Hello Archon ! 

There are many things you can do with your drachmas. The purchase of additional Artisans can be very beneficial at a certain stage of development. 

You can also find the Temple of Hermes in the building construction menu. Its price is 1000 drachmas and it is immediately built. His bonuses will increase your production of Timber and Bronze. 

There are a lot of objects and units in the market, such as the Pool of Fidelity, it relocates your city to a location chosen by you. Its price is 4000 drachmas. Or the Champion Units, added to the corresponding units they will bring an additional bonus on your power. Their prices are very varied (between 225 and 1950 drachmas).

It's up to you to establish your strategy according to your objectives, and you will know where usefully spend your drachmas, although you also have the possibility to keep them for later !

dungeonmaster201 said:

THANKS!!!, I decide for now to go with building up some of my city with defenses

Nice, Archon. Very good choice ! 

Or should is my 4500 drachmas better spent else where, like defenses and décor?

I dont remember for sure but I think only the first extra artisan costs 1500 the 3rd and 4th are more expensive.

It is very useful to have 2 or more when your building upgrades take a long time but early on 2 artisans is plenty. 

Upgrading 6 farms to level 25 you have numerous individual step durations of 6-10 days to get through so it takes forever.  Get the first extra artisan ASAP think about buying a 3rd one when you city is level 70. 

Eventually you run out of buildings to upgrade and your artisans will sit idle so if you are patient you'll get there eventually even with 1 artisan.  I have 4 and most of the time none are working and only one is working the rest of the time - every useful building is maxed out. The rest are useless and super expensive to upgrade so I only work on them for tournament points.

I've played 3 years and am level 93.  Catching up to the top players isn't even an option at my level but I still play.

I think 3 artisans is just fine. Take in consideration that if you'll upgrade everything too fast then how are you going to score good points in development tournaments? You'll be only able to do that with agreements.

 Once or sometimes twice in a month there are development tournamets with sketches in rewards. And I guess you know how important upgrade sketches are. So better not rush too much with upgrading all buldings too fast, play the long game.

Spending Drachma and buying an Artisan is always beneficial:

- having 4 Artisans building at a constant pace especially for new players
 
-catching up gets easier with 4 Artisans 

- the city still have free spaces and most likely will at some point have new buildings available for upgrade 

- getting ahead of other players on buildings being upgraded fully is always an advantage

Of course plenty other places you can find to spend Drachma and the Artisan is one of them.