1. I suggest for you to start hotseat game for 2 players, and skip turns for second player. This way you would be able to learn tech tree and power of units.
2. For being successful, you need to understand game mechanic:
Experience: http://www.gog.com/forum/eador_series/the_tavern_strategies_and_rambling_conversations/post60
Medals: http://www.gog.com/forum/eador_series/award_medal_details_request_to_russian_speaking_friends/post2
Penalties in battle: http://www.gog.com/forum/eador_series/wizard_as_first_hero_help_expert_difficulty/post15
AI of ranged units: http://www.gog.com/forum/eador_series/strategies/post9
3. embrace healers.
some videos:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/am2o6xfo98czgr8/Gem.mp4 healers+barbs start
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3k3twkv7p4x18b6/swordies.mp4 swordsmen + healers
4. Your priorities should be:
1.sites
2.can't clear anything - conquer.
3. can't conquer - explore.

5. This situation: he almost always puts these really tough guards consisting of brigands and thieves and stuff and I can't defeat them without major losses is beneficial for you - survivors get exp, eventually you would outgrow this guard.

Are you playing Genesis or Broken World? I am playing Broken World, and have never played Genesis, but there are a lot similarities between the two games.

If you're just starting to play the game, I suggest playing at Beginner level because there are a lot of details with which to familiarize yourself which help you survive and conquer; I also suggest turning on all the notifications in the game menu while you're learning the game.

I suggest reading the manual that comes with the game, but in my experience it just comes down to acquiring sources of income.

There are two avenues of resource building- at the Main Castle and at the various provinces. I usually make first those buildings which allow me to make other buildings at the various provinces, like the one which lets you make mines; mines are very profitable.

(I also advice making those buildings which show a lot of blue boxes when you click on them, which means that they're the very basic buildings blocks for the rest of the machine).

One important thing is to look at the lands you've acquired, and then look at their individual construction menus which shows what can be built there; for example, you can only make sawmills in a forest. Once you've played the game enough, you'll recognize the lands and what can be built there by just looking at them, so that will help in narrowing down what land you should acquire next.

Here's my (basic) suggested plan of attack, which covers most of the issues mentioned in the OP-

--First Turn

If you're playing Beginner, you'll get 1000 gold, which will allow you to get two heroes, and you'll have some money left over; get Warrior and Scout (scouts are awesome).

Use the left over money to make whatever you need to get the brown Spear guys (I don't remember if they need a prerequisite building or their name, sorry).

Check if there are any areas with 0-3 income in your surroundings; in my experience, lower income means lower resistance and weaker enemies.

Also, I've noticed that if you liberate an area ruled by brigands or outlaws, the rest of the population doesn't get all frowny-faced on you for attacking; I usually go for such places when my Heroes are levels 1-3.

If there are no such places, just explore the Main Province.

Exploration is another source of income- I don't think there's a penalty for retreating (besides lost time), so just explore, and retreat if you're notified of defeat.

--End Turn

If you are a beginner at this game, I suggest acquiring as much good Karma as possible- basically, don't be a malevolent asshole to your mortals, and good things will happen for you. I know this is a damper on role-playing, but I suggest being "wise, kind and merciful" while learning the game; you can be a dick after you've learned how to play.

BUT- overtime the population forgets the good and bad things you do, so if you're strategically dicky, it might pay off as long as you have some way to handle population mood or rebellion for the next few turns; some things make people more angry than other things.

I believe Karma is also affected by what kinds of people you hire and use in your armies, and if you fill your armies with people of the same kind (goody goodies or baddies), it increases their Morale, and hence likelihood of winning; also, apparently, they feel shitty about winning if some neutrals are in the ranks.

As far as making armies is concerned, I usually go for brown spear guys, pikemen, swordsmen and crossbowmen; this selection allows me to make the most military-related buildings available.

I suggest getting these buildings in your first few turns- the inn-related buildings which let you hire the Adventurer guard for your provinces; Adventurers are cheap, good guards, but unreliable, so keep that in mind.

--Subsequent Turns

If you've conquered some area where there's a frowny-face, send your Heroes there to explore- I've noticed that killing monsters in areas with frowny-faces, makes the population happy, so you don't need to hire guards for those places.

Basically, just keep getting richer and exploring and conquering new lands till you find the location(s) of the enemies' castle; I don't advice getting 100% exploration for all or any of the buildings, I usually use exploration of provinces to get money or level up.

