AOM is a faster game than were either AOE (13 minutes tool age) or AOK (17 min castle age). In AOM, going classical in anything more than 6 min is a bit dangerous.
Action starts earlier and you have to be ready for that. If you are, you'll enjoy long games. If you don't, it is a problem, but the problem is with you, not with the game. Follow deadlydentures advice, have an army of your own as soon as you hit classical and you'll start getting use to the faster pace of AOM and enjoy it. And you don't get eliminated so fast, your game will get longer for you to enjoy. But this is not Sim city, to enjoy you have to be active.
In that particular game, your opponent was probably just too strong for you. In anygame, if the opponents is too strong, you'll lose.
Moreover, if you play team game with a good partner, you might have the chance to survive a slow start... And playing with a strong friend is good as well to learn if you watch the recording game.
It takes a while to learn to start fast enough, but not that long. Keep your TC busy doing villagers in archaic, go up to roughly 20 vils before pressing the classical button, and have at least one half of your vil on food in age one. Continue to do more vils in age 2, but also build military buildings as soon as you get to classical, 2 or more of them, not just one. You want to produce units as fast as your economy can afford. 1 by 1 is not the way to go. When your ennemy will hit your town you'll have an army of your own, backed by tower and TC fire to stop his rush. You'll start to like this game when you manage to stop the early rushes dead in their tracks.
Protect your economy with walls or towers if necessary, but don't forget that a non-upgraded tower is useless against melee units.
Finally, be agressive yourself. It is fun to stop the ennemy rushes, itis even more fun to do a rush of your own and destabilize their economy by killing a few villagers.
The offensive pay more than the defensive in this game. Fight away from your economy, close to their's. Control ressources and manage to get new TCs as soon as you hit heroic.
Hope that helps and good luck.
[This message has been edited by Dagobert (edited 11-29-2002 @ 04:22 PM).]