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citadel and later three upgrades (marksmen, royal griffins and crusaders). spent for upgrades. Total costs would be: 13000g 10w 35o 5c - and you could buy all troops at day1 - the only problem is ore, then.

Second week strategies:
I strongly suggest running for gold at this stage. That requires Blacksmith,
Marketplace, MageGuild and CityHall - a total of 15w, 5o and 8500 gold, with
Castle and Capitol later (15000g, 10w and 10o).
Unless you'll find huge amounts of wood, choose the minimal variant or a) variant, as those have lower wood consumption and therefore you can afford the
CityHall in the second week. [The b) variant would need 50 wood in total - which means a sawmill captured on the first day of play or some extra wood.)

Troops cost weekly (with castle):
Without 7th level: 19580
With 7th level: 29580
With one castle producing 14000/week, two armies will be left at home...
Usually it's pikemen and either zealots or griffins, depending on available numbers. Even with capitol at 28000/week, you'll need extra 2000/week to be able to buy out all troops.
HPs grown weekly: 1745 (plus 500 in archangels) at 11.22 g/HP (13.17)

Benefits:
Blacksmith: Produces Ballista war machines
Brotherhood of Sword: +2 morale (worth it, if you're likely to get attacked)
Lighthouse: Shipyard upgrade, acts like a regular lighthouse under your flag.
Stables: Visiting heroes gain movement bonus as at regular stables.
Resource silo: adds 1w and 1o per day. In long games worth it.
Griffin bastion: Increases growth of griffins by 3.

Strategy
In your first week, either ore or wood will be crucial, based on which variant you choose in building. However, the wood will be crucial in week two for income increase. A sawmill should be obtained even at some cost in lost troops - you should have some 15 archers and 40-50 pikemen available, which is 600
HPs.
Be aggressive with your scouting, because on week two, you'll be building money generator and you should have at least three days' reserve for accumulating gold in case you'll need to buy all troops for castle defense - in many maps the enemy visits early and if you can't see him in time to prepare defenses, you'll end bad.

Forces combination:
You should be able do to without pikemen in battles - they're ideal troop for castle defenses - when an enemy comes near, buy all the pikemen that have been waiting here - they provide cheap, yet concentrated firepower that will last long, letting your castle towers deal the damage. Zealots might stand on their side, if you won't have them with you, but would only get killed quick, by magic, likely.
In the battles, your champions should provide the most offensive - use their jousting bonus and attack at full distance. Use marksmen to damage strong stacks and then champions to finish them. Crusaders should fend off anyone that goes after the archers, while griffins should take care of enemy shooters. Angels, of course, will have the task of binding enemy firepower and absorbing damage. It is good to have archangels splitted into two stacks to use their resurrecting special well. Note that you need three archangels to resurrect one fallen, so with stacks of 4 and 3 of them, you can have them resurrect each other.
A good offensive combination is Champions, ArchAngels and Zealots. This will leave your home with griffins, archers and pikemen, with crusaders being optional for both forces. And the secondary force could be plentiful due to all those towers and guardhouses often used in maps.
Try to split Archangels into more stacks - they can then use their resurrecting special more effectively. A typical situation is a castle siege, where you leave the enemy one last unit, suffer another round of castle fire on your zealots and then use one archangel stack to resurrect them, while the other will wipe out the last enemy unit, thus not giving the enemy hero a chance to cast an offensive spell. Remember that you'll have only one ressurection per archangel stack - and plan well.
If you manage to capture another Castle, try to focus on one or two troops and build massive numbers - marksmen, crusaders or even pikemen. The pikemen that wait in home castle in reserve should be transferred to some castle in front lines to help you hold it.

Heroes:
Most Knights do well in battles, I'd suggest Valeska for Marksmen, Tyris for
Champions and Tactics, Sorsha for Offense and Crusaders. Avoid Haart(Estates) and Sylvia(Navigation) unless needed (as secondary).
Among Clerics, useful are Adela (Bless, Diplomacy), Adelaide (Frost Ring),
Loynis (Prayer!!! - it will compensate for low A/D), Rion (First Aid). Others aren't good, except for secondary (CuthBert and Caitlin generate gold).

