New Cities

This morning I built a city on a level two flat about 3.5 miles from my base city. I also have several cities that will be coming off Beginers Protection at the end of today, even closer. They are each about a mile away. I mention them because they have had very little or no activity. It seems that people signed up for the game and either didn't like it or couldn't figure it out. If I saw someone trying to grow I would leave them alone but these appear to be abandoned from the start.

My questions to the group are,

1. What happens to these cities?
2. If I don't take them over will I end up having someone else, maybe from a not so friendly alliance, do it and become a threat to me?
3. Is a better strategy just to continue to spend my time building my base city until it is an impregnable fortress and it doesn't matter who moves next door?
4. I also don't understand how members of an alliance can help one another if one of us comes under attack. I think that would be good to know right. I am thinking that if I grow and my prestige goes up is not that good for the whole alliance as well?

1. As far as I know, they stay as they are until they get destroyed.
2. It is possible. Keep an eye out in the area around and see of there are any people expanding, and keep an eye on them. But chances are they will just be going after the abondoned cities as they are easier to aquire.
3. You should always be building your cities, and making sure they are well defended. You can get attacked at any time, and its best to always be prepared. The better your defences, the less likely you will get attacked.
4. Alliance members can help my sending armies to your city to help defend. The amount of armies allowed to be garrisoned depends on the level of your embassy. Also, if we happen to have members in the area, they might find it beneficialy to attack whomever is attacking you while their army is away.

you gaining prestiege is very good for our allience but if we have 50 mems then every one gains an extra 100 prestige free...
50 x 100
5000 prestige just by gaining 6 mems.
plus we gain whatever prestige they already have and our ranking will go down which will make it eaisier to be make friends with other high ranking alliences