It is relatively easy to win without any armies, trust me on this one.  Especially at low difficulties.

@OP, one of the biggest flaws that Civ players make is attempting to build wonders.  In the early game, you are almost always better to build army or economic buildings before building a wonder.  I only say this because having your best city (capital) build a wonder is almost always disaster waiting to happen.

Maybe you're being too aggressive. Remember, it's not like an RTS where the goal is to wipe out the enemy army ASAP. You can be diplomatic, or focus on trade and economy. War is only one way to achieve your goals. And on a low difficulty most AI nations shouldn't be declaring war without ultimatum. You must be pissing them off somehow.

A little more description would help whats going on with your problems. Theres a lot of different strategies. Also if your new to the game should do a tutorial. Theres a lot of factors that affect the game.

I bet he's pissing off Monty, that will surely bring DOOM!

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).

no offence man, but you even suck at typing "civilization" on the title :P

Speaking of which, anyone up for a "quick" game or two?

Not me... been to long since i've played... at my level right now I'm basically as competant as Tokugawa.

Who's Civ 4 incarnation has to be THE most worthless ruler in the entire Civ franchise.  Well unless they fixed him with AI after warlods.  I've yet to get a vanilla game in since i bought it from Steam.

I've started up a Civilization. I'm playing Victoria as British. Had to decide between her or Napoleon for France.

I haven't played in a long time, but it's fun. Still trying to figure stuff out again.

Don't you feel like your cheating when you pick a leader with one of the most unbalancing traits in the game (and Napoleon having the other unbalancing trait)?

I got tired of playing Vanila Civ4 by the time Beyond the Sword released.  I really have gotten just as much play from the the Fall from Heaven mod as the vanilla Civ4.  I only have one complaint about FfH, and that is the AI has trouble using mages and priests to effectively power-up a SOD.