I agree with the following superchunk and largedarryl said:
- You need to focus on expansion early and friendly
- It is relatively easy to win without any armies at low difficuties
Let me add:
- Create some settlers and found new cities early or you will run out of space later in the game
- Create workers and automate them
- Do not create too many army units (maybe only one defense unit for each city to be prepared for possible occasional barbarian attacks); as largedarryl already said: you won't need them against other civilizations on low difficulty settings
In my opinion it's very easy and relaxing to play this game and to win peacefully on low diffculties, but there are of course plenty of ways to play this game depending on taste and mood.
If you still have problems after reading the responses in this thread, try something like this: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=165632 (it seems the author recommends NOT to automate workers, but as you have problems with this game I'd recommend you to do it anyway just to have time to concentrate on other things and to explore everything this game has to offer, e.g. city management).
