[sum1lost]

Pythium and man are both good starter nations, with simple tactics. With pythium, get good scales. Then build principes and archtheurgs and theurgs, with the occasional indy commander to escort your large numbers of principes. Use theurgs and archtehurgs to cast spells on the battlefield to support your theurgs.

Man- recruit either longbows or knights. Both are excellent units, but too gold intensive to build both. Recruit some mages to support them and cast buffs. Storm, arrow fend, mass protection, relief and mass regeneration go well with knight armies, while windguide and evocation spells go well on longbows.

I don't like starting with sacreds simply because they allow you to walk over the computer too easily, and you never have to try other strategies.