Picked up the game yesterday, and curious on some tips for it's current state?

I read through the other tip post but realized it's pretty hold and came out prior to the newest updates. So I was wondering if anyone could give me some good starting out tips? I played for an hour so far and ran into only two questions so far, so maybe someone could answer those as well.

1. when building a house they are already coming with their "upgrades" chosen. How do you actually build one and then choose what you want to add on?
2. How many resource gathering buildings do you normally rush to get? I wasn't sure if people tried to start out with say 2 wood cutting ones or not (or anything else).

Thanks for anything to help me get going!