To start off always remember to take the freebies, these are the links on the web page that give you daily benefits. Look around and you will find them. Try taking them at the end of the day.

 The more peasants the more money, the more troops the more security

 Always train thieves, especially during the times of peace. Every little bit helps. Try getting at least as many thieves as acres you have.

 Need more money - steal, need more runes - steal, need more peasants - steal!

 If your thievery effectiveness is low get it up through science

 Use science a lot, by increasing these you are virtually increasing the amount of things that you have

 If you can not steal at this point try pillaging someone, but for this you will need strong troops

 Always try to work with your kingdom as a team otherwise you are as good as dead

 Message your friends, help them, and stay in constant contact

 Before attacking always cast crystal ball

 Always send a bit more troops to overcome the defences, you never know what dirty tricks the defender has.

 Try attacking only kingdoms, which have not been attacked recently to get more benefits. To know who has been attacked a lot either cast Crystal Ball or look at their fame. 1000 Fame is normal so if they have less than that it means they have been attacked.

 To grow fast build mostly housing and a few farms

 Any spare cash spend on science, because if someone attacks you later they would take it anyway

 Look up the stats for your units, if the defence of the elite is equal or more to the defence of 3 then train only elite type of units for defence. For example Orcs should use the elite units only for attacking, whereas Elves should use them only for defending and the dwarfs should build only elite units both for attacking and defending 

When you cast MM and it sais that it will stay for 12 days but you know you will not logon until then then do it again to make sure you have it for 24 hours. MM gives you 75% bonus to mines.

If you attack cast minor protection if you do not attack do not cast it. MP gives you 10% extra protection.

1 TPA is a must, consider it a minimum. If you have 1 TPA in a day or two when you go to war expect all your peasants and money and food and runes to be stolen by thief experts with 9:1 thief raito. The minimum wartime tpa must be 2:1 and even then you will be robed. You can not stop the thief experts you can only slow them down.