The new players usually don't know how to build their cities. Proper city build not make you powerfull. It'll make you strong enough to survive. There are few rules that shows how to build your city.
1. Forget the producting buldings! I know their are so fancy but the true is their are useless. You need them only at start to build first army. Then you have to farm, farm and farm. Attacking a ruins and other players cities can produce a lot more income than produce buildings. 1000 stone per hour. It seems very inviting but you can stole a lot more. So... You build this buildings, get your army, and when you're ready to defeat first level ruins without loses you can destroy all produce buildings.
The only exception are golden cities. Cities on the Desert to produce gold. It makes sense only if you are knight with gold production bonus.
2. Keep it clear! Just look at this city. Building after building. Yeah the one type building is next to another the same type but... Is it really clear? Sometimes you need to do an action very fast and it's impossible when you need to search the building you need. Besides when someone sees nice city he knows that its owner is experienced player.
Isn't it nicer than above one? You need to have a plan what you City should look like. So that's why u need...
3. You need calculator!
Yes. Ask yourself: 'What should my army looks like?' Then you know how many military buildings you need. Get the calculator and calculate. You have to know:
* How many time you need to train one soldier?
* How many people you need?
* How much resources can you steal?
You have an easy access all all of these informations. Just get into encyclopedy:
http://mlgame.us/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=TrainWarriors
You see? There is training time of warior. Just choose building you need to obtain training time of other units.
http://mlgame.us/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=UnitsParameters
And there you have resources needed to all units.
With this calculations you can calculate everything you wish (But this is subject for another tutorial

4. Let them think!
When my friend started to play My Lands he said: "They are thinking! They are sitting in this fancy buildings, drinking beer and thinking how to open this ******* gate. I have to build more buildings so they have more beer!"
You have too. When you build laboratory in village you have 30% bonus to science points. Laboratory isn't expensive build so you can (and you should) build whole villages with laboratories. At early game you need only one Visionaires building and one mirros building. The rest are laboratories!
5. Defend yourself!
Another subject that can be moved into another tutorial. You have to build towers and fortifications. You will want to steal goods right? So who will defend your city? E.g.: on 3* you have to build 2 towers 3 level and 2 fortifications 3 level to feel save. Noone would attack to get so much sacrifice.
The true is that if someone want to get into your city he will get. So you should build only one counter spies building to defend from novice players. After early game you'll know if you want to get more protected.
This is first release of tutorial - it will be corrected soon
