Quick questions

If your army becomes to big you can just occupy lvl 9 oasis and if really necessary sacrifice a few to a lvl 10 fort... But dont be afraid to run in the negatives... It means uve got a big army

While all the advice here is good, if you plan on being active and trying to be a serious warlord than VIP is a necessity.
Also, you need a good alliance and then youll see it's better to concentrate not on your resource fields, but your main, warehouse and barracks. Alliance mates can easily give you lv9 oases to supplement your lack of resource production, in fact 1 lv9 oasis will supply you with way more than your resource fields ever can at this stage. Until you get out of protection period to attack an alliance mates oasis, you should have no trouble reaching lv 4 by building troops and collecting rewards.
Also, your tech is what separates you from rest of the pack, so even if you have no attribute increases and the other player has upgraded his general stats, you will be able to trounce him with superior tech. So I say sell the armor at this point in the game and upgrade your tech.
This is just my two bits, there's more than one way to skin a cat.

keep the armor!!!! aand i love vip

I got an interesting question in s25 today.
Does armor only apply to troops, or does it apply To traps and turrets as well? Thanks in advance to any replies
=)

they have no defense just attack but attack is a good questions

Keep it until u get a better one. Good luck.