How to learn this game

So I'm a fairly new player. But I've known the game for quite some time, when I was younger I always used to watch my nephew play this game. Now I finnaly get my own hands on it, definitly some nostalgia. Anyways, I already knew the basics: make sure no idle TC or vills, scout, basic unit counters, etc. . But I struggled A LOT with getting my eco going (I didn't know that build orders were a thing untill a week ago... lol).

So I found a mod, which is fairly popular, I forgot the name but it is basically a step by step build order guide in-game. So I began with practicing the fast castle into cav. I did a couple of times, got the hang of luring my boar, and the hotkeys. And after 7-8 tries I got an A+. This felt like an achievement, but at the same time it felt like I wasn't really learning the game, it felt like I was studying.

I learned that after 6 vils to food, send 4 to wood, without thinking about why I should do that, and why 4 and not 5? All these kind of questions, because I don't have a feeling with the game. In other words: I don't have a sense of how fast a vill gathers and how much I need to get to a certain goal. Which leads to me not being adaptable, at all. So my question is, should I just keep going on with practicing build orders? And by doing many different ones, I will maybe begin to see some paterns? Or should I do something different?