How to speed up construction / upgrade times
If you send people to a room before the upgrade (or even after), it will significantly reduce the time it takes for that upgrade. This works for all rooms, so make sure you have as many people as possible.
Populate your castle with highly rated residents
Newborn babies take statistics and rarity from their parents. This means that if you accommodate two 1-star residents, you will receive a 1-star child.
Since they are useless, you will need to recruit the best people and keep them busy until you have the largest possible team in your castle. It will take time, but here's how to do it:
1. First, don't worry too much about star ratings until you complete your castle. Ideally, your people should be 2 or more stars.
2. After filling up the castle, it's time to get more picky. Place two of your highest rated men (ideally 5 stars) and swap women for them, as one woman can get pregnant once a day.
3. Kick out low-rated members of your castle and wait until all of your inhabitants have 5 stars. It will take time, but now that you have established the process, it will happen much faster.
How to kick people out of the castle?
If you want to expel a resident from your castle, just click on him, then the hamburger menu next to his name and select the option “Kick out”.
Recommended update order
Start by upgrading your rooms with the barracks and training area, then choose the dining room and treasury, and then the basement and shelter.
How to decrease rating
The lower your PvP rating, the lower the likelihood of attack and loss. Therefore, you can cheat the game a little in order to lower your rating and therefore increase your chances of success. There are two ways to do this:
1. The best way to do this is to use the post-attack revenge option. Just add one soldier (the weakest) to the barracks and remove all the rest. Start your revenge against the player who attacked you and you will most likely lose the battle by downgrading your rating without any real losses.
2. You can also achieve this by simply attacking and losing on purpose (with one soldier), but it also costs resources. However, this is better than being plundered!