You got the first ranged armor at 20:00 Against zhu ge nu damage reduction from armor is important. It reduces damage fromm 33-50%. Get a plan for your attack. Go raiding with fast units, or prepare for siege. Running into the enemy base until your units are dead is not a good plan. For siege build a fortress with walls. Set up trebuchets and mangonels. Build forward military production. The units walk 1 minutes to the fight and fight 20 seconds. If you are population capped this is not working. Build the forward production that fight time and walk time stays roughly the same. Build outposts or patrol all gold resources. Use Man at arms campfire to mark the spots. If you click on a gold deposit in the grey area, you can see if it got touched. There was a bug sometimes i dont know if it got fixed. The forward military production should be able to protect your base, and reach the gold in time. Getting to imperial to set up unclosures and buff the horses with biology, ranged armor and elite upgrades is a good plan too.