well a lot of ppl do struggle with getting food and gold so going to make a new game now
and post everything you need to know for making gold in here and will add screenshots to it ;)
i will only focus on the making of gold in this guide so it will not be the best way how to build things exactly ;)

small hint you make money on the ppl that dont have a job ;) so the idle ones
so if you really can't get your gold flowing you need more homes ;)
and building upkeep rises for every isle that's a bridge farther away from you home castle
so keep your things close at the start ;) and nicely pull the islands around your starting point ;)

so yeah BIG SPOILER ALERT do not read on if you want to find things out at your own

wil start with some basics ːDː
build homes
build food
1 wood building 1 quarry

keep looking at the top of you screen you always want things to be positive ;)

so you build a few homes and a few farms
dont build to many farms ;)

for money u build homes
for food the farms ;)
dont get a to big + on food at the start ;) it only needs to be +2
so take some ppl of your farms if it gets more than that you wil get more gold for the ppl that dont work ;)

your wood en quarry only need 1 ppl working in them at the start;)
if you get low on wood or stone increase it a bit ;)
dont be afraid to take them out of the buildings again if you need gold and have enough wood or stone again ;) dont needs to be more then 600 or so at the beginning ;)

just keep all your resources at a minimum
dont make more then 4 a 5 farms at the start ;) and dont build more than 2 or 3 before the others have been upgraded so yeah you need to upgrade your castle to be able to upgrade your homes and farms ;)
more buildings is more upkeep to pay ;)

you want to start using the support buildings humans the mill elves the fish pond ;)
>>will add some screenshots of this later on<<
>>see screenshot below for finisht game setup// also added the starting screenshot of my new game<<

you will end your game with around 6 a 7 farms and around 30 support buildings
you can feed 1000 people with that ;) but that's if you make things to big like me :P

>edit1 ːDː
late game screenshot that shows how i build everthing you need its only 7 farms and alot of support buildings 30 total ;) i know there are no recourses more on the isles you see here ːDː
it's a good screenshot to show the set up a bit
and you can see i got all the isles nicely around mine to keep the upkeep low
almost every building you need is on it ;) as you can see i used 1 isle to the right of my castle for all the heroes
screenshot from another gameplay

<
>>>>edit4
last screenshot of the real new game for the guide no resources left on the isles
you only need 7 farms and 23 support buildings ːDː

rebuilded some buildings to arrange things a bit better ːDː
army ready to attack the enemy ːDː
funny thing both screenshots almost have the same setup ːsteamhappyː
<<<<

yust get up to 4/5 farms and start adding support buildings when needed ;)
if your gold start flowing and you get around 300 ppl ore so maby add a next farm ;)
dont get more then 7 :P and yust keep adding support buildings when needed .

>>edit2

my first screenshot of the new game i started as you can see i have 4 farms ;)
here is the point where you start placing support buildings for food and homes for money ːDː
and can go crazy on building everything you want you should be able to have a pretty stable income at this point of the game
<<
>>>edit3

just had to add one more with the actual support buildings and more homes in place ːDː
and the extra 5 farm ath 300+ppl
and that you see a real decent income was a bit low on the other one :P
it was the point where it did get stable to ːDː
as you can see i started to make a run for resources ːDː
<<<

you do want to send some explorers to al the isles you connect and do the geologic thing so you know where to get some resources like iron coal and diamond and rubies later on ;)
you need diamonds for upgrading your castle
and iron for your heros and stuff dont build the iron building before you run out of it ;)
you need the resources for food and homes for gold first :P

and dont forget to build a few buildings to get hero's ;) you need to be able to kill the birds and barbarians that you will encounter over time ;)

and dont forget you are not alone in this world and you want isles ;)
so when you have magic use the eye bal on isles and start pulling them close and build a bridge thats al, most isles you only need to build some homes on ;)
and you don't want the ai to have them you need them to get your resources out later on ;)
>>>and especially the isles with the birds on it you dont want to lose those to the ai ːDː
so use your magic when you can ;)
>>also edit2

as you can see i did encounter the ai and used al my magic to get as many islands connected as i can ːDː
and didn't build much yet only what you really need for getting your income stable and some defense ːDː
<<

so yeah at the start your main focus wil be building food and homes for gold
and some heroes to defend yourself ;) all the other stuff blends in when you feel you are up for it ;)

i am not going to tell you what other buildings you need to build and in what order
you need to learn this game a bit at your own ;)
but if you follow this a bit and the tutorial guy ingame it should work out for you ;)

>>>>>edit5
how to replenish your resources
well when you get out of resources just blow up some isles and make new ones i hold on to space specially for this ;)

so yeah normally i have 4 isle over here just to get the resources out ;)
1 i just blow up for the screenshot you can still see the other 3 i just placed over there ;) they have no bridge yet :P
my mouse is on the spell to place an isle , the red one to the right of it is to blow them up
so yeah that's how you reset your resources
ofcourse if you did follow my guide correctly you don't really need that you can just buy them on the market

but it is fun to play with the isles a bit so i had to add it :)
<<<<<

>>>>>>edit6
you can build portals with magic to lower your upkeep at far away isles
a portal wil count as 1 bridge away from your main castle isle
you build the portal on your starting isle to the isle that you want to lower the upkeep of ;)
don't forget you need to replace the portal over and over again if you want to use the benefits of this ;)
it will also lower the cost of the isle close to it ;) so one isle next to the isle with the portal on it will count as 2 bridges away from your main castle isle, and so on ;)
<<<<<<

<<<<
this was out of my head with out playing. so if i missed something i will add it later on.
and will add some screenshots later on ;)
>>also edit2
screenshots are added and didn't find anything i missed yet so this al should work out for you<<
>>>>

we'll hope it helps you out a bit if you have any questions or see something i did forget or is unclear please let me know and i will update this post ;)