I usually build right away beside the food source.

I than build the beacon of hope followed by workshop > study> hut> arcane laboratory.

I research one adventure tech for finding ruins. Than I research warfare to get spears. If I have a shard close by I research shard harvesting next to get mana. If I have enough materials and money I usually build a pioneer and 2 soldier units.

When researching magic I will go for teleportation  followed by healing and arcane arrow and blink. (With dungeon master you can kill most anything at the start with just a club in one or two hits, kinda cheap but it works and last throughout the game)

My sovereign usually is a dungeon master and he is my main source of exploration and fighting ability. Any time he lvls the points go into intelligence and constitution and he is also insane and something else negative that effects cities but doesn't matter because he is you main attack force and is rarely in cities.

I will than research trade to get caravans and hopefully I will have my second city build beside another resource. Build up enough units for defence in these two cities and depending on who is around you possibly go to war and take a few established cities or build more pioneers and expand but you have to make sure your first two cities can keep lvling up to make lots of gold.

After that I keep experimenting with research techs but as far as magic goes teleportation is the most important spell in the game and I will just keep on researching spells for attack and defence. Don't worry so much about summons as they take 1 mana per turn to upkeep and with a dungeon master with teleport is all you will need.

As for techs the civic when you can get marketplaces is good for gold income and warfare for learning how to make weaps. One I can get some armour and decent weaps I start equipping heroes and lvling them. I will usually teleport and pick one or two up than teleport and kill the monsters than drop them off again to heal if they were injured. Repeat until they can hold there own or if you have enough mana income you imbue them with your essence. Depending on the heroe if they are already good at hand to hand I will put there points into str,ag, and con. If he have a high intelligence score than I imbue them and put 2 points into int and one into con every time they lvl. 

By now you should be able to attack and defend very well and should be well into your game.

Good one Vandenburg! LOL

I usually play Extreme or Ridiculous with Conquest being the only Victory condition (War, oh I love it so).  I start with a Sovereign that produces mana, food, gildar, Arcane points, Tech points, is near a mine, has +1 movement, Cowardly, has the Combat, Terraforming and Mobility spell books and is 15 for Str and Const.  My Faction gives me the early techs.

(1) Build a hut, give Sovereign boots and a staff and send him out Easter egg hunting and gaining exp.  Start researching War and Heal.  Start on a Staff armed home defender.

(2) Build the Beacon of Hope

(3) Check materials level and build either a workshop (if low on materials) or a study.

(4) Then the priorities become spreading out by building other cities, trade routes.  Researching Civs (harvest), Magic (shard harvest and channel), Adventure (quests) and much more warfare.

(5) Play the game til the bloody end when the other Factions have no cities and their Sovereigns are cowering in some god-forsaken corner of the map.  Find and finish off each Faction and complete the game.

First building a souvereign with high charisma (and usually high strength), Bard-Specialisation and playing a custom faction with lots of starting technologies (which I find much more critical than the other bona available for factions since it also makes higher-tier-techs cheaper), Starting Materials / Metal is also nice the rest I find trivial thanks to it being tradable for the heroes I don't need,
Also taking lots of traits granting starting rescources while dumping Int to rock bottom and dexterity / constitution a bit.

Equipping a few heroes (1 or 2 are enough) with boar spear / oak spear and padded to level most of my heroes / sovereign on hordes of spiders (fleeing the combat with the vulnerable heroes if the monsters hunt them. They'll still get the XP.). Level 6 is rather easy to get (since the XP gained isn't split so its good to bring as many heroes as possible to a fight.) Then level Charisma (Sovereign and weak Heroes or Heroes with City-Bona like Farmers) / Int (Heroes with high starting-Int / future Spellcasters, just a very few)/ Strength (anything with Crushing blow or Savage-Strike which will become my future warriors / bow-users) maybe one with dexterity (someone with daze / regeneration / Ice-Blast or somesuch that I can heavily armor up and give a sword of wrath so I can kill some things fast in melee. Not mandatory but still fun thanks to the sword of wrath's awesomeness and legendary plate protects quite well... ).


As far as buildings are concerned proceeding to building house / tech buildings as fast as I can (workshops depending on goody availability of materials more or less),
Hiring any and all heroes i can get my hands on (going out of my way including selling any equipment I might be able to find. Since heroes are just worth so much more. Alchemy is another good way to aquire gold to hire more heroes.
As for city bonuses: Tech, Tech, Tech and maybe occasionally gold if there is a gold mine or 2 around...

Then find some other factions to sell my heroes to (preferably Adventurers without nice specials since they bring lots of income and are not important to my economy. The odd researcher or Merchant later on is ok as well. Never bards / Farmers / Administrators / Adventurers with brawl specials and not very preferably Archivists or Loremasters.)


Expanding a bit then to fetch a few resources (the rest I trade for. Including AI heroes I am interested in. Heroes number a thousand gold or more for the ones I like to sell. Costing me about 50-200 per Hero, less for the Level 1 recource ones) and Tech faster (using the Charismatic heroes to grow the cities faster. Prioritizing Food- and Mana-Sites for new cities in Lieu with chrystal which are not that easy to trade for unlike the other recources which I largely ignore)

For Tech getting the negotiations-tech as early as possible (to kickstart the economy big time by trading away heroes. Not least nice since it is a Tier 1 / Tier 2 Tech, possible very early). Then teching up the magic tree till arcane weapons (the tech giving the sword of wrath and yithril bows.). After that it is the Tech for the 2-Tech-Buildings (Master Archivists / Studies). After that it is whichever way I want to go (military for groups and Bows and Mounts ect or Civic for Minint / Tech ect. Still have to try the negotiation rout for Shrills and Dragons since I haven't done that at all so far...)

Then equipping the Warriors (Heroes with Crushing blow and especially savage Strike with extremely high strength to really kick butt should something dare to come into melee range) with Yithril bows / Magic Trinkets so they have a high combat-speed, Speed and Strength-boosters for them to kick extra butt (maybe in combination with blink and arcane weapon as needed when resources are very scarce. Then one Sovereign / Hero with a Vithril-bow, Arcane Weapons and blink + Combat-Speed 7 is enough to kill most armies (including 20+ numbering epic hordes) unarmored if there are no archers present which of course are prime targets together with blinking enemies / things with stuns ect...).

After that its killing time for some pesky AI which will be upstart and from a rival faction (kingdom / empire respectively) at that point at the latest (playing epic / riddic / riddic / large with all factions) and from there I go for where it strikes my fancy really (since taking 1 or 2 established riddiculous empires is enough to have enough economic footing to research / build at hearts content without selling further heroes off unless needed for new fancy stuff.).

I only resort to normal troops if utterly needed to protect a few starting cities when the heroes are off leveling / recruiting more heroes. Later on I have hordes of heroes and nicely built up empires to finance whatever strikes my fancy (and later on can build hordes of units very fast with call to arms as needed.).

Still refining the strategy though. Have to try it with a kingdom once more since going for empire was because they have easier and faster access to Longbows which I no longer pursue (With the magic-line being far faster still and way more rewarding since it offers all from mobility to combat speed to bows, killer weapons and armor which is nigh impenetratable.).

For Arcane Research (for which I rely nigh exclusively on my own Loremastery, that of heroes and maybe the odd arcane library) I nearly always go for: Fammilliar (to kill very early mobs even without armor as needed when resources are very scarce / to have throwaway fodder as needed), Arcane Weapon, Teleport / Return, then sometimes Alchemy and most of the other tier 1 spells. Then progression as I need it...