[MaxWilson]

Your income doesn't go down when you recruit troops, but your upkeep does increase. Every turn your treasury accumulates (income - upkeep).

I think it's been mentioned that stronger indies make for an easier game. IMHO this also applies to larger maps--crowded maps always result in AIs ganging up on me (because I'm weak in the beginning, having no bonuses to production like Impossible AIs get) before I'm ready. I like Glory of the Gods (multiplayer) with 6 or 7 AIs, tops.

I always take Order-3 Misfortune-3, mostly because I don't care about heroes and expand quickly enough not to notice the bad events (chance of events doesn't scale linearly with empire size). Sloth is often a good pick, depending on your race. The only times I've ever taken Death scales I've regretted it, although this may have something to do with my playstyle. Expensive blesses are a lot of fun but not generally as effective for me as good scales and terrific mages (I usually only play races with good recruitable-anywhere mages, like EA C'tis, LA Agartha, pre-3.08 Helheim, Arcoscephale, EA Ermor).

Have fun!

-Max