Civilization IV

[player1]

How many cities are reccomended before you reach AD?

When you maintaince starts to drop so that you are forced to have less then 50-60% on science then stop.
Larger expansion would hurt you economicaly

How spread out should the cities be?

4 tiles should be fine. Sometime closer sometime father.
important thing is too place cities near some of the bonus resources since they can give big boost to food commerce or production, after approprice tile improvement is built.

How many farms, cottages etc should be built around a city?

The key is too improve all tiles that your city population is working on (white circles). Don't improve unworked tiles of one city, if other city has worked tiles without improvement. Use your workers efficiently.

Also all other tips are welcome.

Try apolyton.net and civfanatics.com forums.