Originally Posted by Scattershot

If upgrading the port the consensus is don't go higher than 3 or 4. Higher than that makes you a very juicy target. Also you can demolish your port if you are being attacked to keep them from getting away with much.

The ships you have defending should be the best ships you have available. Ikariam doesn't have a rock, paper, scissors system.

Definately increase the number of ships you have defending!

Since you say your city is the best in the area, based on some of our pillagers you are making yourself a target. Being the biggest kid on the block can sometimes make others want to knock you down.

Once a spy gets into your city they can see your city view. With that you can see every building along with levels even ongoing construction. So yes they can see your port level.

Spys on defense help make it more difficult for enemies to get spys into your city and run missions to find out what kind of goods and troops you have in town.

Exactly! Well said! One thing I'd like to add is this...Unless you have a strong military 150k+ or a good reason to do so, build your infrastructure before your population. This way when you rise, you rise STRONG!

I usually get all of my buildings built, upgrade the most important to my particular cause a few levels and then expand to a 5th level colony for the extra action point. After that I concentrate solely on infrastructure. When I'm ready to increase my population, I build my wall to a target level and then make a hard push with my colony level. They never even see me coming. =]