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(Behemoths are the cheapest/HP 7thlevel around!)

Benefits:
* Blacksmith: Ammo Carts (useless, even dangerous as a target for magogs and liches)
* Ballista Yard: Blacksmith upgrade, Ballistas aren't useless ;-)
* Freelancer's Guild: a good way to convert forces that joined you to something useful (especially if they're some nuts like Zombies ;-))
* Resource Silo: +1w and +1o per day
* Escape Tunnel: if you've got enough money, get the tunnels so that you can save armies if unexpected enemies appear.
* Hall of Valhalla: +1 Attack, worth it.
* Mess Hall: +8 goblin growth - get it soon or never.

Strategy:
Since your dwellings are cheap, you can get behemoths in first week. You'll need some extra wood and even more extra ore, however. (and 20 wood for ogres, too). However, the behemoth lair will make a large suction in your cash reserves, so be careful and keep some spare cash for building economy later.

Forces combination:
The behemoths alone in second week are enough to do most exploring. The thunderbird variant isn't aby bad, too, but since the two supporting troops are very weak, they'll tend to suffer casualties, unless used very carefully.
In later phases, go for upgraded behemoths quickly, as they're much more durable and considerably faster.
Goblins and Ogres are quite good for castle defense, but since their upgraded versions are faster, you might want to take them on the road with your might hero. In that case, cyclopes might be used as the reserve troop, until their number accumulates into a useful shooter stack. (However, cyclopes in castle sieges are good even in the lowest numbers, as the damage dealt to castle walls isn't dependant on the size of the attacking cyclopes stack - so if you enter the battle with four stacks of two cyclopes, you'll have four extra catapult attacks per turn. One cyclope isn't enough, however, since the castle towers will score 100+ damage and would eliminate him.)

Heroes:
From the barbarians, Crag Hack is the best with Advanced Offense and 5% per level bonus to it. Gurnisson's ballista is a good thing. Tyraxor with Tactics and WolfRaider speciality seems a good pick, too. All others are fair, maybe except Krellion (Ogres and Resistance.)
Battle Mages: Dessa with Logistics is a good one. Gundula is a spellcasting version of Crag Hack (Offense). Terek is my personal favorite (Tactics and
Haste special - Those two combined guarantee you a huge first strike. It is, however, very wise to try and acquire some very fast unit (phoenix, archangel, some dragon etc, so that you play first and have time to cast Haste)). Zubin is good for shooters (Precision). Others don't seem good.

Skills important for the troops and strategy:
Offense is the key to success, because your troops already score good damage, having very high attack rating - and expanding it by 15% is certainly worth one secondary slot.
With two shooters and four walkers, Ballistics seems a bit better than
Archery, taking the not-so-good availability of cyclopes into account.

Unit              A  D  HP  Dmg   Sp $$   AdjD  Dm/g grow weekD
Hobgoblins        5  3  5   1-2   7  50   1.35  2.70 38   51
Wolf raiders      8  5  10  3-4   8  140  3.36  2.40 18   60
Orc chieftans     8  4  20  2-5   5  165  3.36  2.04 14   47
Ogre magi         13 7  60  6-12  5  400  10.35 2.59 8    83
Thunderbirds      13 11 60  11-15 11 700  14.95 2.14 6    90
Cyclops kings     17 13 70  16-20 8  1100 24.30 2.21 4    97
Ancient Behemoths 19 19 300 30-50 9  3000 58    1.93 2    116

Chapter IX: Fortress guide

Strengths:
Four two-hex creatures (although it may be considered a weakness, too ;-))
Best 4thlevel troop
Dangerous 7thlevel creature
Fast flyers
Two-hex moat! (Effectively doubling the time walkers will need to cross.)

Weaknesses:
Slow armies
Poor shooters

Army evaluation:
Gnolls 3/5/6/2-3/4/50
Gnoll Marauders 4/6/6/2-3/5/70
They offer above average 1stlevel performance, but that doesn't mean you should use them.

Lizardmen 5/6/14/2-3/4/110
Lizard Warriors 6/8/15/2-5/5/140
Since the SOD upgrade, they're a bit more durable and also score higher damage. That makes the only fortress shooter more important.

