Hi ken b, welcome to Pharaoh Heaven.
KurosPaladin,
ken b answered your complaint about invasions in Khmun. I haven't played Khmun yet and can't comment on the differences between your play and the walkthrough. I'll give my ideas on your other questions.
I prefer to build cities in different ways. When it's clear that obtaining victory will take long enough (probably because of monument construction) to satisfy all other goals (such as Prosperity 100), then I usually try to complete the city quickly. For example, Waset (my second-to-latest city) requires a Sun Temple, and sandstone imports are limited to 40/year, so completion will take over 9 years. Since my other goals (such as over 10000 population) appeared to be possible in a little over 9 years, I decided to build quickly.
For a contrary example, Middle Kingdom Thinis (my latest city) has no monument requirements, and could be completed fairly quickly if there were no other goals. However, I prefer "nice" cities, and therefore didn't try to build it quickly. (Another reason, less important to me, is that Thinis is a highly military mission, and it seemed reasonable to extend the mission to make sure that city defenses were adequate.)
I haven't used debt for quite a while in "family history" missions. (I don't use personal funds either, to make it easier to compare my cities with those of other players who do the same.) I like to avoid the "rescue" gift as well, but sometimes I'll take it (especially in military missions, since I'm a mediocre general). My last indebted city was Abedju, and only because it was an informal "speed contest". I was tempted to use debt in Rostja, since it also was an informal "speed contest", but found that debt wasn't necessary to import the maximum limestone. I had a lot of trouble avoiding debt in Dunqul Oasis (my third-to-latest city) at Very Hard difficulty (using extensive micromanagement). Of course, I may have to go into debt if later cities (such as Hetepsenusret) are even stingier with starting/rescue funds and income opportunities, but I'll try hard to avoid it.
My handling of food varies considerably. I generally try to start food production and distribution fairly quickly, as soon as finances are in good shape, but there are exceptions. In Dunqul Oasis, nobody ate for 3.5 years, but (apparently because the population was small) there weren't any medical problems. In Waset, nobody ate for over 2 years, city health fell to poor for a few months, and it was lucky to have no plague.
It may be more difficult to produce food in later missions--herds of animals could be far apart, farm land might be limited or of low fertility, etc. Also, later missions may have higher population requirements. If you have plenty of food, then bazaar buyers may not be able to obtain it quickly enough--building more bazaars should help, as may putting granaries closer to bazaars. Or you may simply be impatient--houses try to store at least a 2 year supply of food, so it takes a considerable food surplus to "fill the pipeline". If your city can produce enough food to feed the eventual population early in its life (when population is much lower), then surpluses should be sufficient to allow rapid growth.
The first services I provide are generally firehouses or architects, to protect the first export industries or gold mines or houses. Water supplies may be built early, if some initial housing is near the entry point and fills quickly. If growth is rapid then temples may be added early, but shrines may be built instead, depending on whether I want to preserve money or workers. Bazaars come later, and entertainment after that. I add courthouses (or perhaps police stations) when crime risk is starting to get high, physicians when disease risk is starting to get high, and apothecaries when malaria risk is starting to get high. If a city is mining gold and therefore has a palace, then tax collectors are usually added fairly early--otherwise, tax collection usually comes significantly later, but it depends on what else I might want to do with the money and workers.
I typically evolve housing as I can afford to do it. If clay and pottery can be produced locally, then houses may be evolved to homesteads early on--otherwise, it may wait for quite a while. Once finances are in good shape, I'll generally try to evolve some houses to manors or estates (bringing in more tax money) even if several of the required goods need to be imported. This can vary, of course, depending on the needs of the mission. For example, to meet my goals for Waset, I evolved some of the houses sooner than I normally would.
[This message has been edited by Brugle (edited 12-10-2002 @ 03:21 PM).]