Nice game! I played it twice and won easily both times. I was initially confused with the difference between population and "workers", but figured it out. Figuring out that clicking is necessary to harvest resources wasn't hard thanks to the blue glow. On the first run I didn't buy the "Storehouse" because I wasn't sure what it did, but I got it on the second run, and it made the game way too easy. I think it would be better without that.
The winning strategy I used both times was to ignore farming completely, and instead just prioritize planting apple trees next to every water tile. Since they harvest pretty quickly and only cost food to build, and don't need any workers, you can easily support a whole bunch of workers as soon as the trees are developed.
Then you just wait for mining and forest tiles to appear, and create mining stations when they do, since population isn't limited by food. When a pirate ship comes, you just build a tower and an adjacent shoot-fast building, and then pirate ships won't knock out any tiles, so they're no problem.
I really liked the game! I had more fun the first time I played it, though, without the storehouse.