By the way, Scouts are the best diplomats and can get more conversation options at higher levels- if you negotiate for an alliance in your earlier levels, you'll get an easier task, more or less, and then you just have to walk to the other locations of the same race, and they'll join you as well; so, that's another way to get more territory, quickly.

As for attacking places with guards- try not to do it while a hero is guarding the place. But really, if you take in a strong enough army with a relatively strong Hero, you'll win regardless of the toughness of the guard; if the guard is really strong, I take in both my heroes, and then use the stronger of the two to attack, and exchange armies with the Hero which didn't attack. I then take the army-less Hero back to an outpost to bring more soldiers for the guy guarding the newly acquired area. I also suggest putting your strongest guard with the Hero at the newly acquired place before ending the turn.

Seriously, the game is repetitive to a fault, but it can be reaaally hard on Expert and higher levels- I conquered five shards on Expert before it became unplayable; I am just playing it on Beginner now to finish the story, hopefully it'll be quicker this way.

This is bad advice. You spend hundreds of gold each turn on things, which would break even in 20-30 turns. While you definitely would play more than 20-30, and would start to get benefit from this eventually, at the start your best source of income is clearing locations, and best way to spend them - T2 units and schools of magic. This is why you can't play on expert - you have, basically, 3 similar units - spearmen, pikemen and swordsmen - all they can do - wait for counterattack, and 2 of them strictly worse than swordsmen.
build order for good ruler - swordsmen, healers, slingers(for watchmen guard) and 4 unit optional - I usually pick crossbowman, some always start with barbarians/brigands. build order should be main unit->library->support->2 magic schools->market for storehouse->tier 2 unit False observation. Only thieves guild decreases mood. scout gets same task, he just have chance to get quest earlier, while you don't meet prerequisites.

I too usually go for Income increasing buildings before T2 units as well. Especially Mill, Mine and Sawmill if I have many provinces. This is because I usually start with Wiz who doesn't need a lot of upkeep on troops early on.

My Build order also is usually Swordies, Tavern, Quest Crystal or Library depending on Gem income, Healers. Then it just depends which resources I have around me.


Oh yeah and for T1 Troop buildings I choose Swordie and Healers for main army, also Crossbowmen for their Guard unit with Swords and then I choose Pikemen for the Guardsmen Guards later on as they are super for guarding provinces.

It is short in early game guards other than adventurers but still ok for me most of the time.

@ Gremlion: You're wrong- I would only "break even" if I didn't concentrate on building more resources, or didn't reduce expenses where needed.

Secondly, about the units, I know, but those units are the least costly, effective units, especially on Beginner level, where the enemy is significantly handicapped and you don't have to worry as much, so just bring in a lot of power.

Moreover, the build order you're suggesting is fine, but expensive and useless for someone who doesn't want to delve into magic. If you're playing the game on Beginner, you don't need to worry about delving into magic.

I also don't see how your response about my observation is relevant- it's true that thieves reduce mood, but that doesn't have anything to do with killing enemies. I think killing any sort of enemy at provinces improves population mood overtime, which has worked more than once in my experience.

The only thing hard about playing on Expert was the amount of effort needed to play a repetitive and lacking game. It would make sense to expend effort on a game which offered something proportionally interesting in return, and from what I've read (without spoilers) is that that's not going to happen here.

It might be that the initial hatred of conquering them coincidentally wore off while you were exploring there. If you can play the game really well, expert is not repetitive at all. The things people perceive as repetitive only occur if you spend 50 turns exploring instead of leveling. Then the enemy will have monsters guard while you are still level 10. If you play like Gremlion advises, you will be level 25 by turn 100 or so and the monsters guard will be a joke.
The proportionally interesting part is that it's not too easy to be boring. Although I if you are really good, you will get there,too. Luckily there are even higher difficulties.

@ jam: I am sorry, but no- I get that you feel the need to defend the game, but there is a lack of imagination and substance here, especially considering that this is the second such game in the series. The difficulty level does not effect the amount of repetition- you basically do the same things regardless of the appropriate handicaps and/or benefits, i.e. every shard is the same. You can watch YT videos of Overlord gameplay- it's all the same, and I don't find that very interesting, but I don't expect you to agree with me.

Mill - 80 gold, +5 income. 80/5= 16 turns until it gives its cost back.
Problem that it is possible to lose this building literally on next turn to earthquake.
In SCG2 http://www.gog.com/forum/eador_series/society_common_game_2_iron_wall/post28 , for example. We haven't had horses, so these stables costed us more than 300 gold for nothing. When someone asks for tips, "play on beginner, everything works, herp-derp" isn't helpful answer. You only think, I know mechanic.
http://www.gog.com/forum/eador_series/moddingindexes/post2
Mood is decreased only by sites with negative ability 19. Only thieves guild and witch's hut have this.

