Subsequent Cities

My third, fourth  and fifth cities will be resource cities, with equal amounts of wood/stone/iron and food (use the auto city planner to maximize resource production)

My actual cities on world 83:

Third city:  http://bit.ly/VNrqVQ
Fourth city: http://bit.ly/ZDzEpb
Fifth city:  http://bit.ly/VNrIfo

My sixth city will be a full zerk castle.  This city makes 3 sec zerks and has a max capacity of 300k troop strength (TS).  See http://lordofultimastrategies.blogspot.com/2011/09/how-to-build-kick-ass-berserker-castle.html.  This castle recruits zerks, and my second city will not switch to recruiting rangers.

Now I have 2 castles, my second and my sixth cities.  When I have enough purified resources to research my second city, I will get my 8th city for free.  

My 7th city will be another resource city and my 8th will be a castle.  When I have around 10 cities, I will go full military  This means I will stop building resource cities, unless I take a lawless that's a resource city.  Most of my cities will be military.  I castle both offensive and defensive.  They are always raiding, even the defensive once.  Raiding brings in about 4 -10 times more than a typical resource city, so in the long run you will grow faster with raiding cities.  I will also build food cities and hubs.  Zerks are the best for raiding, but I also build Knights and Mages for war.  For defense, I build rangers, pallies and xbows. Navy comes later.

My 10th city is a regional hub with baron launching capabilities.  This will allow me to launch 5 barons at once.  

Your Second City in LoU

Since the update of March 13, 2012, you get a "free city" (you don't need to spend purified resources to research title advancement) for every castle you own.  To take advantage of the free title advancement, my second city is a castled city.  WARNING: CASTLING YOUR CITY WILL SUBJECT YOU TO SIEGES AND ASSAULTS.  This is a risky move if you are not in the dominant alliance of the continent.  Even then, it is still possible that you get attacked or even loose your city.

I want to take advantage of the free title advancement, but it's very difficult to build a full castle at this point.  I don't have enough iron and stone resources, building a full castle will slow me down.  So my second city is a "pseudo" castle.  A hybrid between resource and military.  This is the only time I will recommend this type of castle.  Other than this city, you should always build full military castles.  A full castle packs a lot more punch!  My second city is a mixed resource city with about equal wood/stone/iron/food (use auto city planner for this.)  I also build a cluster of military of 2 training grounds and 10 barracks.   When I have enough purified resource to research  for my 3rd city, I will also castle this second city and found my third and fourth city at the same time.  [You may want to wait to castle your third city instead of your second city, but you will not be able to found your 3rd and 4th city at the same time, which can slow down your growth]

This is my actual second city in world 83. http://bit.ly/SFWxBU