Town Development

General City Layout
The following is what I consider a good town to consist of:
1 Embassy
1 Feasting Hall
1 Rally Spot
1 Relief Station
1 Academy
1 Workshop
1 Beacon Tower
Iron Town (8 cottages), Lumber Town (6 Cottages) Farm Town (5 Cottages)
17-20 Barracks

1 Town will be the exception because it will have a market and an Inn

5200 Defense

This is the general defense used. I make my wall defenses Abatis mostly, mixed with traps/DTs (to a lesser extent.) Abatis are the most cost efficient to have killed as a defender since it takes cav to break them. In a 5200 defense, it is not recommended to leave Cavalry or Cataphracts in them. A nice backup in case all of your T/A/D are cleared, is to add 1 catapult to keep the range 1700 (safe from cav bombs.)

Compact Defense

A compact defense will have no T/A/D, no Bally, and no Catapults. This is where I store all of my Cavalry and Phracts. I only have 1 city with this type of setup. My only wall defense is 18,333 ATs. I also store my normal compliment of archers and layers here as well. As long as you have ATs up, your archers are defended from enemy ranged. And your cavalry will move before anything the enemy has unless he sends a scout bomb (wave purely consisting of scouts).