Skills important for the troops and strategy:
Archery might be useful, if you have some archer towers or other Castle towns, or if you plan to use monks/zealots, but usually the hard work is done by champions, crusaders and griffins.
Offense is a must here, since your troops rely on dealing damage hand-to-hand mostly.
Armorer could prolong life of your griffins and crusaders, but there are better skills.
Ballistics is strongly recommended to get Crusaders and Champions inside,
Artillery too, as heroes with high A/D can get a big bang from the Ballista.

Unit           A  D  HP  Dmg   Sp $$   AdjD  Dm/g grow weekD
Halberdiers    6  5  10  2-3   5  75   2.30  3.07 28   64
Marksmen       6  3  10  2-3   6  150  2.30  1.53 18   41
Royal Griffins 9  9  25  3-6   9  240  4.41  1.84 17   75
Crusaders      12 12 35  7-10  6  400  9.35  2.34 8    75
Zealots        12 10 30  10-12 7  450  12.10 2.69 6    73
Champions      16 16 100 20-25 9  1200 29.25 2.44 4    117
Archangels     30 30 250 50-50 18 5000 100   2    2    200

Chapter V: Rampart guide

Strengths:
The most durable troops
Excellency in castle defenses (dendroid special)
Three anti-magic specials
Castle special (Treasury) is cumulative and can sometimes achieve great results.
Both defender fighters have benefically increased growth rate.

Weaknesses:
Only one shooter and two flyers (and one of them quite vulnerable), however the shooter is a good one and the flyers are both pretty fast...

Army evaluation:
Centaurs 5/3/8/2-3/6/70
Centaur captains 6/3/10/2-3/8/90
Those fast warriors carry a good offensive punch. In high numbers they're far more important than you'd expect from a 1stlevel troop.

Dwarves 6/7/20/2-4/3/120, 20% magic resistance
Battle Dwarves 7/7/20/2-4/5/150, 40% magic resistance
Dwarves make a sturdy defensive unit, but after upgrade, they can be used even in offensive.

Elves 9/5/15/3-5/6/200
Grand Elves 9/9/15/3-5/7/225, shoot twice
In decent numbers, they provide you with much needed ranged firepower, but they need to be protected.

Pegasi 9/8/30/5-9/8/250, enemy has spell costs higher by 2
Silver Pegasi 9/10/30/5-9/12/275, enemy has spell costs higher by 2
Quite capable offensive unit with a handy special, esp. against weak scouts.

Dendroid Guards 9/12/55/10-14/3/350, binding attack
Dendroid Soldiers 9/12/65/10-14/4/425, binding attack
An excellent defensive unit with a special that has great tactical value.

Unicorns 15/14/90/18-22/7/850, blinding attack, magic aura
War Unicorns 15/14/110/18-22/9/950, blinding attack, magic aura
Tough and fast fighters. Magic aura gives adjacent units 20% magic resistance (the unicorns don't get the resistance bonus themselves.)

Green Dragons 18/18/180/40-50/10/2400+1c, immune to spells 1-3
Gold Dragons 27/27/250/40-50/16/4000+2c, immune to spells 1-4
Dragons are pretty strong and green ones also easier to get.

Upgrading priorities:
* Centaur Captains: High - increased durability and speed boost are worth it.
* Battle Dwarves: Low. Their value lies in magic resistance, but it's not so common for them to be primary target for spellcasting.
* Grand Elves: High, for the double shot and speed bonus.
* Silver Pegasi: High, for the speed boost that gives them access to enemy side in one turn.
* Dendroid Soldiers: Low. They're best used in castle defenses, as they can effectively 'block' holes in walls with their special ability.
* War Unicorns: High, for the +2 speed and increased HPs
* Gold Dragons: Very High, for the +6 speed, +9 A/D and +70 HPs.

