Banished

If your population becomes stagnant you will find that workers will die off faster than they are replaced. If you haven't built a town hall, do it. It allows you to track statistics like food production and population growth.

Every year you should be building a few houses. The biggest problem with a growing a population is you have kids living with their parents and there just isn't enough room for a baby.

I usually set up my town with 5 house side by side in a row. I then put another 5 running parallel to them. Farms are directly across from the houses to cut down on walk time. I always try to build the biggest farm you can. I think it is 15x15. I then put down a log cutter, blacksmith, and weaver. Depending on my population and trade I might put down multiples. When you have a surplus of labor and a steady growth going, put down a school. Warehouses are very important. Build a lot of them for the years you don't produce as much.

It is possible to fish and hunt the wildlife to extinction. It takes a lot to do that and you should never run into the problem if you don't overlap hunting cottages or fishing docks. After I figure out where I'm putting my next expansion I would find a spot of untouched wilderness and put a gatherer's hut, hunting cottage, herbalist, tree cutter, and a house or two all together in the middle. Hunting lodges don't need to be where there are deer.

There is a removal tool that allows you to just collect a certain resource. If you find you are running low on iron, click the tool and make a huge square over iron. If you are still low on tools, make more blacksmiths.

My year usually starts with me pulling everyone from their usual jobs and making them farmers. When you click on a farm you can adjust how many people can work it. Large farms should have 6 workers, and at least 4. Orchards are luxuries. They take years to see a return and even then it isn't much. When winter comes I reassign all the farmers to various other jobs I need. Most buildings can have the maximum worker count raised, and it should be. Having one fishing dock with max workers is better than 3 with 1 or 2 workers.

It is possible to reach a point where your town becomes self sufficient. A friend of mine tried it. He said there would be years where a large population of the community would die off, but would rebound many years later for a surplus. You will be cursing old people in this game for taking up valuable space for a 20 year old to have a baby with a 11 year old.