been a while since I've played CIV V.
-great people specialist generation (scientist, writer, artist , engineer, merchant) must be manually supervised . Artists and writers have separate counters but scientists, engineers and merchants compete for the same points (getting one increases the cost for the others) so you must supervise which one you want more (scientist) and when/if ever do you want to squeeze one of the other ones (engineer/merchant). Rationalism/Korea/Freedom make it very useful to run most specialist slots but you must still micro which type will get produced
-free hammer or gold growth production trick. Already explained in thread.
Newly born citizens CANNOT produce food the turn they are born. They can however produce hammer and/or gold. (might seem like tiny amounts but it adds up - your empire might easily end up with 60+ population by the end of a game. Having at least a mine/tradepost always available in every city can maximize this benefit).. Percent wise this will be felt more strongly on new cities focused on growth with low production - but the benefits are game long . Remember to move the new guy on a food tile the next turn if growth is still required (most of the time it is) ..
-also mentioned in thread -settler production. Hammers are better (usually) better than food, starvation won't happen and you will need proper worker management ahead of even building the settler(s) (acquire worker(s) , acquire high production tiles - IMPROVE high production tiles before building workers).
-every turn check every city for food or production overflow/"waste". Sometime you can shift a citizen from food tile to shave a turn (or more) of production (or gaining extra gold per turn) while growing a new citizen in the same amount of turns. (food overflow). Or you could remove guys from production of a critical unit/building/wonder without losing a production turn and shaving a turn(or more) to grow a new citizen. Check every city every turn .
-make certain you're working critical tiles like Spain wonders, academies, sacred sites, world wonders with faith partheon, archeologist/generally huge culture tiles unless ex waiting for prophet to spawn (waste of faith)
-periods of unforeseen unhappiness due to various causes (opposing ideology adoption/pressure, CS coup, luxury pillage, DOW .. etc ) require to bring all the food excess next to 0 (nearly useless during unhappiness) and maximize specialist, production & gold output during the unhappy times - while working hard on getting happy again to resume empire growth ASAP.
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(short periods of) CONTROLLED STARVATION TO ACCELERATE WONDERS OR HELP SYNC FOR NATIONAL WONDERS - (everybody will preach on the importance of continuous furious growth of your empire population but short periods of controlled starvation on your production center or late city can be a powerful tool) - probably not going to use this much early game since the "food bucket" is still low and early growth is paramount - but even early game it can be used to shave a few turns of a critical wonder. Later on with huge food bucket you could go say 50 turns with minor food deficit before having to switch back to positive and not lose a citizen. Again typically used for speeding up contested wonders . Or go a few turns with massive food deficit for huge production or gold increased output. New city behind on library / barracks / market/ university/ temple etc .. holding back National wonders (college) - controlled starvation might give that poor town a chance to get the critical building in sync with the rest when money is not available to rush buy..
-the limit growth button can sometimes keep your empire above unhappiness (and its score of penalties) until you can scrounge up some extra happiness.
-not all cities need to grow forever. Sometimes due to happiness constraints it would benefit to limit the population size of some of your cities. When the desired limit is reached - try to get near 0 food balance and work specialists + maximize production & gold output. Good city state play can alter the constraints (extra happy to grow more ) or extra food to work more specialist/production/gold tiles ..
The citizen management GOES HAND IN HAND WITH WORKER MANAGEMENT (getting enough workers - steal/build/buy), ACQUIRING AND IMPROVING THE TILES IN THE BEST ORDER. Chopping forests at the right time (early) can help accelerate the early game (get another worker faster or granary with tons of relevant resources or even win contested wonders) . Good city placement.
Workers are a finite resource and huge benefits can be gained by employing them effectively IN CONJUNCTION WITH tile acquisition and citizen micro-management on this newly improved tiles.
And the food cargo-ship/caravan micro-management (deployment and protection) is crucial to the above (starting with city placement (cargo ships being so much more effective than caravans) )
And somewhat relevant - rush buying some critical buildings in needy cities -> typically library on late/poor production city to speed up NC . Or perhaps aqueduct on late settled city to make it grow overnight in conjunction with a cargo ship. Or maybe a light house on a coastal resource rich new city.
in other words
citizen management is pretty key