1) What kind of leveling system is their? From the sounds of it... It's skill based like cooking etc? str?
It's free growth skill purchasing level system. There are no classes that limit your potential, whatever you want to invest energy in learning and mastering you can.
2) From the looks of it you can build cities. Can you give access or permissions to friend or a clan to the city and build something together?
Yes, personal claims you give permissions through kin list colors (claim control panel, give permissions to colors, in your kin list set kin to certain colors).
3) How big can cities get is their a max size? How many cities can you have?
Essentially infinite both cases; a single hearthling can only be a part of one village, but there is no limit on the amount of alts you can have. To extend the size of villages you build banners or statues to expand the village influence radius. The only limitation to this is your economy (how much materials you can gather to build the banners/statues), and your authority (the LP growth of all village members).
4) I hear AI can attack cities and steal or is this just players only? I hear their is a way to defend against this and how does say a wall prevent a player from stealing?
There are no AI in the game (except for basic wildlife), but players are generally dicks and can raid you if your loot is worth the time it takes them to raid you. There are varying levels of defenses for each potential attack type.
5) How big is the world? Can I run 100 miles away and get lost and no one can find me? Is their a map or can players keep well hidden and just have to use memory and maybe coordinates?
It's pretty big, but not as big as older worlds; assuming each tile is 1 square meter, the playable world is something like 25 square kilometers.
6) Can you play this game slightly like simcity/farmville yes I'm using the nasty game as an example even though I like the idea of it but only inside another game hehe.
You can, it depends on your security and where you live. You will have little development without trade, however.
7) what other things can you do besides build, harvest is their? pve I assume and pvp?
Hunting, foraging, exploring, tracking criminals, raiding enemy villages. Build a world-crossing highway. Make giant pavement art of cocks. Whatever you want to do.
8) Another leveling question can you max out everything or has anyone maxed out everything yet?
Incremental skills and attributes have no cap; but they get exponentially harder to raise. For most attributes and skills, 100-200 is high average (i'm guessing), and over 200 is pretty skilled in that particular aspect of the game (extreme hearthlings may have up to 1000 points in certain things, I'm not sure).
Please as you can see by my questions maybe you can offer some answers to questions I have not asked something that really attracted you to this game.
I like H&H because it is unique. A truly free roam free built persistant environment. You're basically a naked baby in the wilderness, and it's up to you and/or your friends to create civilization from raw wilderness.
Hearthlings: Marona; Chamberlain (retainer alt), Vincavec (shaman of the Dryad Wells Forest)