I stayed in HMA for over a year. I had Arc, SoZ, CdM, CoA, CF, LoA, SMB, HS, and ToR. The rest of my base was Event buildings, SoK's and Alchemists. Shortly before I advanced in age I built HC, TA, BG, and CC.
I highly recommend CF/LoA/SMB. You will need the coin and supply boost from LoA and SMB. I had my CF lvl 20 but wish I had leveled it much higher while in HMA.
SoZ/CdM/CoA are all good. SoZ is tiny and cheap to level. CdM has the FP bonus. CoA is the least important because it gives coins. But get all three to lvl 10 and you can fight your way through most of GE. (you said you're not focusing on fighting, but these GBs can still save you a lot of goods if you fight through GE rather than negotiate)
If you do GE then you should have ToR.
HS for happiness. There are better ways to get happiness, but i liked the FP/happiness combo.
eventually I had HC, TA, BG, and CC... CC is another one that would have been nice to have earlier. TA is not at all necessary if you're just arriving in HMA. BG is really nice if you have completed many special events and have a lot of Unique buildings, but it's not for everybody, and definitely not for a young base. HC is good, but not one that you need to focus on for now
I so wish people wouldn't make recommendations with abbreviations! Especially for someone who may be unfamiliar with the various GBs, and has asked for advice.
I can expand "I highly recommend CF/LoA/SMB." to "I highly recommend
Chateau of Frontenac/Lighthouse of Alexandria/St. Mark's Basilica."
And I personally can agree with all of these except for the
St. Mark's -- it's valuable, but I think you have to compare its footprint with an event set like the
Cherry Blossom or
Celtic Forest, and ask if it's better. I did that for my own city, after working hard to get the prints, and regretfully nixed it. Ember Umber, what is your opinion on the contrast?
And "SoZ/CdM/CoA are all good" expands to "
Statue of Zeus/Castel del Monte/Cathedral of Aachen are all good."
Here I highly disagree with the
Aachen. It's completely outside of the OP's goals. It may be that in some future Age, the OP & I will find out that the above GBs (plus a Temple of Relics) are insufficient sources of coin. But in the OP's Age, I can assure you, coin is the least thing to worry about. And Ember Umber, we're not trying to turn a Negotiator into a Fighter here! The Zeus (at a moderate level) and Castel (at as high a level as possible, for the FPs) will provide enough military boost for the occasional quest. Oh, I also build
Sentinel outposts for in case I have to attack, and of course the other small buildings that aid my city's defense.
"If you do GE then you should have ToR." clearly expands to "If you do GE then you should have a
Temple of Relics."
I agree, and in my answer I added something else that I believe is utterly essential for someone who does GE -- an
Observatory. If you do GE, you're in a guild, and I believe you should be contributing to the guild's treasury. (Again, yes, to all the Arc believers, an Arc does this better, but we're not building an Arc here.)
Now, the next one is why I'm annoyed by the acronyms. I had to go look it up! "HS for happiness." HS stands for
Hagia Sophia.
That is a GB I've looked at, and been horrified by the footprint! "There are indeed better ways to get happiness," you said, and two of them I recommended -- the
Frauenkirche of Dresden, and the
Gaea Statue, although I admit it can be hard to get prints for the second one. Those two combined do take up two extra valuable expansions, but instead of duplicating FP (which the Castel del Monte provides), they give you something you need more if you're parking as a Trader: goods & medals! I mentally put up to 1,000 FP into leveling the "HS" to see how much happiness I'd get, and it was 3,770. Then I checked the other two with only up to 500 FP invested apiece -- and got 7,260 or nearly twice as much happiness! In addition, instead of 3 FP, my mental self was getting 10 goods & 155 medals a day. For a trader who has parked? Much, much better. And once you've built the other two, the Hagia is clearly a waste of land.
As for the paragraph that begins with "eventually I had HC, TA, BG, and CC," all I can say is that OP need not figure out the acronyms. You, Ember Umber, did appropriately put them in an "eventual" category, because they are outside the architectural theme or the needs of a trader.