1) Relax! I played CivII for years, and got my ass handed to me. This game takes a little time to learn
2) Get the latest patch, 1.17. (I generally dispise it for gameplay reasons, but you can still learn just fine, and with fewer bugs it will likely be more enjoyable!)
3) The only real cheat is to put "multi" (all lowercase) somewhere in the name of a saved game, then reload it. It gives you "god sight", and you can change AI production by right-clicking in their cities.
4) Read through the strategy guides, they are very good. Some basics are building lots of settlers (your city has to be size 3 to finish though, so if you build it too early you city will sit around not doing anything) and to set your research to 0%, and instead contact other civs and buy technology off them. The more civs you know, the cheaper the tech will be.
Cheers,
Shawn