ARG MONSTERS!!?!

Which beta version are you playing?

I'd prefer if development focused on adding more ways to deal with it. To use a game analogy: we're playing Barbarian Hordes mode Civ4 with no Warrior unit. Given the disparity in power between certain units like Umberdroths and what you can build in the first several turns it's rather impossible to do anything about them when they do appear, even if you're being very careful about triggering them.

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Solutions may be:

Early +Defender numbers building option.

Spike Walls or other defensive buildings which your puny militia could hide behind. Traps in general might be both useful and fun, with placement being done prebattle.

City Defender specialty troop traits that only work if garrisoned in a city. Possibly just copy-paste the effects from the Defensive civilization trait with a labor cost.

Monster Slayer troop traits that help specifically against non-fallen/non-human enemies. A way this could be implemented is ignoring a certain % of defense (like spears) and group tactics which guarantee that only 1 unit in a group can die from a single monster attack. Although maximum killing of a single unit might be a good idea in general given the pacing of combat vs super units. Then certain weapons could provide "Cleave" effects and add more specialization to units. Most spells could probably do without that restriction though, which has the side effect of making damage mages juicier targets as is typically their role in battles. It also means that assassin classes are better used to actually assassinate important units (already in-game with champions/sovereigns) instead of going toe-to-toe with massive armies.

More/better traits to fight off higher power units. Possibly switch Underdog to +2 Attack per level difference? Although really what may need to be factored is effective Labor Cost (might be a problem for monsters) as raw level seems to do little for units besides grant a HP boost.

Upping the Squad type's unit count.

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With even a few of the above the early game would be changed drastically because building defensive units would be viable instead of a waste of time that could better be spent on either pioneers or building improvements. Not only viable, but possibly necessary depending on the aggressiveness of enemies nearby.

Versions 0.913 and 0.914  playing on beginner.

I have found the monsters to be tough but as yet, not a problem, there is always a way to handle them.

What I am looking at are the occasions were the AI cheats, and monsters ignore the AI completely, this I don't like at all.  It seems to be 50/50 atm, so maybe just a bug.

I do agree with it is frustrating to have the toughest monsters in the game completely destory your game within the first 50 turns.  recently went through a spurt of 2 games .913 and 2 games .914, in a row, where I got up to second, third city, only to have a red dragon or other ridiculous creature rampage my cities while leaving the AI completely alone. 

However, I LOVE that the world is dangerous, and that I have to sometimes change my strategy to try to keep this from happening.

I don't know that answer yet, but I do not want some easy mode walkthrough where creatures of the world are a non-factor.

Yeah, there still needs to be balance regarding the monsters out there. I felt the same way when playing SotS prime on a super slow research game and then all of a sudden one of their 'grand menaces' would pop out of nowhere and start eating all your planets. It made the game unfun and I would just usually turn them off in games where I knew it would be impossible to actually do something about them even if you planned for it. WHich was a shame, because doing that forced you to turn off the other random events as well (which were also a pain in the butt because most of them would give you no warning anyways).

Give me a reasonable chance to prepare and be able to react to random events and monster intrusions and the game will be more fun. These issues should sort themselves out after some balancing passes anyways.

I agree, I really don't understand the reason to make the game so frustrating right at the start. I've started so many new games lately and made each time the very same experience, killed by some high level monster or hero after a few turns. What I find annoying too is the fact that even on large maps you usually get an Ai player next to you so that you can't really expand. I won't play the game anymore until this is fixed

Do people lower the difficulty levels? 

I lowered it to novice and the monsters don't even move.