medit), The Great Plains, New England (cliffy coastline), SageUnay (one team inland other team on the water), Texas, Yukon (snowy with lots of gold).
