Hmm... what? On the 4th month of the game, you already defeated Yorogos?
If there was no cheating with movement points using a hat, I don't even know how you could reach the barbarians so quickly....
Do you really think the problem is with the too-fast, unplanned timing? (While playing, I saw event messages that I had already passed a long time ago. But according to the script, the AI should attack forces that it outnumbers by a factor of ten.
I saved very often in the game, and each time, by loading the save, I exited using alt-f4 and loaded the desired save.
I started the game with a pawn, considering that it's a very difficult map and that I need to start as successfully as possible, and I followed your advice to run and not lose a single "centimeter" of movement.