I've been there, king once seemed impossible and is training wheels mode for new strategies now.
Things that helped me:
- Understand what every citizen is doing
- be friendly to everyone, even if you plan to warmonger
- don't get wonder greedy, but you can usually pick 2-3 and 'beeline' for them and get them
- trade everything all the time, bleed the enemy (sorry, friends) dry
- stay ahead of happiness, meaning build happy buildings when happy and if negative is unavoidable switch to full production empire wide
