Some Basics
There will be a lot here for beginners. This will be stuff you know if you are an experienced player, but I'm sending to everyone anyway.
Profile a few suggestions:
Do put some favorite quotes or such in your profile. A blank profile is the calling card of a newb. It tells experienced players you are likely to be easy pickings. Don't put offending, political, religious, or other inciting remarks in your profile, unless you enjoy being attacked more than necessary. Also, do not put in anything identifying your time zone, age, or occupation. to wit; don't give out info that might tell an attacker when you are likely to be busy or asleep. It tells them when to time their attacks while you are unavailable to respond.
Spawn
The sole purpose of your spawn (1st village) is to get three settlers to found your next villa. It is important you don't let yourself be farmed. Your defense is to cranny up, spend down, and dodge (if you have any troops). Don't build any troops that can't raid at a profit. When you're going to be offline, make sure you send them far enough off they stay gone until you'll be back on. Use gettertools.com to locate inactives to raid. If raiders get any bounty or attack points, they'll keep coming back. If they don't, they won't.
Follow the building order of the quests until they are complete. I recommend the merchant path. Deviations: Keep your cranny capacity 25% higher than your resources. Raise the cranny level before raising the warehouse/granary. Build the Rally Point and Barracks early if you are going to raid. As you get close to building the settlers, find a friendly Gaul player nearby who has a few traps. If you "raid" with the settlers as they are built, they will be safe in a trap until released. They are to expensive to let them be killed in an incoming raid. Get all fields to level 6 or 7 before starting infrastructure for building settlers. Your villa will look something like this when you start settlers:
villa at settlers time:
Wheat lvl 7 (x6)
Clay lvl 7 (x4)
Wood lvl 7 (x4)
Iron lvl 7 (x4)
flour mill lvl 2
Cranny lvl 10 (x3)
Cranny lvl 1 (x9)
Main Building level 5
Granary level 6
Warehouse level 8
Marketplace level 1+
Embassy level 1
Rally Point level 1
Residence level 10
Building example is for a Gaul player. Romans and Teutons will need to make some minor adjustments for their tribe.
If you are at risk to attacks by cats, You will need a wall and higher wheat production/granary capacity to be reined (reinforced) effectively.
When you start getting close to building settlers, let me know. I'll help you get a good cropper location.
Cranny trick: after you have a 10 lvl cranny, build lvl 1 crannies in all unneeded spaces. Very efficient cranny space and very cheap Culture Points. After the settlers are off and running, build the Main Building to lvl 10. This will allow you to tear down a cranny and build something else in its spot.
L.T.
