Your Build: You need a good build that will help keep the cashflow rolling in. Here’s a sample build you could use that would get the job done. Feel free to modify it as you see fit. It's only intended to give you a workable build that can help you grow.
27 homes
9 Farms
10 Guilds
10 Towers
5 Guardhouses
5 Strongholds
2 Shipyards
22 Banks
10 mills
Now this is a beginning build. As you creep towards 100% employment drop your % of banks and add more homes. You should always aim to stay at that 97-99% employment range. This will keep your cash flow growing at an optimal rate.
Your Land: You need to add 60 plus acres per day every day. You get 10 free acres from Echelon, so if you can grab or explore another 50 acres you're set. Whether it's on 4 small hits, 1 50 acre hit or 2 25 acre hits, whatever,, as long as you grab that 50 acres. It's ok to add more than amount as well. So if you run across a juicy target, hear of a friend that's gone fallow, etc, feel free to grab some more land. If you consistently add 50 acres from grabs, 10 acres from Echelon, and some extra acres here and there over the course of a 60 day long game, you will probably end up about 4000 acres as long as you don't get grabbed yourself. Always make sure that no one on the kingdom you are attacking can hit you back. Exploration can even be a viable option fairly early on. Later in the game the cost in soldiers gets too high but early on by all means feel free to explore to keep yourself on pace.
Your Forces: Keep your offense at about 1/3 to ¼ the power of your in house defense. If you have 3k points of offense then you should have 9k to 12k points of defense. That should keep your defense strong enough to make you an unattractive target for any of the large provinces looking you over. Elites are the best way to build NW. So be as elite heavy as possible. Also, add thieves at the standard recommended Archfiend ratio 1 to 1 early as possible without compromising your forces. 2 to 1 by 500 acres. 3 to 1 by 1k acres. 2k acres = 4 to 1, 3k = 5 to 1, 4k = 6 to 1. That's not a stunning thief ratio but it's better than what 80% of the people out there are doing and should be adequate to rob banks and fend off most attacks. It's also ok to raise that ratio if you feel your defense is adequate. 10 guilds per 100 acres will keep you rolling in wizards and should be be adequate against 80-90% of the provinces out there as well.
Cash: Tree of Gold like a maniac. Constantly keep the income rolling in that way. Rob Vaults every day. If you check out the article on "Picking Targets" I have that will help you to find people to rob fairly quickly. Make sure to follow my advice about keep your employed peasants in the 97-99% range. You need to keep the cash rolling in to build all those buildings and troops.
Putting it all together: That's really all you need to do. Stay consistent and keep adding land. Keep that defense solid and your thieves and wizards strong enough so that most people can't run right over you. Keep the cash rolling in daily with TOG and rob banks as well as your daily income pouring in by keeping your peasants in the 97-99% range and you can definitely hit a million GC. Will you be top 100 with this strategy? No. But you can have a good solid province without an insane amount of effort. Good Gaming..Archfiend