BP- Getting a successful start
Beginners protection is a highly critical time in the game, and you should spend as much time online getting your cities battle ready as possible early on in the game while you are safe from attack. New players should be advised that BP will end after seven days, or after your town hall reaches level five. Vet players do sometimes intentionally end BP early for various reasons, but we don't reccommend that new players who are not very familiar with the game do so. PLEASE, if you are not a very experienced player, check with an officer if you feel like you are ready to come out of BP early prior to doing so.
The most important thing to realize about Evony is that the entire game is mostly a race to produce resources and troops as quickly as possible. There are only two basic things you will need to achieve in order to to become an outstanding Evony player: An understanding of combat mechanics, and mastery of squeezing as much as possible out of your production.
If you have not already done so, please read the post about Evony Cities, about what is contained in a resource city. The first day of BP, you will want to get your basic city layout in place by completing each building except relief station to level one. This will give you resource quest bonuses which will keep you going, and prevent slowdown on day one. Once you have your basic structure in place, you should immediately switch your focus to building up your resource production. This is done in two ways. As soon as you have an academy, you should begin research on Lumbering (assuming that you are starting with a Lumber Resource City), and raise that as quickly as possible to at least level 5 prior to moving on to other research. Make sure you have learned about how to rotate mayors by reading the Evony Heroes posting, as this is hugely critical in how long it will take you to produce the desired goals. You will want to continue to stagger building up your sawmills, town hall, and cottages throughout the few days, making this your major focus. The faster you can produce raw materials, the better. You will also want to begin filling your walls with defense as soon as they hit lvl three. Starting to take care of wall defense early on and increasing it as your walls level up ensures that you have a defensible city that can focus on using res mostly for troop production once out of BP.
You will need to make sure that your research is on track, by fully reading the Tech Research posting and making sure you understand what researches are priorities. Your goal is to be able to have a good production of res and troops, and be able to farm level five NPC's as quickly as possible.
If you win any battalions on the Wheel O Crap, wait until leaving BP to open them so they do not consume food during time frames when they are not of use to you. Heros won on the wheel should be opened as soon as possible because they may significantly make your life easier if you get a good Hero.
The two things I would consider most crucial to have to become extremely powerful in the long term are: the right kinds of heroes, and a good NPC field. Make sure you have read about Evony Heroes and NPC field building. If you do not have the coins or medals to upgrade beyond knight ranking, you will not want to build a second city until you have built your NPC's, unless you have an allied neighbor nearby of higher rank that has agreed to assist you in building them. If you become bound down with being full of city slots and are unable to build your NPC field, your local area will become cluttered by other players and you may be unable to build your field later on; which will seriously hurt you in the long run.
BP building tips
You will want to have all of your barracks to reccommended levels by the end of BP. I would reccommend raising all barracks evenly to lvl 4 to start off with. Then immediately increase 3-4 of the barracks to level nines one at a time so that you can begin making ballistas as soon as possible. As soon as you have achieved that, raise another 2-4 to lvl 7 one at a time to allow for production of transports and cataphracts. If you do not intend to use cataphracts early on, you may stop at lvl 6. After that, level all remaining racks to level 5, and slowly work those up to level 7's as permitted, based upon other buildings needed that may be more critical. You should begin serious barracks leveling as a focus no later than the end of day three of BP. You do not need to worry about getting all of your barracks up to level 9 until later on in the game, when most of your other builds are also level 9. Once you have achieved getting your all of racks up to the level 5 stage, stagger raising those with your other builds, working on raising all buildings in your city to level 9 except your inn and market. Beacon Tower and Embassy should be as high as possible before leaving BP. By the end of BP, you should have a minimum of 3 or 4 lvl 9 racks, 3 or 4 lvl 6 racks, and the rest level fours. If you have not achieved this, you will have a very difficult time functioning and being competitive.
Troops during BP
Troops are of no real use during BP due to the fact that you cannot attack anyone, however you do not want to come out of BP empty handed or you will be a sitting duck. In an ideal world, you will come out of a 7 day BP with a minimum of 500 ballista, 500 transports, and 10k arch with 1k of each layer of swords, pikes, warriors, and at least 250 workers for a single city. Keep in mind that the lower your attack hero, the slower your troops will bake. Do NOT wait until the last minute to start baking troops. If you cannot hit the ideal, get as near to it as possible. Make sure that you layer your troops and do not build just one single troop type. (Example, it is better to build 1k arch, followed by 100 each of layers, than it is to start 10k arch all at once. This way, your troops will bake evenly and you wont get caught out not having your layers in place). This staggering and layering will remain important, but as you get further into the game, you can begin to build larger batches of troops. You should start baking ballista 100 at a time as soon as you possibly can, due to the length of time it takes to produce them. The other troops, you should start baking as early as permitted based on res and food availability. If it looks like you will for some reason not be able to get a decent army of layered arch built, then don't worry about building the other layers as heavily, and focus on making a good sized warrior army (ie lack of food and res until you can farm, etc) with which you can hit low level NPC's to gain the food and res you need to build up your higher troops ASAP.
