Sounds like 1.3 has made ruined a few things for you. I, myself, am awaiting 1.4 as it promises to be the patch 1.3 should have been, including the A.I. improvements, which are sorely needed at this point. A lot of players rolled back to a previous version, myself included.
The 'no head' thing is definitely a new 1.3 issue, and should be fixed soon. Check the forums for any advice relating to that specific issue.
As for the cities, this can be an issue. The game is kind of against city spam, which means some of the mechanics can penalise you heavily if you're not right on top of them. Gold issues shouldn't occur at 3 cities in; my suggestion would be to allocate gildar producing heroes to gildar bonus cities, increasing their output. Focusing one city like that drastically increases your output; often times two cities fund my entire kingdom.
Generally, my first city is my gildar factory, my second my research hub, etc. This is changing now, with the new mechanics in 1.3, which penalise these types of things, from I read. I haven't delt with them myself, as I'm waiting for 1.4 and am simply not playing 1.3. If you can roll back, you'll get a better game experience, until 1.4 comes along.
