Always overrun by aggressive opponents

1. Build workshop, hut, study, study etc

2. Build a Peasant unit and leave in city.

3. Research Warfare --> Equipment

4. Design a unit with padded armour and a spear.

5. Build a few of these.

6. Keep researching until you have archery.

7. Build some archery units.

8. Congratulations - you have just won Elemental.

If that's true I don't know wtf I've been doing wrong. It made me laugh so hard I spit out my drink.

Yeah, that made me laugh too.  I used-to freak out when enemy empires would have power ratings far in excess of mine when I first contacted them.  Then, I discovered archers.  Also, Spell Blast is your friend... especially now that hit points have been nerfed.  You will never fear a stack when you have that spell.

This made me giggle.  

sad but true....

 Was around the year 200ac with 3 cities, one my capitol as gold producer only (lvl5), then two as tech producting cities (currently lvl 3 each).  This game, I started off doing civics research (For housing and faster tech learning) only and was able to keep my 'faction power' rating above the two kingdoms next to me by doing this, therefore they never bothered me, next step after civics research I went into warefare research and was able to get all the armor upgrades done very quickly due to my high amount of studies turned libraries (Like 2 turns for the first war tech, 3 for the next, and so on), then I went with the weapon techs (blades only).  Now with my full armor/weapon sets available I'm loading up my few kids and other heroes making them 1 man empire killers considering it's so early in the game still (The other empires' techs are pitiful in comparison). 

I picked up very few goodie huts and only did so at the start of the game until I found my wife, which kept down the amount of empires that knew where I was.

Most other games I've tried to get leather armor before going the civics tech route resulting in many more problems keeping up with neighboring factions 'power' rating (hence they attack you)

I'm certainly not the best player out there, & I know I 'turtle play' way too much, but it works for me.  Just know that a lvl 5 city goes a long way towards victory.

I would add to the list in the second post that you also need to focus on technologies that either improve food or improve housing. If you can get big cities sooner than anyone else you can win the game in whatever the hell way you like, because those people will get you more technologies sooner, and much money with which to pay for them.

This is why the city system needs fixing more than anything else. The city/population/economy thing needs to largely something that just "happens," rather than something the player can get a huge advantage by building and researching in a certain order that ALWAYS wins.

Learn the Raise and Lower Terrain spells.

Cheese is cheese, but it's tasty!