I die in that game too quickly motherfuckers got catapults while I barely got arrows.
Dial back the difficulty. You gotta learn to tech to the right things for your Civ. Expand aggressively. You wanna be building cities fast and early, especially if you want them to be nice and tall by mid-end game. Rush buy buildings with gold to save production. Don't spend production on Wonders until you have a good standing army, and don't spam Wonders unless you're going for a cultural victory. The only early one I go for is The Great Library for the overall tech bonus. I can't do spamming cities everywhere, I like to build 3-7 tall cities and enjoy a huge tech advantage with some lean researching.