Actually, you would never move backward in technology, unless you don't have a high enough Academy in the second city. 100% truth, you could level all technologies to 10, and then destroy everything except your Academy, and still have all the researches. The only thing not having certain buildings means is that you can't use that town to research the next level of a technology you do not have the prerequisite for. Once a technology is LEARNED, you do not need to maintain the prereq buildings, just the correct level of Academy. And yes, I did lose my main city on my first attempt, leaving me with a sub-L4 TH city right after I'd made it. Once I upgraded the Academy, I got my research back, although this was some time ago, it could possibly have changed, but very doubtful.
As far as the Beacon Tower, in my experience, I have never had a Beacon Tower in another city alert me of an attack on another city. It will, however, warn me of any attacks on valleys connected to the city the Beacon Tower is in. I will do some testing about the towers, though. Having a high-level Beacon Tower is a must, though, because it will give you valuable information when you are attacked.
I also wanted to stress the importance of Relief Stations again (And Embassies, if you do not have a large standing army.)
One of my alliance members had been getting harassed by another player in an alliance we are warring. He was not having enough time to build up defense before being attacked/plundered. We decided to stop the attacks, by sending alliance troops there. We would have stopped the first one after making the decision, but the attacker was alerted to our plan due to a spy we later found in our alliance. The attacker then attacked sending twice the force he'd been sending (He couldn't have scouted for the info, to know he needed to upsize his force, because he sent the attack before any alliance troops had gotten there.) Which got there a few minutes after one set of 25k alliance archers got there, and sadly, 2 minutes and 28 seconds before a second set of alliance archers arrived. The attacker won, losing almost everything, but killing all the 25k alliance archers, along with the defender's troops/fortifications. Lucky he'd sent resources out to avoid the plunder. Some time later, the same guy sent his entire army from that city to try and break our alliance-mate, not knowing we'd have another set of archers show up. When he attacked, with 26k archers, he was destroyed, although half the ATs were destroyed and 100% of the alliance archers died. He was ****ed, so he sent his entire army from another city, further away. As I have very high level Relief Station, I managed to get another defending set of archers in place (Would end up being the second set I lost.) And myself and another alliance member reinforced with heavy numbers of Cavalry (I'd sent the second set of archers before the guy started his third attack, and reinforcing more archers would not have been possible in the timeframe, as I am in the same region, but still 200 miles from this specific alliance mate.) Our Cavalry arrived within 10 minutes of the attacker's forces (Not possible without high level Relief Stations.) and although I lost almost 10k Cavalry and all my archers, again, we routed the attacking force as well, causing him the lose of some 70-80k archers (Plus loads of warriors, pikes, and swords, and a good number of ballista) over the course of those three attacks. Allied loses were only about 50-60k archers, and 13k cavalry (Along with perhaps 4-500 ATs.)
None of this would have been possible without us alliance mates having spent the time and resources to level our Relief Stations.
Also, as I mentioned, if you are not a very well defended player, make sure you get an embassy, and at least upgrade it to 4-6, to allow garrisoned troops.



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