I just finished Orcs in a little over 3 weeks in my Sinya city. This was a week and a half faster than I did it in my first city.
1) I upgraded my residences first since they change size & orientation, and because they are a lot more productive, I was able to sell off a few to save space.
2) Then I got rid of all the pure culture bldgs, but I had enough culture from hybrid bldgs that I was able to continue doing the rest of the upgrades (workshops, etc) while the settlement was in place. I was willing to go culture negative if needed, though.
3) Settlement started with the portal & 55+ mushroom farms split 50-50 making hardshrooms & psychoshrooms.
4) After building up a stockpile, I removed a dozen farms and replaced them with 2 rally points to make debris.
5) Production of hardshrooms, psychoshrooms & debris continued until I was able to level the portal to 4, at which point I went ALL portal profit. It takes around 545% total of PP to produce all the research goods (if my math is off feel free to call me on it). I did not spend PP in Dwarves or Fairies, and I do go to the Lab or the top of the spire every week, so I had plenty of them.
I never upgraded any farms or rally points. I was even able to complete all the chapter quests while I was waiting on KP for the tech tree. Orcs makes me grumpy and not want to play, so I needed to get to Woodelves (which I love) asap.