ok chips, heres what your doing wrong...
1. not enough villagers!!
2. egypt is horible for DM!
3. sounds like your forgeting the econimy part of DM.
ok, try some of this addvice... use Hittite or Choson or Greek or Assy,
for large land maps like highland, Assy and Hittite greek and choson are all good, and, dont mess with walls, use all your stone on balista towers spaced about 3 squares apart in between forests and around your base.
i use at least 50 villagers. its even more important to have this many if your using Greek or Hittite caus' there good units cost alot. if your using choson or assy then get about 10 farms.
send around 7 villagers to several gold mines far away from your base. getting the most gold can deside the winner of a long game.
have a plan, if your hittite, plan on what patern to build the proper buildings to up grade and get those wonderfull heavy cats quickly.. if your greek, plan out a mix of cents, helios, and heavy cats. same with all the civs, know your bonus's and special addventages.
the startegy to stop from being stomped out at the begining depends on what civ you are...
with hittite, build 8 town centers and alot of vills, send most of the vills to build balista towers, use the rest to build the buildings needed to up grade your towers, because it takes a while to fully up grade hittites heavy cats.
with assy, build 8 town centers and build 10 archery ranges. pump out around 25 or more horse archers and you'll be safe to build up the rest of your city.
with choson, i dont know, i have never used them, but i do know they are very good for DM's.
with greek, get towers up first, then some centurions, seige units take to long to up grade.
and a couple of things for last... look at the mini map, usely you can guess where the enemy is and that helps to know where to build towers first.. another thing, resources! dont scimp on vills! if you run to low on supplys you've lost for sure! but last of all, the most important thing, know your civ, dont waste a second realizing, 'hey, i thought they had flaming arrows', but thats it for now, i could go on but i dont want to peace out!
-=CoMBaT Villy=-