Can people cheat on Steam HD?

Hi, so I bought the HD edition of the game after YEARS of not playing. I used to be pretty good (in the old LAN days) and I acknowledge I am pretty rusty; however I am begining to question whether there's cheating allowed in the game even when the toggle button for cheating is OFF.

Of all the games I've played, I am massively overpower. I mean, people create 3x more villagers than me, collect 4x -5x times more resources and rush into Imperial Age in less than half an hour. And I mean everyone.

I don't remember the game being this fast in terms of you being able to advance into civs or gather resources. I even wonder if my computer is lagging but it's not. Has anyone else found this?

​

For references I am only playing the original version of the game, no mods in near servers (NAM).

Thanks for your help,

​

​