The Academy provides several technology research options. These upgrades give passive bonuses to your troops. They are categorized as a different building queue option and will not use any building slots. Research as much as you can frequently. Start with the Scouting option, which increases the chance that your scouts will return with useful information.
Efficiency
Keep your four construction queues (Building, Train, Tech, and Wilds) active. Building queues are activated when you construct a new building or upgrade an existing one. Training queues activate when recruiting new troops. Tech queues activate when researching new tech upgrades.
Free rewards
There four icons at the top left represent free rewards you can collect regularly.
Chest: Awards random resources and items every half hour.
Present: Log in for seven days in a row. You can open a chest each day, with the rewards get better. However missing a day will reset this.
Paper and feather: Sign in bonus that gives better rewards for five days in a row.
Star: Displays daily quests that will reward you with points. The more points you get, the higher your daily rank, and the better the rewards.
Recruiting troops
Build a Barracks, which requires a level 2 Academy. The barracks allows you to recruit various troop types and artillery. Try to build a balanced army, consisting of each type of unit. Check how much food and space a unit needs before recruiting them to make sure you have the resources available. In order to recruit the better quality troops, keep your Barracks and Academy upgraded.
Town Hall
Upgrade your Town Hall frequently. Each upgrade will increase overall construction speed, allowing your other buildings to upgrade faster. The level of your Town Hall limits other structures to be at the same level.
Warehouse
Upgrade your Warehouse to be able to store at least 10,000 of each type. Although the cost for building and recruiting new troops begins low, it increases dramatically.