You can try more defensive "ofensive" play style
Haha sounds funny
Like if you have some infantry in front line, dont attack with it. fortify, and let it sink damage. It will heal every turn, let your units do the damage from range.
Let say, you have warrior and archer against two warriors. If you attack this turn, your warrior will have like 60-70hp, so most likely he will not survive opponent turn.
If they will attack, your warrior will end up turn with like 30hp with possibility to heal, while their warrior will not be able, since they just made move, when your archer can
hit lower hit point warrior, so the next turn, your warrior will heal a little, while they units cant. So, if the attack, they will end up really low health just enough for your archer to snipe it.
That is why, you need healthy unit on the front, that can sink most damage. I treat infantry like a meat shield, so i usually go for Drill1>Cover1>Cover2, and i let opponent crush their teeth on it, while i
work on him with my archers. That is why placing citadels in crucial defensive position is amazing, if you place it correctly sometimes its basically almost impossible to break without indirect fire siege units.
But early game i usually start my first warriors with Shock1. And then depending on terrain, if you have lots of rivers Amphibious is amazing, if you have lots of forests Woodsman is amazing,
if you want generic upgrades go Shock2. For my Horse units i always go for flanking, since infantry will just set in some defensive position and Horses due to mobility will get easy flanking bonus.
Not sure if you know how flanking works. It will apply flanking bonus, per each unit adjacent to opponent, so if you have like flanking 2, which give you 20% more damage from flanking.
If target unit has 2 more units near them, totally 3, you will do 60% increased damage, possibly for all your three units. If this opponent will like to hit you on their turn, he will
also get more damage.
Honestly when im planning attack, for hard opponent, i always plan where are trees, hills, and gaps and rivers. Like if you provoke war and and will stand 1 tile behind the river. Proponent will have to spend
all their points to cross the river, giving you full control on your turn.
Also very often i do offensive roads, meaning literally two lines of roads, which sole purpose is to fast replace wounded units to fresh ones.
I remove them later, when nearest city is conquered.
When you are on opponent territory, he have have defender advantage, meaning, better healing. That is why, i usually early game blindly go medic promotion line on archers, because
instead 5HP per turn you get 10hp, and eventually 15hp. Early game, when you have "controlled environment" with some cornered barbarian, you can let him melee hit once or twice your archer,
you will heal it, but you get 4xp prom defending xD, just small trick that allow you to get 2nd level faster on your archer straight from barracks.
Here is nice example of snipping units using river:
