Okay, you have started a new village. It starts out small, and you want to make it grow big. But hold on, resist the temptation to build everything you can. The more buildings you construct, the less wheat you have to feed your troops. Travian is first and foremost a war game. You want to make sure to build the right buildings in the right locations. Building up the blacksmith in a village where you only train phalanxes does you no good, and is a waste of resources better spent elsewhere. Think carefully and plan ahead for how you build your villages.

Listed below are the various buildings to be found in Travian. I've added my personal opinion and where I use each one of them.

Granery
The Granery is one of the most essential buildings in the game. I have a MINIMUM of 2 in each of my villages, so that the amount of wheat that I can store is at least 160000. This is important for two reasons. 1; so that if you get a massive amount of reins, you can stockpile wheat there so you don't run out. 2; if someone targets your granery with catapults, you still have one operational. I can't begin to explain how that has saved me on multiple occasions. I will also end up with 4 or 5 of them in my capital and hammer villages.

Warehouse
The Warehouse is able to store 80000 each of clay, iron, and wood. This will be enough for most of your villages. There are some buildings that will require the use of two warehouses to level up to level 20. These include the Hero's Mansion, Palace, Tournament Square, and any fields in your capital. When I had 14 villages, there was only two of them that I needed to have 2 warehouses in, so you can usually get by with just 1 warehouse.

Flour Mill/Bakery
These two buildings together will raise the wheat production of your village by 50%. You will need to build them in each and every one of your towns. I get the Flour Mill after my 1st wheat field reaches level 5, and after I've gotten all my wheat fields to level 8, I shoot one up to level 10 so that I can start to work on the Bakery.

Brickworks/Iron Foundry/Sawmill
I construct each of these in my feeder villages. I don't build them in 15c croppers, cause that is a waste. I also don't construct them in my hammer village, because I need the space there for military-related buildings. I may or may not build them in a 9c cropper, it depends on how early in the server it is.

Marketplace
The marketplace is essential for each and every village. This will allow you to transfer out any excess resources before you are farmed or before your warehouse becomes full. You also need to have merchants if you are going to use the NPC merchant. All of my feeders and spare croppers will have this building at level 20.

Cranny
The cranny is important to have at the beginning of the server. It keeps your resources from being taken by other players. As a gaul, I keep 1 in each of my villages, Romans and Teutons should have 2. Between the cranny and the marketplace, you should be able to prevent farmers from robbing you blind.

Trapper
As a gaul, I have mixed feelings about trappers. They are a neat concept, but when players start tossing around 10k hammers, the trapper becomes a waste of space in most cases. The most valuebe use for a gaul's trapper is hiding settlers there in the early game so that they aren't killed by the enemy.

Main Building
The higher level your main building, the faster you can construct any buildings. This is important if you don't buy gold. Each village starts with the main building at level 1. Personally, if you are building a cropper capital with high-leveled fields, you may want to tear it down for another warehouse and gold all of your buildings.

Residence/Palace
The Residence/Palace are used to settle and or chief other villages. After I have 5 or 6 villages, I will start to use specific villages for chiefs and others for settlers. It is expensive to build the prerequired buildings and researching a chief, so it is best to get 2 from each village that you work on them.

Barracks
I will have an upgraded barracks in my hammer village, and 4 or 5 village that I'm using to train up some defensive troops in. You will need them in your first 3 villages, but after that pick and choose which villages are going to produce troops.

Stable
I tend to upgrade only a total of 3 or 4 stables. 1 will be in my hammer town, 1 in another village to gets scouts, and 1 or 2 in various defensive towns to train druids. The only other use I would have for them is to get the trade office, for which you need a level 10 stable and level 20 marketplace.

Siege Workshop
I've only made one per account and put it in my hammer village, but I know of other players who will build them in two or 3 villages for the purpose of making a lot of fakes.

Academy
The academy is nessesary in any village where you are going to produce military units. You also need to level 20 in order to research chiefs. The academy is also a great source of CP.

Armory
Build it in any village you plan to train a lot of Defensive troops in.

Blacksmith
You will need tha blacksmith in any town where you are training more than 1000 offensive troops or scouts. The most you will need is two. Period. Don't do anything silly like train offensive troops in all of your villages. Offense doesn't stack like defense does.

Hero's Mansion
You will need to build a hero's mansion in any village that you wish to conquer an oasis from.

Embassy
You only need one embassy during the whole game, but they are a GREAT source of CP, so you might want to build one or two extras if you are on a village rush.

Trade Office
Only build the trade office in a village where you need to ship more resources than your merchants can carry. Romans and Teutons will need this upgrade more than Gauls will.

Town Hall
The purpose of the Town Hall is to produce more CP so that you can build villages faster.

Stone Mason
You can only build a Stone Mason in your capital. This building will strengthen your buildings so that any enemy will need to use three times as many catapults to ldestroy them.

Tournament Square
I build a Tournament square in my hammer village and in one of my defensive villages, and that's it. These are very expensive, but you will need them for any village that trains cattas.

Great Barracks The Great Barracks allows you to train twice as many troops, but at 4 times the cost. The only place I would bother to build this is in a hammer village. The Great Barracks should never be used to train defensive troops. As far as the Great Stables goes, only bother with it if you have at least 20 villages. Seriously.

Treasure Chamber This building is required to hold the plans for the World Wonder. It is also a great source of CP.

Great Granery/ Great Warehouse You can only build these in villages that hold a World Wonder. They can hold twice as much as regular graneries and warehouses.

World Wonder
The World Wonder can only be built in conquered Natar villages. There are a total of 13 of them, and the first one to level 100 wins the server.