Strategy
Owner of a 3 week old city here (old tech tree though). I definitely spent way more time in this city because of how needy it was to get going. My biggest city needs the least time because settlement stuff takes forever and timewarp allows tourney to be done way in advance. I vaguely remember from starting my 2nd city how awful the coin crunch was so when I started this one, I overbuilt housing out of the gate to alleviate the coin issue, as in I had way more houses than I needed. I had a bunch of spare population not yet enslaved for the purpose of collecting rent. Almost all techs and upgrades require coins and supplies only so goods aren't really used except catering. Second, I purposely overscouted for both coins from NH, which I knew was going to be the bulk of my income, and to open as many provinces in tourney for relics to raise my boost. I left one very easy province in case of emergency, but everything else is already very hard. This might be a contentious strategy, but I feel as long as I know there is an upcoming Orc wall, I can always adjust my province clearing pacing later. Right now, it suits me to overscout and I am aiming to open 6 provinces so I can cycle through all the relics during tourney. Third, I updated Main Hall as soon as possible because again, bulk of the income is going to come from NH. Then I went hogs wild on T1 factories. Whatever you think you need for T1s, probably build 3 more. That's going to be the bulk cost of catering and your best contribution to your team as a baby city is to churn out bracelets galore. I'm catering full Spire and map provinces. Can't fight map anyway cause everything but my emergency province is already very hard. My troops are only for tourney and I'll only fight the first 6 provinces so it's not going to require that many troops at all. The rest I will cater. My tourney this week is 1890. I only had 7 provinces opened. So no, it's absolutely not that hard to contribute your fair share of a blueprint. You can autofight the first 6 provinces with your eyes closed, no buffs, no wonders, and no fed Fire Chickens, and still have troops left over if you know how to manage your resources.
Once I hit chap 3, I took my foot off the pedals and then started working on T2s, barracks, T3s, and lastly workshops. Workshops are very costly to upgrade with coins and time, but you could brew if necessary so it can wait. With Spire access, you will win a lot of coin rains, supply windfalls, and time instants (all portal profits will be substituted with coin rains and supply windfalls) so it's adios coin and supply issues. Get on that Spire, people! Once I could upgrade my residences to level 15, I teleported some lvl 6 ones away to make more space. Now I can take my time with upgrading workshops (or speed through with time instants), which I'm going to need if I start to add armories and Needles wonder. Now that I'm more or less settled in, I'm going to go even harder on over-producing T1s to start building my war chest. I plan to over-scout and over-expand so I need to cover for this increased cost, but it'll simultaneously prepare me for FAs. Mainly, I'm looking at how much I'm spending in each section of Lab on average and making sure I'm producing enough goods to cover that in time.
I did hit a culture crunch too because the culture buildings from the build menu are awful so I had to wait for the start of the event to replace them. I spent all of my event currency, but only managed to win 2 Skulls of Splendor, despite the fact I was temporarily in Gold league. Yet, that was enough to relieve my culture problem so that shows how terrible build menu culture stuff are. It's so bad that I even have a Ground of the Orc Strategist, not really for making Orcs, but it offers a far better culture per tile yield!
Observations
So far I've learned it's a waste of diamonds to upgrade your MA to lvl 5 already because I don't have the relics to craft enchantments and I don't have the spell frags to craft recipes either. Despite blowing a ton of diamonds, my MA sits mostly idle. Therefore, that one can definitely be put on the back burner. You'll still eventually want a lvl 5 MA, but you don't need one this early yet.
This 3rd city also shares diamonds with my main city, which allowed me to upgrade my MA to lvl 5 and also acquire 4 bear artifacts already. I also converted 2 raccoons from FA so my Brown Bear is already at lvl 6! My 2nd city is on EN and it never shared diamonds with my first city. Everything there had to be earned from scratch again. This is a ridiculous advantage, so anyone who thinks the game has an even competitive premise is lying to themselves. I did have to close my eyes and frag Pet Food today before weeping into a pillow. It hurt, but it had to be done. I'm not feeding my Brownie anytime soon and I don't have anything else that need Pet Food at this time, but the cupboards are bare and I've fragged everything else. This damn diaper city better get into a good school because so far, it's a diamond pit! I'm actually thinking of working on a Polar Bear next after Brownie instead of Fire Phoenix because I'm won't have enough provinces to require a Fire Phoenix yet, but quality of life and getting more rounds of tourney in to get more relics for boost and crafting is more important right now. I'm estimating the real kung fu fighting starts in Fairies or Orcs so I have time yet.