DrPepper836:
The core of your problem is economic management, which strangely enough, makes DaveMcW's suggestion on the dot.
You should not have 2 other cities in the game at turn 45 unless you're running a lot of Cottages in a largish Capital to fund them, and if you are, you'll never finish that Pyramid in any acceptable time especially if you don't chop Forests for the production boosts.
What you want to do is to grow core cities to fund fringe cities.
Get this into your head: New cities cost you money. They don't benefit your empire, they're money-sinks - drags and leeches, the lot of them. You have to turn them around into productive members of society before you can make (or conquer) more.
Think of it this way. New cities are little babies that need feeding and don't work. You need for them to grow up before you can add more babies to your family, then you can use your now-adult generation to support the new babies.
With that in mind, count Commerce. If you plan to use your Capital for the Pyramids, you don't want Commerce in there. You want food and hammers. Make Workers, grow the city, develop and work tiles that make food or hammers. Your second city will have to bear the brunt of Commerce and Research until your Pyramids come online. So grow it, too, develop it (preferably with Workers made from the Capital prior to Pyramids), and have it make Commerce and Food, with a minor in hammers for the buildings.
Once it's grown up, make a third and fourth city from the second one. Delaying making Settlers and Workers until a city is about size 4 or 5 seems counterintuitive, but it's actually faster that way in the long run. The exception to this is the Capital at 4000BC, which you will often want to make Workers first, if you can put that Worker to use as soon as he comes out.
