Originally Posted by
noobium
the game no longer takes barren acres first.
in war you should only build things that will be useful, and think about where your province will be when those buildings come in. if i build tg or barracks in war, i like to time the construction of those buildings so they are ready the tick my armies return, in order to maximize building efficiency and perhaps surprise enemies who think my offense will be less than it is; this is not necessary but is helpful. otherwise, plan for where you will be after two unique hits.
the question then is whether it's worthwhile to pay building costs, or save your build credits for a point where they will mean more. paying 800 gc to build an acre might not mean much, especially if those acres are going to be destroyed by trads or worse, razes.
if i'm about to win a war, i like to keep acres unbuilt in order to improve my nw range, and get some free building credits when the wd comes. but usually i leave that to instinct, and of course if there are situations where building to increase nw is helpful.
it also depends on what you are building. just building something to build something, might not be very useful, but building something you will need is probably worth the risk of those acres being destroyed.
of course, if you need to build to avert overpopulation losses, you usually should - it's a lot cheaper than losing specs and thieves. but you can use soldiers to cover for desertions when you are semi-chained, and sometimes it's better to manually release thieves to get those soldiers.