Make active cash flow by raiding inactive players' cities as well as barbarian cities. You will only lose units the first time you attack an inactive player's city because you have to wipe out their units first. A good strategy that everyone in my guild uses is to get a stable as fast as you can so that you can get a huge army of knights. They are strong and quick. You can harvest one inactive city for all their 600 per resource every 4 hours. So, have about 40-45 attacking each city every four hours and you will have so many resources. Your active cash flow is key. Also, GET IN A GUILD. It makes the game so much more fun and they can protect you. Just make sure you are on top of attacking surrounding cities that have lower than 1100 total points.