A long time Civ fan tosses in the towel.
I was able to complete a few games on the simplest difficulty setting so, as any gamer would expect to do, I bumped up the difficulty one notch to Warlord... and was never EVER able to compete against the computer again. 90% of my games resulted in my not having access to iron, and of course the computer always had it. This resulted in an early demise over and over and OVER again. On the few occasions when I was able to last long enough to research gunpowder, I protected my cities with walls, the Great Wall wonder, and Musketmen, but they couldn't hold up to the computer players' relentless and neverending attacks by hordes of Swordsmen and Jaguar Warriors. They would attack until my cities fell and nothing I tried could prevent it. I tried building more armies, but then I ran out of money. I tried going on the offensive, but my supposedly advanced units died in preposterous matchups. I tried making peace, but the computer players broke it. Eventually I would get to a point where my cities couldn't research technology and build wonders as fast as the computer players did... and everybody knows that the player with the best technology and most wonders wins.
In the end, I finally got it... the game is UNPLAYABLE! So, I uninstalled it from my computer and packed it up in its box so I would NEVER AGAIN be tempted to waste another moment playing it. My recommendation is that you stay away from this stinker and play Civilization II.