I've played some flat rate games in my day, probably 30 or 40, and I've noticed somethin. This applies to escalating also to an extenet (never played no cards).
Basically, when you have a bad position, people are attacking your borders, and you're trying to survive, it seems like nothing helps.
Generally in flatrate, its starts with the dice. 10 vs 6? not a chance!. 5 vs 1? If I pray real hard. Later, it shows up in the cards. I'll be losing badly, getting like green, and red cards - cashing in sets of 4 and 6 while my opponents with 3 cards have mixed sets everytime. Then, as soon as the tide turns (if it does) my cards start turnin blue for some reason. I don't get it. My two best examples are the flatrate games i played just recently. Insane amounts of red and green, i'll get 3 red, 2 green. Cash the red cause i have to. Next thing i know, i have 3 green 2 red. cash in, and so it goes. Just makes me mad, I used to think flatrate has generally more skill required than escalating, but now it seems like they are equally annoying.
perhaps i should play no cards.
sidenote: i guess this is a semi-rant, but i just put it here
