I played this guy yesterday. It was a 1 on 1 match with the difficulty set on monarch. Anyway, he was to the northeast of me and was the Greeks. I was the Carthiginians. So i figured he wouldn't attack me. I wandered into his land hand he killed my warrior with an archer.
Now his "rules" for 1 on 1 were no peace treaties or no tech trading. The no peace treaty thing made me mad because its on monarch, so the people are gonna mad really quickly from war weariness. So about ten turns later, i had four cities and about 4 Numidian Mercenaries all on each city. I had my worker mining and building roads so i looked at my city and saw that it was about to expand. So i decided to use my worker to go onto a game that i would have in that one turn.
He had 9 guys waiting outside my freakin territory. 4 hoplites, 4 archers and 1 warrior. He sent his archers to thier death against my 2.3.1 defenders. Killed all his archers. Then i killed 2 of his hoplites with a warrior (got him down to one health) and with a numidian. So far i have killed all of his forces except 2 of the hoplites without iron. I have horses but why build horsemen when they cost the same amount as the mercenaries?
I beleive he has a new wave coming down because i saw an archer coming. But i have stopped making temples and workers since i am in full war mode. Then he had to quit. Of course he saved it cause he wanted to continue.
Tactic: Never build anything except barracks and war units (offensive and defensive) when you are in the ancient ages. I will probably lose since he has more guys than me but, i'll try.