Important Tips to remember

  When casting spells: Remember to cast your daily dose of tree of
  gold! Always keep a shadowlight active, and protection if you
  think you'll need it. When at war, remember, amnesia is your
  friend :)

  When buying science: (elsewhere on this page)

  Be careful when you attack: *Never* send out more than 30% of
  your elites (total) in attacks. Doing more than that will leave
  yourself wide open, and even that much is a risk.

  Make friends, lose enemies: I have heard one wise utopian say
  that a province is only as good as it's allies. As halflings, you
  need to know that your defense will be extremely weak, maybe
  even less than that of the average orc or avian if you regularily
  attack. Such is the downside to the cheap 4/4 elite. When
  attacking someone, always send them a polite message and state
  the reason why you landgrabbed them and a suggestion on how to
  improve, or an offer to discuss strategies. For those that don't
  take your message as a hostile action, both sides usually benefit
  :).. if nothing else, you can give them the url to my page.

  Training
  For the most part, you will be training 2-4 elites: 1 thief. You can
  make do with less thieves than any other race due to your bonus,
  which balances this race if played well and not to an extreme with
  that of the dwarf. Personally, I'd go with 4 elites: 1 thief, but for
  most people 2 or 3 elites to a thief will be fine. ;)

  Days 1, 2, 3
  You can refer to 'Larroke's Startup Guide' for a good example of a
  decent start that will work for almost any race, including halfling.
  However, remember to change it a little bit due to the bonuses
  you have, and don't start training beastmasters :).. just train like
  I advised above.

  Year 1, part of 2
  I don't recommend hitting anyone in this period that you do not
  believe to be a landfarm, as many people will have started all
  defense or mostly defense and a few attackers to hit the
  landfarms. I suggest you send but a few halfgiants out to do the
  job, and try to reap the rewards before anyone else decides to hit
  your targets.

  Buildings:
   30% homes
   12% farms
   10% mines
   10% armouries
   0-10% strongholds (option 1)
   0-10% guard stations (option 1)
   10% barracks
   10% towers
   8% guilds

  Questions you may have at this stage
  Why the barracks? At the start, it's best to plunder people
  constantly for a nice boost gold coin-wise. More barracks = more
  hits on cashfarms. =)

  Why mines? Currently, mines produce more income than plazas
  with full employment, and income is one of the things you'll need
  most at this stage, so it's a shoe-in.

  Why so many towers? Tree of Gold is without a doubt the most
  powerful spell in your arsenal at the moment. Use it all the time
  for a quick cash boost to train more elites or just hoard for future
  use.

  Why strongholds/guardstations? The halfgiants you have will be
  very weak, and people will be searching for landgrab targets
  matching your race. On the other hand, there might be some juicy
  guys just out of your 30% halfgiant range, that's when the
  stronghold bonus kicks in. However, strongholds are going to be
  phased out soon, as this is one of the few times in the game they
  prove useful if all you're hitting isn't
  cashfarms/landfarms/inactives.

  Years 2 to 5
  At this time, the multis and landfarms will have dried out for the
  most part, and inactives are slowly getting their boatload of cash.
  My advice: Looks for a good target, there's still some out there.

  Buildings:
   50% homes
   15% farms
   5% armouries
   15% guilds + towers (you choose the amounts :))
   10% mills
   5% guard stations (or: 5% strongholds)

  Questions you might have at this stage
  Why trim down the guard stations? You should have enough elites
  to compete with those in your networth range now to make up for
  the defense loss if you don't send out much. However, if a
  thought of a war is brewing, I'd dump either some mills or
  armouries to bring up the amount of guard stations again.

  Why trim down the armouries? While the cost of your halfgiants
  does not increase, the amount of gold your thieving attempts get
  you does. Land that was once armouries could be put to better
  use as mills now, or homes to increase your draft and therefore
  get more elites instead of just dumping all your money into
  sciences.

  Why mills? The cost of buildings rises dramatically the larger your
  landmass gets. If you're gaining 100 acres or more a day, mills
  would probably help you out more at this time than plazas or
  mines in their stead. If you're going to war, mills are a necessity,
  as lots of people enjoy using arson.

  What about sciences? This is where you'll be pooling all your
  money from thievery attempts into ;) I recommend starting with
  income, until it hits around 20%, then moving on to tools and
  maximum population. Many people tend to say tools are the least
  useful of all sciences, but when you're rebuilding or getting new
  acres, you'll probably be glad you had them.

  Years 6 and higher
  At this time, you should be finding targets with 3 million gc or
  greater, and stealing from them (but not sending more than the
  necessary amount of thieves, to minimize losses when randomity
  kicks in). Continue grabbing, but to a lesser extent.. you have to
  have quite a bit less land than the people around you. Don't grab
  more than you can afford to build with only double 16 hours worth
  of income - remember, you always have to keep training elites as
  well.

  Buildings:
   65% homes (10% more as option 1)
   10% farms
   10% guard stations (option 1) <- needed if you're looking like a target
   10% mills (option 1) <- recommended
   10% armouries (option 1)
   5-12% guilds
   3-10% towers
   5% mines (optional, replace with guilds or towers if not)
  Just remember to make it all add up to 100% :)

  Questions you may have at this stage
  Why so many homes? The key to being a good halfling is utilizing
  their two main bonuses: less food needed, and cheap elite.
  Therefore, you can safely dump some farms and armouries and
  increase your draft without feeling the ping that other races will
  have if doing this (Your elites are cheaper than the average other
  race elite with armouries, fyi). More draft = more elites = more of
  a networth gain than the other races. This is necessary to provide
  the boosts above other provides that find their way above you.

  Why so few farms? At this point, you should be coming across
  people with 1mil + bushels that you can rob.. if not, you can trade
  soldiers to your kingdom mates instead of always training more
  half giants. It works either way, and the upped peasants increase
  your networth a nudge and a half more.

  Why aren't armouries? Halfling elites cost less than any other
  races to train, therefore you can skimp on the armouries after
  awhile when you can gather lots of cash by stealing. Other races
  can't do this and be able to train all their elites on a constant
  basis, usually. :)

  End Notes
  If done right under normal circumstances, this strategy -will- get
  you into the top 100 provinces (and be able to sustain your
  position, gradually rising) no problem.

Play the game at http://games.eesite.com/utopia/     and good luck!!!!