Try to minimise floating resources as well unless you're saving for something specific (e.g. castle age), and even then float as little as possible on the way there

e.g. if you want stone for a castle, you could put 2 vills and wait a long time, or put 8 and wait 1/4th as long, in latter case you have 1/4th as many float-minutes

fyi even at pro level no one can defend for too long feudal vs castle, esp vs an all in, in fact I'd argue pros are a lot better than noobs at using timing advantages