Serpent Flies 7/9/20/2-5/9/220. dispel target
Dragon Flies 8/10/20/2-5/13/240, dispel target, cast weakness on enemies
I like those flies because of their speed rating. They're excellent for taking out shooters and sweep those little stacks that wander somewhere on the battlefield. Also they can take some damage... and they'll love Bless. (And they got quite better in SOD, including the weakness special.)

Basilisks 11/11/35/6-10/5/325, petrifying attack
Greater Basilisks 12/12/40/6-10/7/400, petrifying attack
They fight well, their special ain't any bad and they're two-hex - good for blocking.

Gorgons 10/14/70/12-16/5/525
Mighty Gorgons 11/16/70/12-16/6/600, death stare
Their special is great. They're extremely durable, again two-hex and in fact cheap. In long games, they make the Fortress superior, since they can wipe out 7thlevel monsters like nothing.

Wyverns 14/14/70/14-18/7/800
Wyvern Monarchs 14/14/70/18-22/11/1100, poisoning attack
Pretty dangerous, although low on health. A nice special (to watch ;-). They should not be used to battle higher level units - use their speed for hit'n'run against shooters, catapults in castle defenses etc. Also, they can be built pretty soon and serve as a crucial exploration army.

Hydras 16/18/175/25-45/5/2200, no retaliation, attack all adjacent
Chaos Hydras 18/20/250/25-45/7/3500 +1s, no retaliation, attack all adjacent
Fourth two-hex creature in Fortress, quite tough ones. Their special is pretty strong, if used effectively. You gotta try and get Expert Water Magic and
Teleport ;-)

Upgrading priorities:

* Gnoll Marauders: Lowest. They're nothing but cannon fodder, used in exploring and in castle defenses.
* Lizard Warriors: Low. They're not strong enough to be important.
* Dragon Flies: High, for the speed that takes them to the other side.
* Greater Basilisks: Low, as they're used mainly for protection and cleanup works. That is, unless you decide to use them as a main fighting stack, which they can do, as well.
* Mighty Gorgons: High, although it doesn't seem so, they're quite offensive weapon, mainly because they can walk out there and stand some damage.
* Wyvern Monarchs: High for +20% damage and +4 speed. They will be quite important in eliminating enemy ranged attackers.
* Chaos Hydra: High. The HP and speed increase makes them less inferior compared to other 7thlevel units - and therefore gives you more room to exploit their devastating special.

Castle building in the first week:
Day 1:  Town Hall             2500g
Day 2:  Lizard Den            1000g + 5w
Day 3:  Serpent Fly Hive      1000g + 5w + 2m + 2s
Day 4:  Wyvern Nest           3500 g + 15w
Day 5a: Basilisk Pit          2000g + 10o + 5w
Day 6a: Gorgon Lair           2500g + 10w + 10o + 5m +5s
Day 5b: Upg. Wyvern Nest      3000g + 10w + 10m
Day 6b: Upg. Serpent Fly Hive 1000g + 2m + 2s
Day 7:  Citadel               2500g + 5o


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Gnoll hut as 1stlevel dwelling assumed present.
The a) variant may also build Hydra Pond instead of Gorgon Lair, if you're lucky enough to have all the resources.
The b) variant is cheaper and is good especially against wandering shooters, as you get two fast flyers. Both troops assure you the biggest movement bonus.
(And one Dragon Fly is therefore typical Scout army).
Resource summary:
For a) variant, you'll need 40w, 25o and 15000g, which leaves us (20000 + 7000
- 14500) = 12500g for Day 1 to spend on troops. Since we have a total of six dwellings, the cash won't buy us all the troops. (And it'll be even worse with the Hydra variant, but you can then purchase two hydras, which is 350 non-retaliated-against HPs - against walkers/flyers it ain't any bad!)
For b) variant, you'll need 35w + 5o and 14500g. That will leave you 13000 for troops, then, which will be enough to buy out all wyvern monarchs (5x1100) and all dragon flies (20x240) and still some gold left to start for City Hall (or it can be MageGuild + spellbook!). The trouble with this variant is extra 4 bits of mercury you need.
As you can see, in both cases, you'll need lots of wood. If you can't snatch any wood around your castle, the building schedule will change at day 4, where you'll get Gorgon Lair for the last wood, buy the three gorgons and start exploring for wood fast! (And in the meantime, you'll be only able to build benefit buildings that need no wood.)
There is also a third variant - going straight after wyverns - building them on day three, and with two of them exploring against some stronger, mainly shooting wandering stacks. In that variant, you may then either go towards dwellings (and I recommend to try and get gorgon lair in first week). You should not worry about economy buildings - the extra exploration gained via wyverns should give you access to more resources and money, so that you can concentrate on dwellings and growth increase (Citadel and Castle).

