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[Ve1roX]

I'm gonna point out a bunch of things for new players which is often overlooked by more seasoned players trying to help.

1 - get familiar with hotkeys.
Having the hotkeys on your keyboard as muscle memory is key to being a fast player so get your fingers acquainted well. B for build menu, and the various hotkeys for buildings within, and K for blink. these are probably some of the most important as you'll save a lot of time you could be spending in build time fumbling around with menus with your mouse.
You can control group things like your builder, your Alchemist, your command centers (I usually do multiple sets for various pages in cc) vendor, even walls and repairs if you dont want to look at them to upgrade.
Simply select the unit(s), hold control and press the number you want to have them hotkeyed as. 1-9 above the letters. Get creative.

2 wall formation. When setting up you walls it's important to think about a couple things: how much face is exposed to attack, how many repairs can I fit round them effectively, and is there room for repair bots.
Dont build your wall in a hallway. This only allows as many repairs as you have walls. And 2x that many bots.
You want your repairs to far outnumber your walls so set your wall 1/2 a space inside where the hall ends and your base begins.
Dont make your repairs directly in line with your walls. Depending on the orientation of your base, offset the repair 1/2 a space above or to the side of being exactly parallel with your walls. They can still reach and the offset formation will allow you to get more repairs hitting each wall.
Since the repairs can reach half a space, also build your repairs 1/2 a space away from the walls: which is just enough for a line of bots to fit inside. There are a few prebuilt walls in certain bases that you can refer to for these tips.

3- Repairs and faster lumbering.
I see a lot of newer players using very few or even no repairs at all to speed up their lumbering and often not even using their Alchemist to shrink and move them.
Just like the walls: you can set up an offset formation of repairs and hit your lumber building process to speed it up, there are lots of examples in this channel. Bots can speed up building too, but you have to right click with them. This is a great way to get your shrinking zone set up faster, or anything for that matter.

Armor vs wall upgrades: the command center upgrades are more important than upgrading the walls themselves!
I suggest upgrading walls and armor/hp in progressive cost.
Your armor statue is the cheapest after the 3 cost upgrades and it is not to be forgotten either.
For example,, if you have a 3 wall base and wall upgrades cost 25 each: total of 75, then do it after your armor/hp upgrade cost about the same. (69+63.)
The 3rd armor statue has a total cost of 75 as well. 50 for 1 gold from a vendor and 25 lumber.
This is also the time you want to get your solar or lunar team upgrade depending what phase its currently in. Don't waste your lumber on both, get the one it's currently on and the next once it changes from day or night.
Upgrading repairs and getting mecha-up team upgrade should be thought of and thrown in the same way.

Dont kill stuff!
Killing the early mobs only exposes your walls to more deadly stuff. The only reason you should kill enemies until the final quarter of the game is if you have the elemental stone and really want to buff up your hero with the kills.

If your doing all this and are still not surviving, then it's either your lumber technique, or macro. Balancing between upgrading wood and your defenses can be difficult but only experience can cure that. But if your making lv 1 mills fast enough you don't even have to worry about that for a little while.
No amount of try-hard or speed will make up for a technique that is simply not efficient. So take some time to analyze some techniques in the discord strategy channel, pick one that suits you, and practice it on an easy mode trying to get the highest end wood per second you can. Less time not building wood the better.
Dont forget to keep a few mills in your lumber yard for the free upgrades! I usually do 4 and take them out to combine a lvl 5 as soon as its done.
Take a good look at that lumber yard and what it can offer btw.

Hope this helps someone.