General
Some general thoughts and observations:
- The game is a sprint until about Gunpowder Age, then it turns into a marathon. Expect things to slow down. Upgrades will take much longer and the time to be ready for the next age increases from days or weeks to months. You aren't doing anything wrong. This is just how the game is designed. If you want it to be faster, you'll have to spend real money for crowns.
- Many players lose multiplayer battles on purpose to keep their medals lower, and their opponents easier. Others prefer the competition and rewards of higher medal ranges. Try both and see what you like best.
- Some people advocate not upgrading farms/caravans/roads at all, because raiding makes more money. But consider upgrading them to at least Industrial level - they make pretty good money and you won't be too far behind if you ever decide to upgrade them further. The early upgrades are pretty cheap, only take two citizens, and do not take all that long.
- Watch the daily ads. Between the Marco Polo ones and the ones under the button on the left, you can pick up some good stuff.
- Beware the offers. These are the "play this other game to a certain level and you will get a few thousand crowns" things under the button on the right. Some people have spent hours playing a game they did not enjoy, then had trouble getting their crowns. Some of them do pay reliably, but be aware that you are taking a chance.
When should you upgrade? Should you upgrade everything? Just your offense? Maybe you've seen advice online that makes it sound like if you do the wrong thing, you'll totally ruin the game for yourself forever. First off, relax. Unless you are a super-competitive player who intends to be at the absolute top of the leaderboard, it'll be okay. And if you are that kind of player, you probably don't need this guide.
There is really only one unrecoverable mistake. Once you increase your war weight (see
here) you can never decrease it. The more competitive alliances won't accept you if your war weight is too high. If you plan to war with a competitive alliance, plan carefully. Check their websites for their requirements.
With all that said, the main thing to consider when deciding if it time to upgrade is what kind of player you are. Here are some common situation. You may not fit exactly in one of these buckets, but hopefully this helps:
- Very Active: if you are a really active player, meaning that you raid all the time, consider skipping a lot of defensive and economic upgrades in favor of attacking upgrades. This is by far the fastest way to advance. But be aware that if your play style changes, it will take a LONG time to catch up the things you delayed.
- Very Casual: if you don't raid very much, and get most of your resources from farms/caravans/roads/oil wells, then make sure to do economic upgrades. Defense isn't as important as you think - there is always someone who will 5-star you. Do a reasonable amount of defensive upgrades, but don't obsess about it. Be aware that it will take a LONG time to save enough for upgrades, especially at higher ages. You will probably need to raid or war at least some to make progress. Consider putting your Town Center outside your walls and protecting your resource buildings, in the hope that you'll get a lot of quick attacks that just hit the TC and give you a peace treaty without taking much loot. And consider Looted Resource Refund.
- Very Defensive: if your goal is to build a base that cannot be defeated, then give up and go play a different game. Seriously. This game just isn't built for that. There is always someone who can defeat you. If you put all your efforts into defense at the neglect of offense and economy, you'll have trouble making enough resources to pay for your upgrades. And your progress will be glacial. The possible exception here is some competitive alliances assign some war bases to focus on defense. If that is you, then work out with your alliance how to proceed.
- Undecided: if you aren't sure how you want to play the game, then focus on offense, but try to keep your economy and defense no more than about two ages behind. Then if your playstyle changes, or if they rebalance the game so that the thing is suddenly awesome, it doesn't take you forever to be able to use it.
- Completionist: if what you enjoy is completing all the upgrades, then have fun. But upgrades in the higher ages take two weeks or more. To be clear: that isn't the time to finish an age. That is the time to finish ONE building. You put seven citizens on your Fort in Digital age, and they aren't done for two weeks. Completing an entire age may take you a year or more. So unless you are willing to spend a good amount of real money to speed things up, you may never get to the highest age. But if you want to just proceed at your own pace and check all the boxes, there's nothing wrong with that.
Regardless of your play style, unless you are certain you want to be uber-competitive, consider upgrading pretty much everything before you advance from Gunpowder Age to Enlightenment Age. All buildings, everything available in the library, the first three university categories - everything except maybe the more expensive wall levels and the slower university categories. It'll take awhile, but it will make future ages go much more smoothly and give you a solid foundation no matter what play style you end up choosing.
Oh, and when I say upgrade your "offense", I mean only the stuff worth upgrading. See the Attacking page for some strategies, and which troops get used in them. Ignore the rest. So for example, there's no reason to upgrade a MRL, even once, ever. Don't waste your time on junk. The only risk is that they rebalance the game where the junk troops suddenly become awesome. But that seems unlikely at this stage in the game's lifecycle. And if it does happen, you'll be in the same situation as everyone else.