Buildings

Discover the importance of every building in your Evony city!

Cottage -these are important because you will always need population to work in the farms, mines and lumber mills. With higher population, comes higher tax revenues so you have more gold coming in by the hour.
The number of cottages you build, and the point in your development when you build them is important. Build only a few, maybe six, when starting out. Only upgrade them as you need extra workers for your resources. Remember that you get more population space from upgrading a cottage than from building a new one.
Once you have your city running you can start adding levels to cottages in order to provide extra people for troops. Troops are taken from idle population. If there is no idle population or only a small idle population you can not build very many troops.

Inn -The Inn is important because it is where you recruit Heroes. Heroes are important. The higher the level of the Inn the more Heroes you have to choose from. 1 Hero per level of Inn. So a level 1 Inn has 1 Hero and a level 10 Inn has 10 Heroes.
You must have an Inn to build a Feasting Hall, but you can build any level of Feasting Hall with just a level 1 Inn. Note that you only need ONE high level inn. If you have two or more cities, recruit from the big Inn, and use Reinforce to send them to your other cities. Also once you have maxed out your Feasting Hall in a city, if you are using the have one large Inn to recruit Heroes from concept, you can now destroy the level one Inn in your other cities and replace it with a more useful Building like a Barracks.  

Feasting Hall -The Feasting Hall is important because here is where your heroes hang out. There can never be more heroes in a city than the level of the Feasting Hall. So have this as high as possible. Also it is good to have at least 1 hero with high politics,1 hero with high intelligence and the rest of your heroes with . Do this in every city you own.
The importance of the Feasting Hall increases in the later stages of development, when you are getting ready to conquer other cities. To do so, you will need waves of attackers. Each wave will need a hero to lead it, and you get one hero per level of Feasting Hall. So, to send out five waves of attackers, you will need at least a level 5 Feasting Hall.
  

Rally Spot -Rally Spot is important because this allows you to send out troops to attack enemies or valleys and to reinforce other cities of your own or your Alliance. It is also required for you to build Barracks.
A level 1 Rally Point is all you need in the beginning. Later, when you start attacking, you will need to upgrade. You will need waves of attackers to overcome a city's defenses. The level of your Rally Spot determines how many waves you send out - one per level. It also limits you on how many troops can be sent. There is a limit of 10,000 troops per level of Rally Spot. So a level 1 Rally Spot can send out 1 wave of troops with 10,000 troops in the wave. A level 2 Rally Spot can send out 2 waves of troops and each wave can have up to 20,000 troops per wave and so on up to a level 10 Rally Spot which can send out 10 waves of troops with 100,000 troops per wave.
There is no limit a town can have as far as troops you own sitting in your town. Only a limit on the number of troops that can be sent out at one time based on the level of the Rally Spot.
And the last thing about the Rally Spot is the Box you can check. This is used to Apply the item War Ensign. So long as the Box is checked you can send out an additional 25% of the total number of troops you could normally send out. As an example you could send out at level 10, 100,000 troops. With the box checked and a War Ensign available you could send out up to 125,000 troops. Be advised that until the box is no longer checked you will use up a War Ensign every attack even if you send out less troops than you could.

Barracks - Barracks are important because without Barracks, you won't have troops to attack. If you want to be successful you have to have Barracks and the more Barracks you have the quicker you can build troops. There are three important levels of Barracks. Level 1 will allow you to train Warriors and Workers. Level 4 will allow you to train Archers, your most useful troops. Level 9 will let you train Ballistas which are used primarily for NPC city farming. You need a good mix of Barracks and Cottages. Your Barracks will stand around useless if there are not enough high level Cottages to attract people. The main advantage to large numbers of Barracks is the ability to train large numbers of troops quickly. A single level 4 Barracks can train as many Archers as 10 level 4 Barracks - but the 10 level 4s can split the load assuming you check the box (split production to all barracks), which will produce the same number of troops in 1/10 the time.

