Eh, it's not as wild as it sounds, especially if you're playing against other people. It doesn't help you at all early game, since your economy can't handle even a few modern military. Which basically means you need a good economic engine, and a good military research set before you get to industrial.
For me, I've tested it and you basically need to build heavy commercial, beeline Man-At-Arms, then industrial zones. You can be about a tech level above the AI this way, but you're likely to be even with humans, which means unit volume is what matters.
