Just came back to this game after 10+ years, a question regarding economy:

How many villagers/laborers do you typically have at any given time, in a "regular" game ? How many do you typically create first thing in the game ?

I typically play Egyptian, and I almost always spend all but 50 of my food to create nothing but Laborers, then put 1 of them on Gold and all others on Food to get the 400 food needed to move on to the Classic age as quickly as possible (the reason I keep 50 food is to spend it on a Monument: I play Set, so having a little trickle of Favor early on in the game is useful to me, to quickly summon Animals to scout). But still, I find it takes awhile for me to reach the Classic Age: Even bots on Easy tend to reach it about 40 seconds to a minute before I do.

Is there something I'm doing wrong ? Any way to go faster ? I do use my Pharaoh to boost ressource gains, but is there something more I could do ? Should I forget scouting and not build a Monument to reach the Classic Age faster, and take the risk of not having any Favor gain until the Classic Age ?

Even late in the game, I wonder if I'm below what's needed in terms of laborers in order to have a healthy economy. I hear many people say you need between 30 and 40 of them in a typical game: Would you say that's true ?