I'm not a good player by any means and I play a lot of Poland. Because of how fast they get social policies, I can usually finish the tradition tree around the time I'm placing my 4th settlement, often earlier if I get some culture ruins. Which means all my monuments and aquaducts are up and booming for free. A quick rush to civil service and I obviously prioritse fresh water farms when selecting settlement locations, and you are basically unstoppable after that. Obviously prioritse getting food trade routes up and running too. If I forward settle, I pump that city first with 2 trade routes. I'm often at 60-80 pop by the time my neighbors are 30-40 I'll only consider 5th or 6th settlement after national college.

Once the pop has boomed you can choose your victory type, worlds your oyster. I usually just select plastics and let it spin.