So I decided to work it out mathematically...note that the following figures as based off info from the illy Arcanum.

 

I figured out the increased production per hour for each level of res plot (WCIS and Food are separate) and the hours necessary to upgrade the res% buildings.

 

The key is to do different plans and see how much increased production per hour buildtime they took.

 

So we are gonna work off of a 5-5-5-5-5 res plot...(A res% building will have more power on a 7 res spot than a 3 res spot)

 

To upgrade all Wood (Or clay/Iron/Stone) plots from 0s to all 5s it takes 2.95 hours to get 225 production.

To upgrade the wood (Or C/I/S) plots to 3s and then rush one to 7 to get a R% Lv2 building it takes 3.48 hours (not counting the research time which makes it cost even more time) to get 169.52 production.

 

5-5-5-5-5-0% gives 76.27 production per hour

3-3-3-3-7-2% gives 48.71 production per hour

 

6-6-6-6-6-0% gives 46.83 production per hour (production is 295)

5-5-5-5-7-5% gives 29.81 production per hour (production is 280.5)

 

It is roughly 1.58 times more efficient to go the flat route rather than the '7 then % building' route.

I have never told a newbie to USE the building but in the case of carpentry it is needed to open up the research for bowry and fletching, and all the crafting therein.  Iron... smelting which is smithing and forging Chain and Swordsmithing.  Stonemasonry is same defensive structure (the wall).  

Most newbie guides talk about the opening the research not using the buildings.  But it is good to point out that the buildings themselves are more hinderance than help.

A mentioned the point of the "Rush %buildings" strategy is that additional research and thus buildings are unlocked earlier. Comparing the resource production of each stragety is in my opinion pointless - as in Illy basic resources aren't really a bottleneck. Beeing self-sufficient in basic resources feels good, but from a player(/city) development and economic point of view it really sucks. If you do not want to ask for basic resources from GC or your alliance (and you should!) then buy them at the market.

In my opinion if new players want to play efficient they should focus on two things. First getting population and thus new cities as fast as possible - as it allows you to build more and thus grow even faster. Second getting advanced resource production running. There is a shortage for advanced resource, thus starting to produce them helps the player, the alliance and is a good decision from an economic point of view. For example chainmail sells for 450 gold but costs 130 gold (or less) as basic resources. For both points the "Rush %building" strategy is better.

Same with Prestige builds. Players should build basic resource plots last. Getting more population and faster advanced resource production helps the player a lot more than basic resource production. The game is "balanced" around using Prestige, thus gold and increasing gold income is really important. Population and advanced resource production helps with that, basic resource production doesn't.

It's quite frightening when Brian and I agree about anything. However, I have long made this point, including in a post on this old thread:  https://forum.illyriad.co.uk/production-rates-vs-levels-for-newbs_topic10885_post107839.html" rel="nofollow - https://forum.illyriad.co.uk/production-rates-vs-levels-for-newbs_topic10885_post107839.html

Another factor to consider, if one is building without outside help, is the food consumption of resource plots. If one is building a balanced city economy, it's better to minimize population (and thus food consumption) at the outset in order to avoid having to spend resources on building farms. Higher level resource plots produce more of a resource per unit of food consumed than do lower-level plots, with one caveat. Upgrading non-food plots from level 1 to level 2 does not increase food consumption (both level 1 and level 2 plots consume one food per hour). 

My practice in starting a new city without outside help is to level all non-food resource plots evenly to level 2, which can be done with the original resources provided by the tutorial. I then continue leveling resources evenly within each type, but in such a manner as the resource production is equal for all the resource (so playing elf I level up clay plots higher and wood plots slightly lower, for example).

In terms of unlocking research, I find that there are more than enough other researches to complete in the first few days of play that unlocking the resource boost buildings and then subsequent resources is not a high priority. The clay and stone resource paths don't unlock research that's likely to be useful in the first few days of play when resources are scarce. (Walls are nice but unnecessary in the first seven days and not all that helpful in the first month or so usually, although there are edge cases.) Being able to make one's own sword, chain, and bows is cool but it's usually more efficient to build cottages and use the proceeds from cotters to buy them.

With regard to building population and therefore having more cities, this is fun for some players but not all. There's a pretty substantial dropoff in player engagement after the second city is founded, and another one (although not quite as sharp) after the founding of the third city. Pushing all new players toward founding more cities quickly is perhaps not the best strategy for retention -- although some players enjoy this challenge immensely.