Assuming you are talking about offline games versus the AI...
For me it strongly depends on whether I can hold ground. If I am in a large, open area, I expand painfully slowly, because I want to be sure I can hold my ground, which means basically any city is open to attack, and if you are even close to a lead in any category, some, possibly all, AI will declare war on you. I adopt a sort of ICS style here.
But, if I have a continent where there are nice choke points, I will expand very aggressively, including rushing settlers, in order to control these points with some city. The strategic value of this city is more important than resources/hills/trees/etc. The AI is not strong, navally, until Navigation (even then), giving you time to fill in the holes. If I have a very favorable map like this, most of my empire will be undefended. On the higher levels the AI will launch direct naval attacks, much to my surprise, but even then you just have to have coastal cities defended. Any interior cities can be totally unmanned.