Buildings
Do you love buildings? Sure you do right, well here you are...
Farms
Oh to have more troops; be warned though because it maxes out at 40. This may seem like a lot, but when you get to the point of getting to 40 you're crying for more troops and defence as everyone wants your city. This is one of the few buildings you will no doubt want maxed out. By the time you hit 7.5 thousand points you should have a level 35 Farm. At 8.5 thousand hopefully you're maxed out. This will help provide super defence and offensive units.
Resources
Ok I am not going to go through each one of these individually as they are always good to have. Try to keep up on these in production. If you have resources and other buildings aren't popping up, then build more resources. Sure farming towns are awesome, but these build you up while you sleep. With Hera's resource bonus spell I can max out my resources overnight and have a great building frenzy the next day.
Warehouse
The bread and butter of your town. I try to get this building to at least level 20 as fast as I can. This allows more farming to be done and more resources to stock up overnight. I level this to max once my resource buildings are maxed out. If you're on daily and never miss more than 7 hours to sleep you might as well leave it at level 20. (edit: You need a higher level to complete some of the researches)
Barracks
Troops ahoy... gonna getchya. Getting this to level 10 helps at the start and when you're ready in the academy to start researching chariots get your barracks to level 16. This allows you to recruit chariots and catayuks (Oops I mean catapults
). With the barracks at 16, you protect yourself from not being able to build certain troops if someone hits you with a Lightning Bolt from Zeus while you're offline. Upgrading this more than level 16 is for point freaks and if you're one then go for it. In all it gives you from level 16 to max - an extra minute or so off the production times for your units. If you like that, then ok go for it. Make sure your resources are maxed first, and your academy and well... pretty much everything else.
City Wall
This is your defence extreme. Couple the wall with Militia and you have yourself an awesome stopping force. People would need to plan a way to get you with like 3 different towns against you at once if you couple your def troops into it. Level 10 for beginners is a MUST. Also get your farms up as the more farms you have the more militia you can get to help defend. After you're ready to expand, start levelling up your wall every so often so it slowly grows with you. A maxed wall is not a wasted wall. This maxes out at level 25.
Cave
Would you believe you can get 500 manticores in this cave? Would you believe 200? How about a chimp and a typewriter? Ok this is for spies. Spies are awesome, though EXPENSIVE. I keep my cave 1 level higher than I have points to my town. Though if there are tons of enemies around me I try to max it out at level 10 as quick as I can. At each level you're maxed out in the thousand for the level of the cave. Which means:
level 1 = 1000 max silver stored in cave
level 2 = 2000 max silver stored in caveetc etc etc
At level 10, however, you can store and use as much silver in the cave as you can. So in this instance you're probably near max resources and buildings in other things so become a silver freak. Store as much silver as you can... 60,000 silver.. not good enough.. 120,000 silver now you're getting close but get more. The more silver you have the more untouchable you are to others. Most people (with maybe a few idiot exceptions) won't attack you unless they know what you have and spying against you does that. If you have tons of silver no spy can get through. Use that to your advantage.
Harbor
Pretty much the same as barracks but try to get it to level 21. With the harbour at 21, you protect yourself from not being able to build your CS if someone hits you with a Lightning Bolt from Zeus while you're offline. After level 21 the time difference for building ships are negligible. But you can still keep on point freakin if you want to
Academy
Ok this building you want maxed. It gives you oh so many upgrades and happiness. Let it grow with you. When you have the resources, buy another tier.
Here are your must buys for the Academy:
*Slinger
*Archer
*City Guard
*Booty
*Ceramics
*Plow
*Horsemen
*Bireme
*Chariot
*Light ship
You'll notice I haven't mentioned Colony Ship or Conquest. What I try to do is in every second city research Colony Ship and Conquest. The others I just use for troops/ships and boost the troop/ship upgrades.
After that, I get Phalanx and Battering Ram. I’m told that this gives you a great edge in battle.
The rest are up to you and what you want for yourself. I personally would stay away from the following:
**Diplomacy - Rewards are negligible and it takes longer to get the strength and moral back up to trade with the farms
**Architecture - By the time you're ready for this, most of your buildings should be built to adequate levels. This is more for point freaks.
**Democracy - your team should be able to help you out so the points for this can be spent elsewhere
**Triremes - Useless ships that are for lazy people who like the colour blue. You get better results from light ships and biremes.
Personally I dislike catapults. Someone else always has them near you and the cost and use of them hurts you more than the enemy. Unless you have an army of catapults... but then the pop used in cats are better put towards troops.
Temple
The fruit of your towns. Level 10 is good but level 12 is awesome. The only time you might want to put it past level 12 is with Poseidon, but that's so you can get the useless unit Hydra. To get it past level 12 is also nice for the extra favor points but the increase past this is negligible. 1 extra point per hour per level. To me not worth it unless you have way extra resources.
Market Place
Ok this is one of my favourite buildings. You can make a killing in the markets if you have too much wood or stone or silver put it in the market and mark it up. Some dumb guy will buy your wood to stones at 1:2 or your silver to wood or stone at 3:1. Personally, I now set my wood and stone at 2 units for 1 to trade and my silver at 2.5 rate because everyone else goes 3.0 rate. So you will get trades faster and more. You can make good money and trades in this one. I usually trade the strength on my island for the weakness. Helps balance out my town for the day.
Special Buildings
Merchants shop
Pretty much useless. It adds .1% to the village trade ratio for a total of 1.35%. Sure this adds up over time, but I would rather use the 1.25 rate and then farm the towns as opposed to wasting money on this ugly monstrosity. This building also increases your trade amount by 50% so if you want to trade on the market 10,000 max resources due to market this will increase it to 15,000 Return for investment Negligible
Oracle
Don't know who to trust... trust your handy dandy oracle. This one is good if you never use your cave. But if you keep your cave well stocked then keep on trucking past this handy dandy building.
Divine Statue
Awesome to be built for Hera. Other gods if you choose. This adds something like 5 temple levels to your current favor production. I love it for Hera as you get more resource spells to boost resource production. Only recently discovered this myself, so am now busy adapting some of my own cities.
Tower
Spectacular! Awesome! My favourite building for all towns, besides divine statue. Helps defend you to the nuts. You want spiked walls? You got them. You want pictures of the enemy's mother hanging off the tower? You got it. There isn't anything this building can't do... other than wash your unit’s socks – Yuck! This building adds an instant 10% defence to your troops and ships. Add this to other bonuses you would get and hey you got impenetrable forces. Unless you're group attacked.
Light House
This building is wicked if you decide to build an all boat town. Or if you're always conquesting from that town. You get an instant 15% increase in boat speeds. While 15% to your colony ship ain't much - hey it's better than nothing.
Library
Useless. What more can I say? If you don't get what you want with the points you get from building your academy to level 30, then you suck. If you build this or conquer a city that has it and you want to demolish, it you must have 12 unused research points. If you don't have them, then you will have to reset some of your techs (at 1 CP per tech) until you have 12 free points. When you demolish it, you lose the building and gain 60 pop back.
Baths
My personal favourite. Adds 10% to your pop total and that's an extra 300 population to spend on units. Demolishing this building takes away those extra pop points, though it does give you your 60 pop back. Only real reason to destroy this is to build the theatre as you don't need your population anymore when you are snuggled in your empire's embrace.
Theatre
Ok this is almost useless. UNLESS you're in the middle of the alliance and defended on all sides and have a nice cushion of mates that you know will get attacked before you do. If that's the case, then demolish that bath and build a theatre. Keeps you entertained while your neighbour goes to war.