it only takes too long if you don't have a kicking food tile.... with a kicking food tile that city should be pumping settlers......
in my latest game as the japanese i had three cities making a diagonal line north south.... i set my goals for iron working which is only two techs away.....i ran into all the civs to my west and isolated the largest one the indians to my east....
can you guess what happened.... i had an elite warrior near the chinese..... they did'nt build a phalanx..only a warrior..so i sacked the town...received a leader
and three turns later i built the pyramids......easily the best early wonder in the game.....my three cities rushed a temple at size two the first time they made it there..... my cap took three grows as i had to produce to settlers from it.... by then i had iron, built a colony near my city...since they were connected diagonally and close by each other i rushed barracks at size two for each city and then started the swordsmen pump
i attacked the chinese again and took a city to finish the block of all the other civs to my land from the west......
refused to give my indian contact up for anything i wanted...instead i offered 30g per tech/contacts
i went on a cleansing process of the indians........eating up their rim ciities and keeping them as they will become the base of my push to fill alot of land that is not inhabited in the east...
the english declare war and sign a MMP and alliance to destroy me with the germans
so i offered my world map to the chinese and Horseback riding for an alliance against the Germans
China took the brunt of the attacks while i finished off the indians.....
early temple is sooooooooo important....culture from temples is cheap and easy to rush..... one should do this over barracks no matter where your city is....barbs are only an issue on raging hordes and durring massive uprisings..otherwise seek out barbs for upgrades...
in the early game its not important to have alot of cities....4 good ones with barracks will allow you to take down a civ or clip two of them like i did to buy you time and catch you up tech wise....and then if you mix horses in to the fray your army is mobile and powerfull...the early horse takes out phalanxes all the time....and he retreats...not to mention he looks like the knight of civ2 and is pwerfull like the chariot of civ1
Dont let the ai intimidate you...... just think of this as civ2 with some modifications...alot of the same tactics work and the ai still ca'nt wage a war..the only way your screwed is if you don't build your military up....but then you have an advisor for that