Castle building in the first week:
Day 1: Town Hall        2500g
Day 2: Homestead        1500g + 10w
Day 3: Enchanted Spring 2000g + 10c
Day 4: Dendroid arches  2500g
Day 5: Unicorn Glade    4000g + 5w + 5o + 10g
Day 6: reserve
Day 7: Citadel          2500g + 5o

Centaur stables as 1stlevel dwelling assumed present. If it's not present, we use the reserve slot to shift the schedule.
Usually the reserve would be used for Dwarf cottage, but as dwarves aren't a crucial unit in offensive strategies, you might want to go for something else (i.e. a mage guild, if your main hero is a ranger and you want him to get a spell book fast.)
Under extremely positive conditions, you might be able to buy Dragon Cliffs.
However, you need two levels of mage guild, so you'd have to skip Town Hall and Citadel from the above schedule. And them extremely positive conditions are extra 14 crystal and extra 25 ore. No need to mention that it is worth is, sacrificing some gold chests to get two dragons on the beginning of second week - they'll allow much faster exploration, as they can battle many medium wandering armies without fear.

Resource summary:
You'll need 15w, 10o and 15000g, which leaves us (20000 + 7000 - 15000) =
12000g for Day 1 to spend on troops. I suggest the reserve day being used for homestead upgrade and day1 of second week be used for centaur stables upgrade - those will consume another 15w (thus making your requirements 10 wood above starting 20) and 2500 gold. With 9500g, you'll easily purchase all the centaurs (35x90) and elves (17x225) and all 12 pegasi, too. That is a decent exploration force. If you don't need the pegasi, save the gold for economic structures!
If, for some reason, you don't go for Unicorn Glade, I recommend upgrading
Pegasi instead (if you find extra 5 crystal) and getting 1st level of mage guild (for the same gold, wood and ore consumption as unicorn glade).

Second week strategies:
Since there are no building variants, the second week will be easy - get some wood and raise City Hall, possibly Castle and Capitol or some of the beneficial buildings, while your main hero will look for gold and crystal sources.

Troops cost weekly (with castle):
Without 7th level: 18620
With 7th level: 26620
With one castle producing 14000/week, you see that you'll have to decide which units to left unpurchased. Dendroids and Dwarves are favorites, of course.
Capitol at 28000/week will have minor surplus.
HPs grown weekly 2150 (plus 500 in Gold Dragons) at 8.66 g/HP (10.05)
[This is the highest HP total/week and lowest g/HP rating among all towns!]

Benefits:
* Blacksmith: First Aid Tents sold here.
* Dendroid saplings: +2 dendroids growth (not bad, just in case)
* Mystic Pond: gives 1-4 random resources each week. A good thing for longer games.
* Fountain of Fortune: Upgrade to mystic pond, gives +2 Luck when under siege.
I never build it.
* Miner's Guild: +4 Dwarves growth (just as good as dendriod saplings), required for treasury.
* Resource Silo: Provides +1 crystal/day - a must if you don't have the mine!
* Treasury: On day 1 of each week increases your gold reserve by 10% - Great!
Great! But be careful, the game can't handle total gold hihger than 10,000,000
;-)
Strategy
You won't have much to worry for. Of course, wood is always needed for the
City Hall and Castle, but you can relax in the first week.
A good strategy might also be to upgrade centaurs quickly, hire a few extra heroes that come with centaurs and with some 60-80 centaur captains run into some action - they're durable and offensive enough to handle even strong enemies. With their high speed, they can rely on 'waiting' to get two consecutive shots. But since AB, 3rd+ hero in any week will not come with any good starting army.

Forces combination:
In general, Dendroids and Dwarves should be kept home as castle defenses, possibly unpurchased. Of course, against particularly well-defended castles you might decide to use them - dendroids can be used to block an enemy that went after your elves or any other unit. They can take a lot of damage and you have a +2 growth benefit option on them.
A good strategy could be to use either dwarves or dendroids as sort of expendable fighter unit - and whenever their stack would get crippled, you'd switch for the other one, while the first would sit in the castle and grow silently and slowly back to some reasonable numbers.
The offensive force should be Centaur Captains, Silver Pegasi, Grand Elves and
War unicorns. All are pretty fast and therefore you should use 'wait' against all walkers/flyers and even against shooters, unless your morale is very high and you count on it.
Green dragons are wimps that should be in later game used only in hopeless