Well, here is a list of GAGA's hints for newly banished players:
(1) Do not bother with farming during the first years:
Farming provides less food per worker than gatherers and fishers (but more food per space, which makes it good later on). In addition it only generates yields once per year (autumn), so you can run into starvation issues between harvests. Lastely, farming is VERY dependened on weather and a bad harvest (e.g. caused by early snow during autumn) will absolutely ruin your day.
(2) Babysteps:
Build your town step-by-step. Start with a few wooden houses (4-5 will suffice) and then continue to build the other essential buildings. During year one you should build 1-2 gatherers, a fishery (if you have a good spot), a hunter, a herbalist, a forestry and a woodcutter. During year two you should build a forge and a tailor. Once all the basic buildings are running, you should slowly start to build more houses to allow your population to expand. Be careful, though: each house supports one family and allows the first male owner to propagate - building too many houses will result in a horde of children that can cause starvation. Babysteps. Slowly.
(3) Build extra stockpiles, barns and houses outside of the town:
By building a house near a workplace, you can significantly improve productivity. A citizen will fetch food at home or in a barn (and at low food levels, houses have a higher chance to be stocked with food than barns) and warm themselves if it is cold outside. Adding more stockpiles and barns will shorten the path to drop off gathered items. Quite helpful if you order your workers to remove ressources at an remote part of the map. Later on you can also get a market, a building that acts as centralized storage to distribute goods to your pops - they employ vendors that move around with a wheelbarrow and collect goods from other stockpiles and barns.
(4) Dirt roads will do:
During the early game, you shouldn't build any roads at all (since it takes quite some time for your limited workforce to create the tiles). Later on you should put down dirt roads to speed up your citizens - they require no ressources aside from worker time. Stone roads are quite good on your main routes, but you should only build them once you have all other important buildings, since they cost 1 stone per tile.
(5) Building synergies:
Gatherers, Herbalists and Hunters benefit from forest trees (ressources spawn below them). Since the game does not distinguish between ancient forests and newly planet ones, you can use a forestry to plant more trees and increase density above natural levels.
(6) Trade is good:
Trading is the only way to obtain seeds and cattle. It also gives you the opportunity to buy ressources. So build a trading post once you have your basic economy running. Firewood (4 trade value per unit), Tools (8 TV/unit), Hides (10 TV/u) and Hide Coats (15 TV/u) are great early game commodities. Later on you might want to switch to Warm Coats (20 TV per unit). Another interesting trading good is Coal (6 TV/u), which seems to be far more profitable than Steel Tools (8 TV/u, requires 1 iron + 1 coal + 1 log to manufacture). As far as I can tell, basic food has no trade value, while meat can be sold for 3 TV/u.
(7) Build smart to mitigate disasters:
If you have activated the "disaster" option, they will strike sooner or later. Some are annoying, some are deadly, but their impact can usually be reduced by "building smart". In general, you should always have some extra buildings of each type. This way you can use them if you end up with a certain good shortage or if others are destroyed.
Disasters I experienced so far and what to do against them:
Fire: Can spread to other buildings and devestate your town. Countermeasures: Leave open spaces between your buildings, construct enough wells to supply water.
Infestation: Will kill crops or livestocks over time, can spread to adjected fields/pastures. Countermeasures: Leave gaps between fields/pastures. Clear the infected area from crops/livestock asap. Build multiple pastures for each type of livestock in different areas of the map so you have a reserve. Have some excess food buildings (Gatherers/Fisheries) to compensate for your food loss.
Tornado: Will destroy any building in its path, kills all nearby citizens. Countermeasures: Not much. All you can do is trying to limit the impact of the destruction. Spread out your important buildings and storage spaces instead of clustering them in one location. Create a ressource removal task in a remote area and assign all threatened citizen to it to make them move away from the danger.
Disease: Will kill your citizens. Countermeasures: Avoid trading, build a hospital to cure ill pops.
