[cleveland]

In retrospect, I wish I'd subbed before I tried leading a nation from scratch in MP.

The reason is that the early-game for MP is pretty close to SP, but the mid-game is COMPLETELY different. So I spent a month carefully growing and nurturing a nation that was, from moment 1, destined to fail. As soon as the mid-game hit, it became very obvious how lame and uncompetitive my Pretender and Grand Strategy really were, and I had the depressing experience of floundering with my sorry nation till it's much appreciated demise.

So I suppose my advice to the new players (welcome!) is that you're going to do very poorly your first game...no big deal! So you might as well get through the Baptism by Fire as fast as possible by stepping in for a nation already at the mid-game (and that was hopefully designed by a non-novice). See how cleaver & vicious your cohorts can be. Get trounced in a few big fights. Send scouts in all directions to observe as many battles as possible. Track the score graphs to see who's winning and try to figure out why. Once you have your bearings, then go for a real MP game, and REALLY start learning!