[Aleph]

Like many commenting here, I'm very new to the game, having played it (fairly constantly) for only about a month, and only in SP. Here's my perspective:

Just Surviving: If you're just looking to play through a huge game to see what is possible and want to avoid losing at all costs, play LA Rl'yeh. They are the only nation of that era to start underwater, and if you aren't facing Atlantis then you have no serious competition for the oceans. You will likely be frustrated by micromanagement (which is compounded by insanity domain effects), esp. given your above comments, but this will give you a sense of the value of F1. Lessons you can learn from Rl'yeh: Clam-spamming (N enabled Slave Mage -> Contact Naiad -> Clam of Pearls), controlling hordes, shifting from recruited to summoned commanders to save cash, raiding, and later a great experimental lab through Wish.

Bless: I tend to play large, long games. In these, bless is generally less useful than in small games, since many nations (but by no means all of them) have capitol-only sacreds. Even so, bless approaches far cheaper than a triple 9 bless can still yield great dividends without totally wrecking your economy. For example, Mictlan can run F9N4E4B4D2 with an imprisoned Smoking Mirror and still have enough points to runs a strong chaos economy (Turmoil/Sloth/Luck/Growth 3 and their freebie Heat 1) and taking dominion 5. While their many sacred troops won't be quite as nasty as they can possibly be, they'll still hit with brutal power (+4 attack, +2 strength, flaming weapons), regenerate, and reinvigorate (great for their many sacred spellcasters, both recruited and summoned) while being able to catch a lot of lucky breaks, generate compound population interest, and groom smaller provinces for bloodhunting/ recuperate bloodhunting losses.