All or most of you are civ2 veterans, and you are all scratching your heads as to how the AI expands so quickly. Even on regent, with even odds, the AI manages to get culture buildings, spearmen to go along with their settlers, wonders, and out expands you!
Even when you try, for instance, to produce a settler as soon as you get the chance, in all your cities, you are beaten. What's the problem?
The sad fact is that you've all been doing it the wrong way. In order to build a settler you need 3 pop points. It takes 20 food to go from 1->2, and 40 food to go from 2->3, or 3->4, or 4->5, or 5->6. This means you grow *faster* with more population, as long as you have the terrain to suit it. Often, the build order for most of your towns, and especially your capital, is warrior, settler, settler... when you are trying for fast expansion. This should not be done.
