Guides

Spend all your starting money on 5 stores, 2 town square, 1 library and as many houses as you can get

turn on population growth edict immediately. Set town square and library to mode 3 until happiness is maxed.

get 2 more libraries, one of each mode. wait until you have enough money for a quarry, then build that in the corner.

put your specialist(s) on training until level 10, then do raids after that

that is the best start I can think of. after that it's just a matter of properly micromanaging everything. typically speaking if your +happiness is too high, spend it by using edicts/economy town squares (mode 2)