Attacking is incredibly punishing (tile defense +75%). Am I doing something wrong?

[Bridger]

I've made my way into the ancient age, but I'm having to expend 2-4 units to kill each wandering barbarian. It took me a stack of about 12-15 in order to eliminate a barbarian city which was guarded by 2 units.

Am I doing something wrong? The units i'm fighting have a lower starting strength (usually 4 vs. my 5 or so) but the tile defense bonuses are so huge that I need to murder many units before I've weakened them enough to kill one.

Each of these stacks contains a variety of unit types to ensure i have a counter-unit for whatever i'm attacking, but it never seems to help.

 

[Shoobs]

Your capital is your strongest city, utilize its unit creating capacity to go out into the world and kill random creatures. You would be surprised at how powerful an upgraded Stone Thrower can be once it becomes a Slinger, Atlist, or Archer after all those many years of hunting animals.

That said, this is true of all your early units, get experience fighting lesser more realistic fights, then send them after barbarians once they've hit level 4/5.

 

[Thunderbrd]

In part, this is what Surround and Destroy is meant to help counter. That or just mastering the unit types and promotions and how to get your units trained up before sending them at the harder targets.