Other important stuff
Make sure you go into your embassy and click the box that allows other allied players to garrison troops in your cities. Also go into your rally point and open your gates. Gates should always be left open unless there is a good reason for closing them. Please read City Gates posting to learn when and why to close your gates.
DO NOT make any level ten structures in your cities without reading the Mich Script posting, please.
The most important thing to realize about Evony is that the entire game is mostly a race to produce resources and troops as quickly as possible. There are only two basic things you will need to achieve in order to to become an outstanding Evony player: An understanding of combat mechanics, and mastery of squeezing as much as possible out of your production.
If you have not already done so, please read the post about Evony Cities, about what is contained in a resource city. The first day of BP, you will want to get your basic city layout in place by completing each building except relief station to level one. This will give you resource quest bonuses which will keep you going, and prevent slowdown on day one. Once you have your basic structure in place, you should immediately switch your focus to building up your resource production. This is done in two ways. As soon as you have an academy, you should begin research on Lumbering (assuming that you are starting with a Lumber Resource City), and raise that as quickly as possible to at least level 5 prior to moving on to other research. Make sure you have learned about how to rotate mayors by reading the Evony Heroes posting, as this is hugely critical in how long it will take you to produce the desired goals. You will want to continue to stagger building up your sawmills, town hall, and cottages throughout the few days, making this your major focus. The faster you can produce raw materials, the better. You will also want to begin filling your walls with defense as soon as they hit lvl three. Starting to take care of wall defense early on and increasing it as your walls level up ensures that you have a defensible city that can focus on using res mostly for troop production once out of BP.
You will need to make sure that your research is on track, by fully reading the Tech Research posting and making sure you understand what researches are priorities. Your goal is to be able to have a good production of res and troops, and be able to farm level five NPC's as quickly as possible.
If you win any battalions on the Wheel O Crap, wait until leaving BP to open them so they do not consume food during time frames when they are not of use to you. Heros won on the wheel should be opened as soon as possible because they may significantly make your life easier if you get a good Hero.
The two things I would consider most crucial to have to become extremely powerful in the long term are: the right kinds of heroes, and a good NPC field. Make sure you have read about Evony Heroes and NPC field building. If you do not have the coins or medals to upgrade beyond knight ranking, you will not want to build a second city until you have built your NPC's, unless you have an allied neighbor nearby of higher rank that has agreed to assist you in building them. If you become bound down with being full of city slots and are unable to build your NPC field, your local area will become cluttered by other players and you may be unable to build your field later on; which will seriously hurt you in the long run.
BP building tips
You will want to have all of your barracks to reccommended levels by the end of BP. I would reccommend raising all barracks evenly to lvl 4 to start off with. Then immediately increase 3-4 of the barracks to level nines one at a time so that you can begin making ballistas as soon as possible. As soon as you have achieved that, raise another 2-4 to lvl 7 one at a time to allow for production of transports and cataphracts. If you do not intend to use cataphracts early on, you may stop at lvl 6. After that, level all remaining racks to level 5, and slowly work those up to level 7's as permitted, based upon other buildings needed that may be more critical. You should begin serious barracks leveling as a focus no later than the end of day three of BP. You do not need to worry about getting all of your barracks up to level 9 until later on in the game, when most of your other builds are also level 9. Once you have achieved getting your all of racks up to the level 5 stage, stagger raising those with your other builds, working on raising all buildings in your city to level 9 except your inn and market. Beacon Tower and Embassy should be as high as possible before leaving BP. By the end of BP, you should have a minimum of 3 or 4 lvl 9 racks, 3 or 4 lvl 6 racks, and the rest level fours. If you have not achieved this, you will have a very difficult time functioning and being competitive.
Troops during BP
Troops are of no real use during BP due to the fact that you cannot attack anyone, however you do not want to come out of BP empty handed or you will be a sitting duck. In an ideal world, you will come out of a 7 day BP with a minimum of 500 ballista, 500 transports, and 10k arch with 1k of each layer of swords, pikes, warriors, and at least 250 workers for a single city. Keep in mind that the lower your attack hero, the slower your troops will bake. Do NOT wait until the last minute to start baking troops. If you cannot hit the ideal, get as near to it as possible. Make sure that you layer your troops and do not build just one single troop type. (Example, it is better to build 1k arch, followed by 100 each of layers, than it is to start 10k arch all at once. This way, your troops will bake evenly and you wont get caught out not having your layers in place). This staggering and layering will remain important, but as you get further into the game, you can begin to build larger batches of troops. You should start baking ballista 100 at a time as soon as you possibly can, due to the length of time it takes to produce them. The other troops, you should start baking as early as permitted based on res and food availability. If it looks like you will for some reason not be able to get a decent army of layered arch built, then don't worry about building the other layers as heavily, and focus on making a good sized warrior army (ie lack of food and res until you can farm, etc) with which you can hit low level NPC's to gain the food and res you need to build up your higher troops ASAP.
Other important stuff
Make sure you go into your embassy and click the box that allows other allied players to garrison troops in your cities. Also go into your rally point and open your gates. Gates should always be left open unless there is a good reason for closing them. Please read City Gates posting to learn when and why to close your gates.
DO NOT make any level ten structures in your cities without reading the Mich Script posting, please.