 
Warehouse -Warehouse is important because if you get attacked, you have resources stored and protected in there. The higher your warehouse level, the more resources you can store.

 
Embassy -Embassy is important because you need at least a level one Embassy to allow you to apply to join an Alliance. You need a level 2 Embassy in order to start your own Alliance. Once you are part of an Alliance you can have resources shipped in by other Alliance members. If you check the allow troops box inside your Embassy, Alliance members can send you troops which will defend your city the same as if they were your own troops. They will not however, help you attack other cities. They are there simply to eat your food and fight defensively. Once they have arrived, you will be able to click a button inside the Embassy when you wish to send them home or the player that sent the troops can recall them at any time. Also should you run out of food to feed them, they will immediately go back home.

Marketplace -Marketplace is important because it is where you can buy resources you need. The one drawback is that when you place an order, it will take 30 minutes to get to your town. Note, however, that this applies only to buying. Selling gets you gold instantly. The Marketplace is very important for two things. First, it is a major source of Gold. A city of 5,000 might produce 150 Gold per hour safely through taxes. It could produce 100,000 Gold by selling the amount of lumber needed to make 100,000 Gold. You will need that Gold for your Academy research. Past level 5, the amount of Gold required to do research rises dramatically, and you are going to need level 6+ in Informatics, Archery, Military Tradition, Iron Working, Compass, and Metal Casting, to name just a few.
The second thing you will need the Marketplace for is resource protection. Even a Warehouse can be raided during an attack. However, if you sell all your resources (getting the gold instantly) then buy them back (which will require a 30 minute wait to arrive), the attacking army will find nothing to plunder.Note that to pull this trick off with ALL your resources, you will need a level 4 Marketplace.

Workshop - The Workshop is important because you need this to research Metal Casting. Also you need this to get Walls.          

Forge -Forge is important because you can research higher levels of military science with a Forge. You must have a Forge that is equal to the Level of Military Science you wish to Research. So as an Example: You must have a level 10 Forge to Research Level 10 Military Science. Once your research is complete you can destroy any of the Forges you own and replace them with a more useful building like a Barracks.          

Academy - The Academy is important because you can research many things. This perhaps is one of the most important buildings. You can research many things that help you in the game. You will need to upgrade to level 5 as soon as you can.I recommend the following order of research. Lumbering, Agriculture, Informatics, Masonry, Mining, Military Tradition, Iron Working, Archery, Metal Casting. Max these out as fast as you can. Don't forget that you can do research at the same time as you are building something, and that the research usually uses up Gold rather than building materials, letting you do both at once.In your 2nd+ cities, build an Academy right after your Rally Spot, and pump it up fast to get the benefit of all your research at the new place.

Beacon Tower - The Beacon Tower is important because it will tell you if someone's attacking you. The higher the level, the more information you get as to how soon and how big. This, in turn, will allow you to decide whether to send your troops and resources away, or beat the little you-know-whats down. It will also give you more time to carry out your plan.

 
Relief Station -Relief Station is important because you can travel faster between cities you own. It also increases the speed with which your troops move when being used to reinforce or transport to other cities in your Alliance. It does not however change the time needed to attack Valleys, NPCs or Enemy Cities.

Stable -Stable is important because it lets you research Horseback Riding, and lets you build a relief station. Once the Relief Station is maxed out and your Horse Back Riding is fully researched you can then destroy the Stable and build a more useful Building like a Barracks. (Are we seeing a trend here?)
The game shows that a Stable also decreases the time needed to build Cavalry Units. This appears at this time to be inaccurate. There is no difference in a city without a Stable in building Cavalry Units than in a city with a Stable at level 10. The times are exactly the same.

Walls -walls are important because this is your defense. If you want a successful defense, get over 5k Archer towers, it will help out a lot.

Town Hall - town hall is important because you can modify your tax rate, comfort and levy your town. Also for every level increase, you get three more resource fields.
This screen also informs you of the valleys you have in your control and your Cities and Heroes who are in charge of them. From this screen you can set your production levels and also abandon your cities.