So according to Steam I've got 18 hours into it (paid full price, $40).  As an experienced Civ, GalCiv, etc fan, I generally play very conservatively at first-- build a few cities, then build infrastructure, then expand again.  About 10 hours into my first game (large, random world with 5 other players on "Easy" until I got the hang of it) I finally got diplomatic ties with my first civ.  Despite handicapped algorithims, apparently, this civ was 3 times my power, earning 3 times the gold with twice as many cities.

Obviously I was doing something wrong...

Game 2.  I'm 10 hours into it (Normal mode this time) and again, am finding that I'm falling behind. 

It seems you need to expand at all cost, monsters be-damned.  Build as many cities as quickly as possible.  Much different than Civ or Gal Civ as there are penalties for expanding too quickly in those  settings.  Here, it seems to be the preferred strategy.  Not sure I agree with it, but there it is.

Otherwise it's quite fun.  I wonder why armor is so expensive, though, even with Master Armorsmith trait ($200 gold to upgrade my defender from leather to light plate?!).  I'm also not sure I know exactly how the magic system works or why I need to mine crystals to build robes, but every game has its oddities.  Assassin demons suck...  etc.

Light plate is more expensive than chainmail.  The advantage is it offers a greater general defence than chainmail, though not as much as full plate.  The upgrade cost is for all the units in a group.

For magical items I assume that the crystal is needed to do the magical enchantment.

Basically you need to plant your settlements on the best sites possible.  You can get away with a low-Material site if you're building a Conclave, because you will tend to build all your units at a Fortress for the inherent and extra bonuses.  Towns work just about anywhere where there's food but you can make a mint on a high-Essence site with the right city enchantment.  Fortresses demand high Material and high Essence if you want to crank out troops with good unit enchantments, or just high Material if you want to crank low-quality troops.

This is nothing you probably haven't already figured out, it's just that when you factor in the abundance of unfriendly monsters nearby you have the dilemma of building on a site that might be attacked, or playing it safe and waiting until you have the troops to clear that area.

Playing it safe means that yes, you may fall behind a bit, but you won't have wasted a portion of your growth capability on a city that gets eaten by dragons, ogres and bears.  Instead you will have been focusing on joining up your empire, building up your troops, and doing just the things that you need to do in order to survive.  And that's not a bad thing.  When you do finally clear out those lairs and send in your pioneers to claim the land, you'll be able to say that you didn't cheese your way to expansion with many hastily-constructed stake fences.

jjkrogs, basically you're right: expand as fast as you can.  On harder difficulties you will need to be VERY worried about monsters coming and razing your cities if you over-expand, but in my experience there is simply no other way to keep up with the AI.  And you need to keep up with the AI, otherwise they'll see you as weak and dogpile you.  You should have a pioneer ready to go at all times - prioritize them over any other building.

It took me a couple of games before I got the hang of expanding quickly, but not recklessly.

I would say that you don't necessarily have to expand quickly, but you do need to expand intelligently and have a fair amount of defense.  But what 4x game do you not have to do this in?  Additionally, with certain magic paths, you can certainly forestall any attack on you if you have it properly scouted.  

I did get this game on sale, but it is definitely worth its full price if you like 4x games.  I am considering gifting this to my nephews for Christmas as I think they would enjoy it.

If I would be asking myself, my answer would be no. It of course depends on the price.

The game inherited too many design problems from Elemental, and while certain aspects were polished/improved, it's a sum of parts that don't hold together well. The lore is also very bland and generic. At its current state, it is quite buggy too.

FE and COE3 share many problems, IMO, and both were a mild disappointment for me.

Pretty much, yes--and you could try putting your AI opponents at a level below the game difficulty.  But new cities, and a constant supply of troops, are necessary to maintain a score that the AI will respect.  I'd dearly like to know how that score is configured, and I'd love to get my hands on the code.  Because I think the game would be a lot more interesting (to me, of course) if these factors were weighted a bit less while others (such as research, prestige, influence, and world achievements) were weighted a bit more.

Bear in mind though that the power rating may not reflect your actual capability to destroy enemy armies.  If you have a glut of mana saved up and cities built up to shards (manual placement for the win!) then you have various options for dealing with them.

From the simple Freeze/tremor spells which buy you time, to Pillar of Flame, Tidal Wave (if you're near water) or if you just have ridiculous amounts of mana and don't care about all the XP you'll lose, there's Vertrar's Howl.

Strategic nukes aren't included in your power rating, basically.  I'm guessing that's because they have a cooldown of 1 season and generally you don't have the mana to throw them out there every turn.  Still, woe betide an AI player who declares war on you and sends its armies across next turn in the same general vicinity.  If you've been clearing out monsters and picked up those spells and the mana to cast them, they might as well be sending ants.

Freeze or Tremor, then Cloudwalk.  Suddenly they're meeting their worst nightmare.

Unfortunately, the game score doesn't take any of this into account, so neither do AI opponents.  Would be nice if they did take not the mana as such but mana generation per turn into account when determining how strong you really are.

Yes.  When you're on a large map and you've been busy making the natives kneel before their true god, you can be cranking +50 mana a season, and that's without Immortal Codex (I really need to remember to research that!) and temples.

It gets better, because your seasoned mage champions have the -10% mana cost on tactical spells from the Attuned trait, on top of the -25% they get for being on Path of the Mage, and then there's -40% from Mantle of Oceans if you can snag it (and if you're playing Kingdom, why wouldn't you!?) so your tactical spells are very cheap to cast.

So you see even when you are forced to fight on tactical map, you can afford to go crazy with army-affecting spells.  It's got to the point where the front line units are basically just there to hold the enemies still for the two turns it takes for Blizzard to cast.

I couldn't agree more on X-COM EU. That game is pretty amazingly addictive and it was hands down my game of the year until I tried Fallen Enchantress. This game is really fun and you should definitely get it!

The ability to mod it to your heart's content is a big selling point.  I hit Ctrl-N about a dozen times just to start with a custom champion that I'd made.

And of course you don't have to just do that for sentimental reasons.  You can just add a bit of variety to what's already there and not necessarily have a level 1 champion with a freaking greatsword right off the bat.