I went with forges/subs... But that was before they rebalanced the stats of balanced builds compared to atk build. Now I would go beastiaries and aviaries with one defensive building to get 5% more plunder, an then maybe 3-5 guilds. Upgrade the guilds when you can, since they get a lot of plunder. Also, joining a pwar helps since it let's you hit osfs larger than you could normally hit, and that makes more plunder. Make sure to have max plunder and enough pots.