A few thoughts...
The biggest thing that stands out is that he won the city war. That means he is at an advantage in a long game. You also know that curses will likely run out, triggering L2 cities. You need to decide whether to contest cities or not, and stick to it. Notice how he buys cities first, then wharves, while you mix wharves and cities. If you weakly contest cities, like you did, you end up in the worst of both worlds. You're spending your early $5s on villages, and late game, he'll get much more benefit than you will from them. You either need to match him city buy for buy, or ignore them completely. You buying 3 cities helps him activate that much sooner.
Next, you know he will have fully activated cities, since cities were bought out, and curses will run out. So you don't want a long game. The longer the game goes, the worse it is for you. Ideally you finish it before curses run out. So, I don't like the double wharf buy on T14. You're building an engine when you know he's got you beat in engine quality.
The other thing to consider is the ease of 3 piling. L3 cities are a huge boon for 3 piling, especially with peddler. That should have set off warning bells. If your opponent can 3 pile, you need to build up a VP lead. That way he spends his time trying to catch up and reduces what he can spend 3 piling.
Double Mountebank is very strong. On this board, I would probably always buy 2 of them.
About engines. It is very hard to build an engine with mountebank on the board and no trashing. And if you're not building an engine, I wouldn't bother with city. You will get filled up with curses and coppers. Make him spend 10 turns paying $5 for village, open with 2 mountebanks, buy a couple wharfs once your deck is bigger, and I think you're golden.
