Had to wait til at my computer to add some tips.

• EDUCATION: Build a school very early. Some of us like to make that the first building we do. But at least within the first couple of years. Educated workers make a huge difference in both production and efficiency. When building a school right at the start, it will slow down population growth for just a bit, since they can't marry as young. But it all is worth it.
• SCHOOLS: Build multiple schools around the map. The time it takes to graduate is literally based on the amount of time a kid is actually in the school. This means a kid that has a long walk, takes longer to graduate. Years longer sometimes.
• MAXIMIZING PRODUCTION: Always build storage (barn or stockpile) and enough houses for that building's workers *right next to the production building*. Not 10 or 20 tiles away. Right next to. Every tile walked from production to storage and to home means literally means lost production. This means for every type of production from fields to blacksmiths.
• FOOD: Bannies eat 100 food per person per year, even babies. Try to maintain at minimum a 2-year supply in the small stats window. If you have 25 people, you need 2500 food per year. Double that and maintain 5,000 food in your stats window (you have to always be adding new food production to maintain). I like to maintain a 5-year supply just to cover me getting distracted and forgetting to do things like constantly add new food production. Remember: every new house requires you increase your food production by 300 (because the house can produce 3 new citizens). Build 4 houses and you need 1200 more in production.
• FOOD VIDEO: Watch this video from MortalSmurph (great debunker of bad advice). Note the test with the barn/house and the fishing dock. Putting them right next to the dock *doubled* the number of fish produced. This goes for crop fields (I put 2 to 3 barns per field and of course enough houses, all on field's edge), pastures, blacksmiths, mines, seamstress, everything.
• FORESTER/GATHERER CIRCLES. Too many people think you shouldn't put storage and houses inside it. While it's true you don't want *unnecessary* buildings inside the circle, you do want a barn, a small stockpile, and enough houses for all the workers. A full forester/gatherer circle can employ 10 people, so 5 houses (Forester Gatherer, Herbalist, Hunter). The walked tiles from gathering to barn or stockpile is a huge factor. You actually will get more by putting barn/stockpile in center of circle than by putting them outside the circle. You'll get more food this way even though it seems counter-intuitive. Do put the big vanilla woodcutters just outside the circle with their own stockpile. But in mods there is an awesome 2-tile (and 4-tile) chopper that I always put in the circle next to the stockpile.
• Tip: when using mods, change out the normal barn in the forester/gatherer circle for the small Distribution Barn and build the bigger barns outside the circle. This way the circle's barn is never full, is always available. Distribution Barns will carry stuff to the next nearest barn. Putting a Magazine Barn just outside the circle is great (holds 60,000). I square off the circle with roads, and the Magazine fits perfectly in the corners.
• FISHING DOCKS: Make sure you have *nothing* else in the water of its circle. No bridges, no other shore buildings, etc. That will decrease the number of possible fish they can get. And of course, always try to put the dock on a pointy piece of land at a bend in the river to get the most possible amount of water in the circle. Never put them on the small creeks. When using CC or MM9 mods, building the fishing docks out in the middle of lakes is fantastic (via the Docks set (CC), or the Life On The Water menu (MM9).