Tips for new and new-ish players.
1. Do the tutorials
2. Say hello to neighbours
3 Ask questions Either neighbours or in CC.
4 Check forum for information Be specific, in the search bar, more words = less results, but greater relevance. Also search for Guides, I made lots.
5. You are safer in an alliance. Lone players (grey borders) are considered easy targets, by the veterans of the game. Orange borders are in an alliance. Blue borders are in your alliance. Green borders are your domain.
6. Game has PvP (Player versus player) 3 modes, spying, plundering and onslaught.Spying for units, will reveal hero and army, the bigger the army, the more spies needed, to get full info. If someone catches you spying on them, they might be very annoyed and demand to know your intentions (or worse). A bit like peeking into windows, can cause issues).
Plundering Sending your army to steal resources, your army will give up, when you reach 25% losses or more, or you've plundered all unprotected resources. Your army will also be fighting any defending army.. Walls boost defenders health, Towers will fight invading armies. Best defence, big stashes, big wall, large army. If army is small, don't leave them out, when you are offline. Use shelter, or send them to a location with food.
Towers are pretty weak and have lots of population, will slow your buildtime. If you feel you need the extra defence, build one, fully upgrade, then build a 2nd, repeat. Because of armour, small towers are like throwing paper darts. Big towers are metal darts.Onslaught
1. Regular army, to kill, attack lasts until all of one side is dead, defender or attacker, will also plunder. UNLESS
2. Regular army and rams, rams are siege units, that attack wall and towers, for 50 or more rounds. Attack will last until siege units are out of rounds or targets, or all invaders dead.
3 Regular army and catapults/trebuchets (destruction units) which attack peaceful buildings, for 50 or more rounds.
7. Creature Habitats are a way of making everyone do fighting, a hybrid of PvP and PvE, created and run by the game. See "Fighting Creature habitats". They are a good practice target, the first 14 days will be some resources and no creatures. Try out Spy, plunder and onslaught. At 14 -21 days, they will start training creatures.
And finally:- Once you've had a bit of practice, with your hero, consider starting a 2nd one, apply what you learnt from the first One.