When you are ready to improve your defenses to protect your resources, there are several things to consider. Your defensive towers range must cover all parts of your city. Place your structures close together to make them easier to defend, as well as to be secured with walls. Upgrade your walls and defensive towers as you progress.
Offense
Build a strong offense to raid other players' resources. Do not go on the offensive until your own city is defended strongly. There is no point in raiding additional resources if it will just be stolen by other players. When attacking other players, consider deploying units on the left flank of the castle and another on the right flank. Place a third unit in the front of the castle gate. You can also add some offensive forces in the courtyard to improve your chance of victory. After a few levels, you will gain the ability to construct a Mystic Tower. These towers allow you to use Mystics, units skilled in spying. When you select a shadow camp, you can now choose to deploy some Mystics. Two icons will appear; a lightning bolt and a magnifying glass. The lightning bolt signifies the chance your Mystics will be discovered by the enemy. The magnifying glass displays how accurate their information will be. The more Mystics used, the higher their chance of discovery by the enemy but they will have better accuracy. The information they obtain will show you what kind of items you can raid from the camp, how many units they have, and where they are stationed. If your Mystics are discovered, you will still gather information, but the enemy will have higher defenses than usual.
Resources
Start by improving your resources. You have three primary resource; food, stone and wood. Collect them from farms, stone quarries and woodcutter mills respectively. Build the maximum number allowed for each of those structures, as well as upgrading them for maximum output. You should also build more houses to increase your population as part of improving your resources. You do not have to worry about building your defenses until your resources get large enough to get the interest of other players.
Taxes
When setting a specific time to collect taxes, the more citizens you have and the longer you set the time for, the more gold you will earn. However, you must return to the game after that specified time finishes. After the time period ends, you will slowly lose gold. The longer you take to get back and collect the taxes, the more gold you will lose.
Tools
There are attack and defense tools that can be used to increase your odds. For example, the Scaling Ladder gives a defensive increase when used against the castle walls. The Battering Ram helps units that are going against castle gates.