here are some suggestions for building cities. i'm going to split it up into different posts, so please no comments until its done. ty.

first is a sulf-sufficient city.
1 each of the following.
Beacon Tower, Feasting Hall, Inn, Relief Station, Stable, Academy, Embassy, Rally Spot, Forge, Workshop, Marketplace.
8 cottages
13 barracks
9 sawmills
6 quarries
7 iron mines
15 farms
suggested building lvls for medal farming/general attacking are as follows:
Beacon Tower 8, Feasting Hall 5, Inn 4, Relief Station 5, Stable 5 (in one city any others only take a lvl 1), Academy 7, Embassy 4, Rally Spot 5, Forge 6, Workshop 6, Marketplace 4, Town Hall 6, Walls 6, Cottages 6-7, Barracks 4 (some can be higher, if you can get a couple to lvl 9 then ballista are possible)
research
Agriculture 6, Lumbering 6, Masonry 6, Mining 6, Metal Casting 5, Military Science 5, Infomatics 8, Military Tradition 5, Logistics 5, Iron Working 5, Stockpile 0, Compass 6, Archery any lvl above 6, Engineering 0, Medicine 6, Construction 6, Machinery 0, Privateering 0

this would be sufficient to start building a second city, start farming lower lvl cities/inactives, and farming npcs for medals.

well for attack cities there are two main options.
first is a farms city and the other is a wood/iron city.

the main difference is

farms is all farms except for 1 lvl 2 quarry, 1 lvl 3 iron mine; and wood/iron is all wood/iron except for 1 lvl 5 farm, 1 lvl 2 quarry, and 1 lvl 3 iron mine while building the cities. the inner cities are also a little different.
they only need a lvl 2 Forge, lvl 1 Workshop, for building the walls up.
don't need an Inn.
lvl 1 stable for building the relief station.
after maxing out the walls and relief station then you can demolish the forge, workshop, inn (if you built one), stable, lvl 5 farm (in the wood/iron city), iron mine, quarry, sawmill ( if you built one in the farm city)

if you built the walls and relief station first then you can max them out before upgrading your town hall any higher than lvl 2. the way you get resources is to transport them to or buy them at your new city.
If you get all your barracks to lvl 4 then you can mass produce archers at about 1k every few hours.
if you get 5 lvl 9 barracks then you can produce about 25 every hour with an attack hero sitting around 70+.

attacking NPC cities.
lvls 1-4

lvl 1 npc = 100 ballista/ 100 transports per attack wave.
lvl 2 npc = 200/200
lvl 3 npc = 300/300
lvl 4 npc = 400/400

DON'T ATTACK LVL 5 NPC UNLESS YOUR ARCHERY IS LVL 10!
the rolling logs decimate ballista fast.
yes you can do lvl 5 npc with a lesser archery lvl but its more guesswork
it would be somewhere around 650 ballista and there is a chance of losses still.

now if there are any questions feel free to ask.

7 cottages maxed.
1 of everything except warehouse
rest barracks
half of resource field iron and wood
then you farm npc's for food.

9 lvl 9 cottages
1 lvl 9 everything else
1 lvl 10 town hall
11 barraks
25 farms (lvl 9)
5 sawmill (lvl 9)
5 iron mine (lvl 9)
5 quarry (lvl 9)
all research lvl 10 if possible... otherwise lvl 9 will do

^i strongly disagree with the farms.... you should farm npc's for food.

i only have the farms to keep as close to green as i can w/ larger number of troops... its the only thing that saved my city too so even when i dont have troops or my city almost killed food saves my city