Need tips to win against the moderate AI(AoE2:Definitive edition)

The jump between standard and moderate AI is huge,it went from doing nothing to be in imperial when i am in feudal age. I was never really good at this game to start with.Could you give me some tips,the points below are what concerns me:

1. When do i start building my army?,when i start making it(late castle age,early imperial age),the AI is already sending individual soldiers to my walls and weakens my numbers
2. How many villagers should i have? ,i want to make more but the AI just rushes trough ages so i do the same ,spending all my food as soon as i can to keep up
3. More on that age rush thing?,should i worry about keeping up with the AI or just focus on more villagers
   

This is what normally happens and i want to know how to respond:i have a wall with towers in imperial,i start making my army,when i have like 30 units the AI sends its units to my walls,i fight them and they destroy my units since they always have the counter to said units,they send siege rams ,they destroy my wall,i dont have enough resources to make more than a few units a minute,they enter my town,i surrender. What im i supposed to do when they enter my town and i dont have enough to train more than a few units that die immediately?,seems like just a waste of time at that point ,is there something to do then?

(I use the Spanish civ by the way)