[st.patrik]

To my mind your starting strategy really depends on how you're going to play the game - specifically whether you're going to be a physically or magically powerful nation. If you are going to need lots of gems sometimes it's ok to expand more slowly (like you are doing, searching each province as you conquer it). On the other hand if your main strength is going to be your recruited armies you probably want to give gem searching a back seat.

Early expansion does seem to be pretty important, so unless you have some definite goal for what you want to do with your gems, I would say focus on expansion.