Hi pan_cake. I assume you're playing vanilla AoM, not Titans - yes ?
Hunting is the way to go on maps that have lots - savanna, ghost lake, watering hole, etc. Villagers gather food fastest from hunted animals, and the hunting dogs tech improves it even further.
note - hunted animals do not include goats, cows or chickens. I mean, who ever heard of going hunting wild chicken out in the forests .. save goats and cows til later, if you can. They fatten over time.
The thing with animals is finding nice big groups of them - the weaker ones (zebras, etc) don't attack your villagers and go down with one or two shots. Bigger animals (rhinos, elephants) are tougher and will attack your villies if shot at, but they are worth lots of food. The trick is to get a good-sized hunting party together (9 or 10 villies, maybe more) so they can take down big animals without getting chopped up for food themselves !! Maybe throw in a military unit or two, or a priest or some other unit that can heal injured units (like villies).
No matter which civ you play, try this and see how you get on -
If you're lucky you may see a patch of animals within line of sight of your town centre when you start. If you do, send your two starting villies to build a granary smack in the middle of them. If the animals are not aggressive ones, the villies will start hunting as soon as they've build the granary. Get about 5 villies on food. Send your next few to gold and wood, then back onto food again. Research hunting dogs as soon as your granary is built.
If there's no hunting, go to the berry bush/chickens instead. Get the lot. While doing so, scout for animals. Move some villies off berries/chicks onto animals. Try to keep food gathering constant - constantly scout for more food, and dont leave your villies idle. If there's not much hunting, get the herded animals upgrade first (which also lets your villies carry more food, therefore less walking, more gathering).
Food is the most important resource in Archaic, much more so than wood & gold. Once you're at 400 food with a temple built, go up, and maybe move some villies from food onto wood or gold as you're going up, cos wood & gold become more important in classical (though you still always need lots of lovely foooooooood).
Farming is the slowest villie-based food production there is, plus you have to build the farm too which costs wood (gold as Eggies) and time, and you cant build farms in Archaic unless you're Eggy. Start farming only when your other sources of food start to run out, and get the upgrades ASAP.
Placement of drop sites is important too. You dont want your villies to be walking miles to drop off food (or any other resource). Greeks suffer a bit more here as granaries cost wood to build. Eggies get free economic buildings but they are slow to build them. Norse of course get mobile drop sites (ox-carts) which you should keep an eye on, and move closer to your villies accordingly.
Some civ-specific tips :-
One Greek civ (I can't remember which one..) gets the Lure GP, which attracts a few animals from all over the map for a time. Cast this near your patch of hunted animals for continuous foodage.
Eggy Pharoahs (and Ra Priests) can empower the granary to speed up those lazy villies. Divide your pharoah's time between scouting and empowering.
Norse - Odin's Great Hunt GP is great, cast it on a patch of animals to get more free ones. The smaller the animal, the more you get.
Good luck and see you online some time !
mmmmm... beeeeeer....