Castle
Increasing levels reduces construction time. Max reduction in construction time is 85%, resulting 15% of the original construction time.
Special property: At castle level 15, you gain the ability to downgrade building levels, if you have finished the research in your alchemist’s laboratory. Queuing over 3 queues results in additional cost penalties, canceling of queues with penalties will not result in the return of the additional cost.
Early game Usefulness: Minimal, you won’t have enough resources to be able to make the reduction cost efficient.
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Sawmill, Quarry, and Ore Mine
Increasing levels increases the amount of resource you receive per hour. Sawmill produces wood, Quarry produces stone, and Ore mine produces ore. Max production, 6.200 units per hour.
Game Usefulness: Highly. For the early game, when you are focus on building, its recommended to keep your Quarry 2 to 3 levels higher than Ore mine, while your Ore mine can be 2 to 3 levels higher than Sawmill.
When you begin to focus on building troops, its recommended to keep your Quarry 1 to 2 level lower than Ore mine, while your Ore mine can be 1 to 3 levels higher than Sawmill. <– Depends if you focus on Squires or Templars
Later when you begin to build siege units, you may want to start equalizing your resource levels.
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Warehouse vs. Hideout
Increasing levels increases max resource storage capacity, Warehouse. Max capacity, 950.000 units of each resource.
Increasing levels increases max space to hide resources, Hideout. Max hideout capacity, 15.000 units of each resource.
Special property: Resources that can be covered by the hideout will stay hidden from spy reports. Hideout does not act as additional storage space, only the warehouse can store resources.
Game Usefulness: Warehouse, High. Hideout, Minimal to Highly (note: depends on your strategy). Hideout is only useful if attacked.
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Miller
Increasing levels increases max settler capacity. Max settler capacity, 50.000.
Game Usefulness: Moderate to High (note: depends on your strategy), buildings and troops require free settler space for construction/training can be queue up.
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Barracks
Increasing levels reduces training time and allows for the research of new units. Max reduction in training time is 90%, resulting in 10% of the original training time.
Game Usefulness: Minimal to Moderate (note: depends on your strategy)
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Town Wall
Increasing levels increases base defense and amplified stationary troop defense. Max increase in base defense, 1.020. Max increase in amplified stationary troop defense, 220%
Game Usefulness: Minimal to High (note depends on your strategy)
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Donkey Stable and Market
Increasing levels increases rate of donkey breding, Donkey stable. Max rate of donkey breding, 500 per hour
Increasing levels increases amount of donkeys stalls and amount of donkeys that can be sent out, Market. Max donkey stalls/amount of donkeys that can be sent out, 600
Special Notes: Each donkey can carry 1000 resource, The maximum number of donkeys you can own at any time is determined by the level of your Market. Whenever you trade the donkey is used up (destroyed) upon arrival, Donkey Stables determine how quickly you can make new donkeys to replace the ones you lose.
Game Usefulness: Minimal to Moderate, depends if your in an alliances that does a lot of trading. Late game you’ll need to use the Mark/Stable dynamic however its not that important if you can maintain equal levels of stored resources.
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Alchemist, Resident and Mint
Increasing levels allow you to conduct new research, Alchemist. Requirement to build Resident.
Increasing levels increases the rate of training counts, Resident. Max increase in training rate, 30%
Allow you to produce Ducats, which are required to train counts, Mint.
Game Usefulness: Counts are required to take over settlements, You should only build these building if you are on your way to taking over a settlement. If your still building up your settlement, stay away from this route. Because you could find yourself the target of players waiting for you to reach their 20:1 limit.
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Memorial
Is the last building on the construction tree and therefore requires all other buildings to have been full extended, before you can build the memorial. Memorial adds 50% to your settlement fortification.
Game Usefulness: Should only be built in either settlements specialized to be Defensive Pumps or settlements in chockpoints/frontlines settlements of a war. You may even choose to to not build this building due to the expensive cost of building all other buildings to its maximum extension. Also its very obvious to spot settlements with memorials, if players just check the point value of settlements.