I just came out of my 2nd 4 hour session in my first game. Here's the deal and some notes:

I choose to start with bows. Bows are definitely imba at the start of the game. Even single units can do wonders.

I also picked organized.

I am playing a female sov, got married asap. I am traveling with the husband. Why?

He also gets xp, and levels up. I imbued him after the marriage and all the points go to essence and int he's to imbue the children plus any good extra heroes.

I boosted her attack and gave her a bow. Man what a blast this is! She has conquered nations! (I'm at 8 cities as it is)

Then I bought many amys with +2 Attack

In battles the husband casts haste on her, and then ppl just die... even in stacks of 4 units with def 20-30 she strikes for 10 or more damage!

I also reached lvl 3 spells, got chain lightning, and an air shard. After she gets the big guys, the AOE clears the leftovers quickly.

City enchants rock! How many enchant slots do we have?

I farmed a level 6 Procipie repeatedly for levels, she just kept coming out of her towns alone! Got her essence down to 4 before killing her in her last town.

Now the continent is almost clear. I got Relias as a pet faction, and I'm getting ready to push eastwards with ships and 4 new stacks of 4 trained archers.

Notes:

1. Building distance restrictions are too severe. It helps to demolish edge buildings/resources  from towns you control just to get that new city into place.

2. Killing a sov out of his turf -> he dies permanently, however all of his cities vanish! even the ones he got from me.

3. Gildar rewards from killing enemy armies are too good to be true!

4. Multiple rings/amys can be equipped. Was that intended?

5. Teleport is too good! You can race back into the other side of the kingdom and kill that approaching menace!

6. Melee units seem useless. Either give melee weapons a + to def or make the armies in tactical combat start closer to each other. 6-7 tiles is way too much.

7. I didn't feel the need to do much questing. Perhaps after 2/3 of the world is mine...

8. Researching extra resources on the map is crucial!!

9. No crash whatsoever! I need to stress this.

That's all for now, gonna grab something to eat and catch up to the new futurama episodes... Enjoy and have fun.