Try this: Research magic. Summon a fire giant. Now, you whould have won the game given current ai.

I usually expand at first and build up my infrastructure. Then I focus on military technology (wish you could get armor sooner, tbh). During all this I'm forming alliances with friends and fortifying against foes. I'm not quite finished with my first game yet.

What I usually do is get up 3-4 cities running, spamming peons most of the time, building just enough to not die, while doing anything else I can (questing, etc etc). If I see a chance I'll go to war and crush an AI too (10 peons are suprisingly strong). If you need military might, and don't have that great a gold income, go for good equipment. Having 12 armour and 12 damage means a lot, when the enemy only has like 8 damage and 6 armour. Better to build extremely well equipped troops then lots of badly equipped ones. If you do have good gold income, Dragons are pretty epic > (diplomatic tree). They cost 1200 gold each tho. 

Also, little tip. Longbow archers + one of the combat spells (fire blade or something) are RIDICULOUS (I'm prettty sure you can get their damage to like 12+). 

Restart until you at laest have a lost library and gold mine near your starting position - no reason to start learning when you have an uphill battle. You'll need to build a workshop to get some early material. Send your sovereign out to explore the surrounding area, you are looking for space to expand. It might be a good idea to lower some mountains/build land bridges across water in stage.

Build pioneers constantly. they are cheap and an expanded area of influence is always good, a city without special resources can serve as a training ground for troops with barrack type buildings. When there's no room left to expand you should stop expanding. Remember that you'll need some defensive forces to guard your outposts and exploring pioneers. All special resources have some use, but it's gildar, material and iron that will fuel the war. Lost libraries are will get you the necessary technology and are therefore highly important. 

If you want to run a successful aggressive strategy the important techs are the techs that give "party" and the "elite" upgrades. 9 zealot peasants armed with boar spears can reliably take on even dragons with some experience, and they'll very resistant to magic due to their massive hp.

Always keep building the units can afford, research new gear when you can afford equipping your squads with gear. A 2-hander and as heavy armor you can get  usually the way to go - bang for buck considered. Upgrading your weapon is usually more efficient then defense as the high hp from being in large squads/well-trained is usually enough of a defensive measure - your goal should be to take your enemy out in one hit. Defense however soars in effectiveness if the enemy has ranged attacks.

The adventuring techs that reveal new resources are often good investments, especially if you did well in the pioneering phase, claiming a large part of the world.

I would suggest playing to the strengths of your race.  I always create my own sovereign.  My current favorite provides 2food, 1gildar, 1 arcane research, 1 tech research, has increased prestige etc...  My race is Pariden which also give increased prestige, lower maintenance costs for outposts, and they start with an arcane tech (cant remember which)   The caveat to this is that my sovereign and early empire are usually very weak.  This is made up with the summoning spells and at least the first level of armor and weapons from the war tech tree.  I focus on magic as my main tech while getting the essential in the other trees.

My second sovereign I use is from the Gilden.  I chose the talent that your empire starts with metal near by which is synergistic with the Gilden race perq of 20% more metal produced.  Also she is a bit more hardy as a warrior with little magic other then terraforming.  I struggle a bit with this one however I have not played many games with her.

One last note, if you do make your own sovereign, it might be a bit better to make them female as Janusk would make a good, and more importantly early, suitor to get your babies flowin.

Holy freaking thread necro batman. You realize you responded to a thread that hasn't had any activity in 8 months right? I mean seriously this is like giving health advice to a guy in a casket at visitation. 

I did realize this, but I had an opinion and the means to share it so I did.  If you notice that all the information I provided could be used by someone either from the date of the OP or from today.  Besides, you read this didn't you?  Whats the point of message boards if not to be able to reference an old conversation for posterity.  If the post requested technical information or entailed a subject matter that has vastly changed then there would be no point to posting, but naming a thread Strategy - I fail at it, lends to any amount of information at any period of time.  I view a message board as that, a board full of messages left for others to ponder at any time.  I don't get why so many use them as a vehicle for holding conversations in real time.  I don't have the luxury of perusing message boards all day as I work (and thus peruse message boards for only about 6 hours a day )

And besides, this was on the first page when I responded to it!

Play my custom map, Prirod. It can be found in the map section of the downloads, you will see how to get there from the main screen. This map balances the economy for all players. Randomness is only good when it works out exactly the way the game is intended to play. Why would you want to leave it to chance?