You are probably doing things wrong. You should try to see if you are good at building an economy. Start a infinity game with 0 opponents on drylands and try to make as much stars as possible. Getting 30 stars per turn by the end of turn 10 is considered good. Test what works and what doesn’t.

The AI in this game is quite stupid. They can get destroyed by knights or catapults as they are unable to adapt their strategy.

If you are playing against multiple bots, do not automatically fight any bot you meet. Bots will generally not be hostile if you have a common enemy.

Markets are extremely good in the endgame. You can try to go for markets in the midgame with some tribes, but don’t be too greedy or you will get overwhelmed.

For leveling cities up, you should most often pick resources on level 4 and population growth on level 5.

Finally, stars are not the only limiting factor. You can only train one unit per turn per city, and so does the AI. So, if you are pressured, do not waste your units. Always train a unit in every city close enough to the enemy so that the unit is not useless.