NOTE: This is just a basic guide. You can just use this as a reference on the basics of how to play.
NOTE2: While making this I had the shaba race in mind, so there might be a few differences.

1. Why should I play as a city builder?
City builders are great to start with. If your castle doesn't have a good defense other plays will be able to attack you and steal all of your resources. I always recommend play as a city building until you have very strong fortifications, then you can start being a powerful world leader!

2. Okay, so what should I build?
City builders use up large amounts of resources, so as soon as possible upgrade all of your farms, sawmills, iron mines and quarries so that all of them are at least level 3. Once you are done with that, make at least 4 warehouses, 4 barns and 4 cellars in your town, this way when you go to bed when you wake up you will come back and you will have lots of resources stored away ready for use. Don't worry about upgrading you barns, warehouses and cellars yet. Your focus now should be upgrading your wall. Upgrade your wall until it is at least level 4 and level up your archer's towers, traps and moat as much as possible.

3. I'm starting to run out of resources...
The next part of being a city builder requires lots of resources so this is when I recommend you go back and level up all your farms, sawmills, iron mines and quarries to level 4 and have at least one of each kind at level 5. To get a resource field to level 4 you will need your town hall upgraded all the way up to 4 as well (you can open a present in your inventory now!), so make sure you are ready to lose that newbie protection !

4. What about an army!?
Every good castle needs an army to protect it. Build a barracks, academy and a beacon tower. In your barracks, axemen have very good attack but will die quickly in battle. Make at least 20 of them. Now this is the expensive part. In your academy level up your defensive strategy to 3. This will require lots of resources and you will need to upgrade buildings to meet the requirements for researching the defense strategy upgrades. Now you can start making your own heavy axemen! These warriors may not do as much damage as axemen, but they can take much more physical and magical damage, so they will be in the battlefield long after the axemen have been wiped out. I would recommend 30 - 50 heavy axemen.