New to Dom 3 - Seeking Advice

[Aleph]

I started out pretty recently - decemberish? and am still learning a lot. It's a deep game. Of course, I really enjoy about half the nations and generally don't like MP games, so my learning curve is limited to fighting the computer and asking questions here.

I'll give you this advice, which I only picked up recently - many, many nations benefit strongly from jacking tax to 200% and patrolling with their starting army for the first turn. You'll lose a chunk of population, but the starting gold advantage can be huge. Don't forget to lower it shortly thereafter (unless you're playing someone like LA Ermor, in which case tax away).

And hit F1 frequently. It gives you an overview of your whole empire (which can be altered for more or less detail with TAB) and that's a valuable thing to have (for example, knowing which of your provinces have been searched for what magic site types).