[RadicalTurnip]

I often restart a game 3-5 times before I get exactly what I wanted. The first game I'll just build a pretender from memory/what I think I may want. after about 10 turns or less, I'll restart and overhaul my pretender choice. The next 2-4 restarts are tweaking that pretender so that I get the "perfect" balance. Sometimes it's even a 3rd or 4th year restart, though not much recently.

However, it is annoying being "that guy" that never finishes a game. I agree, you'll learn a whole lot no matter what you do, but don't expect to win...even the computer on "easy" can be pretty mean at times...and most new players, I've found, don't put the computer on "easy".