Second week strategies:
If your wood stock is good, go after the City Hall. If it's not, it'll have to wait, but plan your gold consumption carefully, so that the CityHall is up and running ASAP.

Troops cost weekly (with castle):
Without 7th level:  19220
With 7th level: 26220
With one castle producing 14000/week, you'd better decide to leave some units in reserve... It can be basiliks, lizardmen or gnolls... but most probably two of those. Then I would scrap those that don't get any support from external dwellings. Capitol gives 28000/week, two chaos hydras add 7000, so we're getting some 1500g/week surplus.
HPs grown weekly 1712 (plus 500 in Chaos Hydras) at 11.22 g/HP (11.85)

Benefits:
* Blacksmith: First Aid Tents sold here. A good thing.
* Blood Obelisk: +2 Attack under siege. Very good.
* Cage of Warlords: Gives +1 D to any visiting hero. Pretty Good.
* Captain's Quarters: +6 Gnolls/week. Get this early or never.
* Glyphs of fear: +2 Defense under siege. Very good.
* Resource Silo: +1w and +1o per day. Good if you have only one sawmill and one or more extra villages to build up.

Strategy
Wood is an absolute priority. You'll need to gather at least 35 bits of wood, if you want six dwellings and City Hall (not mentioning castle and hydras, which need another 10 bits each).

Forces combination:
Gnolls should stay home unpurchased. Good offensive force for early stages might be Wyvern Monarchs and Dragon Flies. If you'll be taking castles, have lizardmen as cannonfodder with you. Otherwise you might need nothing else.
However, Gorgons (and Mighty Gorgons even more) make a good offensive unit. A typical usage would be all three stacks waiting, enemy approaching, their shooters scoring half damage, your gorgons then having one attack at the fastest enemies, your fliers then attack enemy shooters in the waiting part of turn and if shooters are no longer a threat, in second turn both flyers returning back to deal with walkers.
When you get hydras upgraded, take them along to provide another unit to handle enemy walkers/flyers. If you're rich, buy out basilisks, too, as they're pretty formidable fighters. (But they make a good unpurchased reserve in castles for defense, or good purchased reserve as a deterrent of potential attackers).
Mighty gorgons' special Death stare is very powerful and depends on the size of the gorgon stack. The more MGs you have, the higher losses the death stare will score, on average. Since their special isn't anyhow dependant of the enemy type, a stack of 30+ gorgons is excellent to inflict heavy losses to highlevel enemy units. Gorgons themselves with their high HPs can afford to suffer retaliatory attacks from those enemies... Note that you should try not to waste MGs to attack lower level creatures. Wyvern special causes the affected enemy stack to lose 10% of HP limit every turn and lasts for three turns. The HP limit loss is irreversible within the battle. (So this is somewhat less powerful version of 'Aging' of Bone dragons, yet with permanent effect.)

Heroes:
Among Beastmasters, avoid Drakon (Gnolls) and Bron (Basilisks, Basic
Resistance). Gerwulf has Ballista and knows how too use it. Korbac has
Pathfinding, Tazar is Armorer. Others are OK. Bron will, with starting armies, make a good scout, though.
Witches: Mirlanda is good with Weakness. Andra has Intelligence, so you can go for SpellPower. (And she's a good castle defender, too.) Rosic and Tiva are useless. Voy is excellent as a sea scout (Navigation). Verdish has First Aid bonus - can be used well with Hydras alone, or with two wyverns as the early exploration hero.

Skills important for the troops and strategy:
Armorer is a good thing here to extend the higher Defense stats of creatures (and all BeastMasters have it, anyway), as well as higher Defense gaining probabilities of heroes.