I think you have to be lvl14 to even join a faction, so I guess we are in no hurry.
I'm also in the middle of a faction made by Mr. "I'm 20th in the global leaderboards and I'm punching everyone I want to", so waiting doesn't look so bad after all.
Hehe, k, I'll stick my head out and start the faction when I hit 14 and people can join as they get there if they are not in a favorable position like yourself.
EDIT: kung fu has a very awesome castle. I saw it and went 'Now that's a castle.'
Mine is an ugly hodge podge of wood and stone, assembled as cheaply as possible out of whatever I could spare to make it thicker.
EDIT2: Also, whoever was asking if wooden towers are useful, I would say yes, for a time. One will hold 4 archers. I built 6 around my keep and a bunch of palisades at the start and it worked for a while. After it was breached for the first time, I started placing stone walls. I haven't built stone towers yet but am currently researching them and I think they are next.
In other words, wooden towers + max castellations got me to 13, along with wall building. 6 wooden towers is 24 archers, and if you build your castle right you can make it so that enemy archers can't reach your archers in the towers while yours shoot theirs. That means if you have enough palisades to distract the melee troops, you can rely on those and a stone wall to keep enemies out for long enough to kill off their archers, at which point you don't lose unless you don't kill the enemy fast enough before they reach the keep (which should have some small amount of melee troops lined up at the door or inside as an extra speed bump)