I was arguing with an admin on the server about starting the empires, and he was stating that I could not have any crops or mines at the start. A super-admin had given me the OK to build a mine and a farm earlier, but the admin insisted that farming and mining were both 'advanced topics' and said I could not start with any mines or crops. It seems that there is no communication between the administrators and I would not expect more than a jumbled mess as the server progresses into a high population stage where admins approve different things at different times.