The population raises by one when you have yielded water and food equal to (current population-1). to increase population growth, simply upgrade your farm and well.
Quick suggestion: add further research to the merchandise buildings so that you can research each villager to work more efficiently at the merchandise buildings
on the last boss, just put those crow stones on his hands, start with the left one, then press the grey wall, after that, just right click and let it be :)