Early Winter: Not a disaster per-se, but nevertheless a devestating event (and even possible without activated disasters). It is caused by snowfall during autumn that destroys your harvest before it can be brought in. Countermeasures: Assign more farmers to save as much food as possible. Produce and store enough to have a reserve. Have some extra food buildings (Gatherer/Fishery) ready to mitigate the food loss.
(8) Use an adequate size for farms and pastures:
Don't use max sized farm plots. They require significantly more farmers to be worked. A 10x10 sized farm plot can be managed by a single farmer if it is near his home & has barn nearby. Assigning 2 farmers is a much safer bet, though, and will make sure that the harvest is collected in time.
(9) Tools are a must-have:
Workers without tools are extremely ineffective. If you ever run out of tools make sure to build another blacksmith asap! Lack of tools will lead to mass starvation, making it even harder for you to aquire tools. If you manage to run out of tools before building your first blacksmith you might as well restart the game - it is that bad.
(10) Be careful with education:
While educated workers a significantly more effective, it takes a long time before they will actually work. Be sure to have ample ressource stockpiles when building your first school - the delay from education will result in a significant short-term inefficiency for your economy by having a lot more useless mouths to feed. If you should find yourself in trouble you can unassign the teacher to abort the education of the students and turning them into adults immediately. At the same note, be careful to always have some unassigned citizens: If you teacher dies and you don't have a free worker to take his/her place, all students will immediately abort their education.
(11) Manage your pops during a crisis:
Reassign your workers if you should suffer from a lot of dead pops (due to starvation, hypothermia or another disaster). You will usually end up with a shortage for your workforce AND a significant number of children, a quite deadly combiantion. Reduce the number of Stonecutters, Miners and Foresters and focus on keeping your food supplies up. Gather on-map ressources if you quickly need to fill your stockpile. Reduce all other industries to bare-minimum employment. Your pops can actually survive a winter without having enough firewood, but lack of food is a lot more deadly.
(12) Food producing buildings 101:
Gatherer: Provides most output per worker and offers 4 different food types, but only low-value plants. Requires trees. Great for early game. Gatherers may occasionally die to poisonous berries.
Hunter: Provides decent food output per worker. Does also create hides, which are needed to make coats or can be sold for quite a profit. Requires deer, which seems to like forested areas. Production can fluctuate depending on how many deers enter the area of operation. Hunters can occasionally die to wild boars.
Fisher: Provides decent output per worker, but only 1 food type. Food-per-worker is lower than hunter, but fisheries can be build close to the settlement, which allows results in short ways to deliever the goods. Requires water, seems to perform better if more water is inside the area of operation. Fishers may occasionally drown.
Farm: Provides okay output per worker. Offers only 1 type of food per farm plot, but you can choose between a wide variety of goods after you have aquired the seeds via trade. While farm output is usually smaller than other food producing buildings, they provide the most food-per-space, making them ideal to support large settlements. Unlike other food producing buildings they provide food once per year (autumn) and can be affected by weather, so output can fluctuate heavily. Farmers have nothing to do during winter and will act as laborers during this season. Farms will ocassionally suffer from infestation.
Pasture: Provides okay output per workers. Offers only 1 type of food per pasture, but you can select the type of livestock you want to use. In addition, all animals provide extra goods: eggs (chicken), wool (sheep), leather (cattle). They are also a decent "backup supply", since you can slaughter the animals in times of need. Pastures will ocassionally suffer from infestation.
Orchards: Provides low output per worker. Offers only 1 type of food per orchard, but you can choose between a wide variety of goods after you have aquired the seeds via trade. Most fruits can be used to make ale. Trees need time to grow, so orchards will require several years before they actually produce yields. In return, trees provide higher food output as they grow older. They have to be replaced after some time, though. Overall output seems to be lowest of all food buildings, however they probably need the least time to be managed by the workers. In theory it should be enough to assign a few people during harvest season to bring in the food, so orchards might be an ideal back-up source for times of need. Just plant a few of them and assign a single worker to keep them alive until you need them. Just make sure to keep your them out of range from any forestries...