First off I have not played for ages. So I might be a little rusty.
The BO the I remember using requires 1 TC by gold/wood and 1 TC by food/wood. You are definately right about being screwed with a 3 settle start.
BO:
Villager 1 and 2 goes to wood.
Villager 3 and 4, one to wood, one to food.
Villager 5 and 6, one to wood, one to food.
Keep doing the one to wood and one to food until you have enough for War Camp. (to save a few precious seconds, have all your wood gathers drop off resorces a little bit before reaching 225 wood. The partially loaded villager will push you over the 225 wood needed to build the War Camp.
Use all wood gathers to build the War Camp. You may pull off one or two to start gathering gold but be aware of the danger involed if a LS shows up and is able to attack your unfinished War Camp (Most likely means game over). I usally just use all villagers to build that War Camp. Once you build that War Camp, you should only be gathering food and gold.
Now about wanting to produce your first spearman faster than 3:40. I will advise you not to worry about getting it faster. It is definately possible but you will have to sacrafice villager production (not a good thing).I know that this BO also sacrafice villy production but it is as small as nessesary to survive the LS rush. Not producing a villager is almost like a LS killing a villager.
Your Primary objective should be to get the War Camp up before a LS shows up. The way to hold off the LS rush is not by making a faster spearman but, microing your villagers. Don't just scatter all you Villagers once they get attacked. Villagers won't die that fast so you can micro them from 1 gathering spot(gold) to the other gathering spot (food). If the LS follows the villager to the other gathering spot, make him chase you away from your camp. Keep running away while producing Spearmans. Once you have about 3 or 4 you can start using monsoon to pick off the LS. (A good player will also micro his LS so they are hard to kill until you have minimum of 3 Spearman plus monsoon).
Once you have 5 or 6 spearman you should start gathering wood again. I like to build the armory and go for elephants then priest to heal up my spearman and villagers. For some reason I like to go for the Volcano right in their base after this. Its not nessesarly the best strat but it really pisses them offBut, keep in mine, A England player of equal skill will still beat you. (that is just the way the game is).This strat will at least allow you to survive past the 10 minute mark against good players and you will be able to beat most of the players that are not as skilled as you(who only beat you because of this imbalance).
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way, you’ll be a mile from them, and you’ll have their shoes.
--Jack Handey Deep Thoughts