@Isaiiah
If you want to be more of a fighter you need to get your Zeus, CoA and CdM and your Traz up towards level 10. The higher you get the more you can fight. Your higher attack will do more damage, your higher defence will reduce damage to you and your traz will mean you can store lots more troops. If you get all 3 to level 10 your attack/defence bonus will be at least 100%/90% - this will make fighting a lot lot easier and make PvP a lot easier (and thus plundering). Yes you can fight well with lower level buildings but if you want to fight in GvG or want to push through more fights - going auto is a necessary evil sometimes - so higher bonuses will mean the dumb AI won't hurt you as much
It is worth waiting in one era to do this for a few reasons:
- as you improve your troops and fighting ability you can fight ahead on the continent map and the Princess Quest line getting better rewards and higher age unattached troops. These will make it even better for fighting in GE. You should be able to get up to two eras ahead on the continent/quest if you are careful and boost your fighting capacities
- GE will get progressively easier if you stay in the same era
- if you are levelling up your GBS (regardless of how you do it) it is best not to be spending on research at the same time; going up an era requires a big investment in research quickly to remain competitive in GE and in your hood
If you are in a top 5 guild there should be plenty of support and swap threads in guild to help you level up your GBs quickly, particularly your ARC and fighting GBs as they have the most guild benefit.
I prefer internal guild swap threads for the most part as you can pick and choose where you want to contribute. Because you are on many times a day you don't have to take the inguild swap every time if it is not going to be beneficial to you. You can wait for another guildee to take it and offer a swap that suits you better.
I would focus on CdM in preference to Zeus, CoA and Traz as you get fps as well. Self levelling - don't - you do yourself out of a reward from someone else's GB and you are not getting any benefit from your ARC. I regularly buy fps with coin. If you are well of for coin and your city produces surplus coin daily then whilst you are standing still - buy fps and invest them in swap threads or use them to snipe hood GBs for increased reward. The game is scaled so as you progress - yes fps get more expensive but equally you will get more coin
I would level up the ARC first to increase rewards then level up the other fighting GBS and Traz using in guild swaps making sure you place in the rewards so your ARC contribution pays out
If you are planning to stay in an era for a while (say more than a week) I agree you should put down a Chateau for the looping quests. Even at a low level it is basically goods and stuff for free