[fantasma]

This burns down to the fact that different people have a completely different approach to the game.

Some people never read manuals and start right out, eventually looking things up when they have to. Some are the opposite and have read the whole forum before buying. And so it is with nations. Some feel comfortable stomping around with few tough guys, to others this does not appeal at all (too costly per unit makes some people squeeze), for example. To some it is probably very intuitive to research evocation immediately and wait until fireball is online before even starting expanding, others would not touch the magic system at all until their 5th game, I guess.

Honeybadger and 13lackGu4rd, for example, appear to approach things completely differently. So, please, accept that each has his own style to approach new things and, in the end, there are lots of good advice in the thread, but which are more familiar to one's style remains for the original poster to decide. There is no simple best beginner's nation.