I must point out that the issue is... more an issue with "barbs are freaking insane" than that the AI are worthless. The latter certainly needs improvement too, but the issues are more on the barb balance side than the ai's. You could easily be one of those civ who dies before turn 70 if you're using the version released on the forums here, though it's better than past ones. But, I would strongly suggest using one of the svn branches available instead of the version here.
-CF