I am sorry, but you're full of shit- IF an earthquake happens, and even in the slim chance that the game hits you simultaneously with an earthquake at every place where you have mill at the same time, you should have other resources to pick up the slack. So no- if you have more than a few viable sources of income, and you're managing expenses, then you do not break even.

Moreover, my advice was to play on beginner till someone learns to play the game; that's all I can tell someone else. But the separate issue is that if someone doesn't want to spend time and effort on the game, they can play and win by doing what I am suggesting. I wouldn't have said anything if didn't work.

It's only as repetitive as you make it to be. If you do the same stuff every shard, it would be. But you can try lots of different stuff, master the different approaches. This game has so much depth and content that you can spend hundreds of hours before it gets repetitive. And yes, I am a total fanboy, I have played every strategy game there is in the last 25 years and this is hands down the best. I have not encountered a turn based game less repetitive than this.
(I play Genesis, I see no point in Broken World)

Let's put it like that: I understand that you gave advice from your own level with good intention, but OP asked for tips in his specific situation. He didn't create topic with "should I play on beginner" or something.

About "break even" - do you understand this term at all? In game terms this means - you spend 80 gold on mill. You just lost 80 gold. and got +5 to income. Only 80/5=16 turns later you would get money from mill back, thus breaking even.
if you build mills each turn, you delay fort (500 gold with all resources) by 7 turns. If you continue to build mills, you delay T2 units(300+ gold to build, 80+to hire) by another 5-6 turns. Sure, outer buildings can be useful when you have spare money, but this moment happens around T3 units/T2 magic.

As for magic - you don't understand meaning of debuffs in this game.
0 level mage can kill hydra by taking Vulnerability+fears. Can you imagine amount of loot from it?
T1 units + T0 spells from library let you kill T3 units. -By taking barbarians and fatigue you can clear "Inqusition" site on third-fourth turn.
With just barbarians and fears mage can ally centaurs.http://www.gog.com/forum/eador_series/scg_i/post11
Magic is a really deep layer in this game.

I can give you personal tip - if you don't understand something, ask about it. Don't argue.

Firstly, the term you want is "recoup", not "break even"; how about you look up what break even means before you argue. Secondly, it doesn't matter when the player recoups their expenditure for a single resource because they have more than one viable resource which should result in an adequate flow of income, preventing the player from breaking even during the course of the game, and this instead results in a profit. So, as long as your income per turn is green, you don't need to worry about when you recoup the individual expenditures for each resource. Basic finance.

Next, I don't know what crawled up your ass about the advice I gave, but I don't see how you can even afford the expense and upkeep of "T3 units/T2 magic" without handling your finances in the game; that part is pretty mindless, actually, so I don't understand why you're having a problem with it.

Really, I would be willing to reconsider my advice if not for the fact that it consistently fucking works. So, I am just going to go ahead and keep playing, and you can bitch on the internet.

Come on guys...no need to fight...all Gremlion was trying to say that it is better to use the gold for immediate returns rather than "recouping it" (come its the same as break even) and then profiting much later. That's is because you can make MUCH more gold from looting better sites (that you can beat with the investments into magic and tier 2) than you get from some mills.
When you loot 1000 gold per round, upkeep for t3 stuff is really no issue.

Eador is too deep to have one only strategy, so I don't get why are you guys arguing over personal preffrences. There is a guy, whose nickname is DedMihai is a crazy good player. He has brilliant strategies and a lot of experience, but I don't use his strategies because I don't want to.
Gremlion is talking about effeciency over wasting turns.
Personally I loved taking my time, so I don't care about effeciency.

Also @cmdr_flashheart:

I won't say that it's wrong but there are other ways. When I first hit expert I was starting with a warrior hero. 1 Warrior Hero can cover expenses for 2 other heroes, my Scout and Mage. He made all the resources available and got me all the money. Warrior can solo almost anything and high level cirles or difficult sites offer a lot more money and gems than your income. Solo warrior hence the name don't need any units at all, so I didn't care about castle T1 units at all. Archmage need only a couple of T1-T2 units and don't need anything else, if you have enough gems you'll kill everything and by using solo warrior first you are bound to have tons of gems.

There are different ways to achieve goals in Eador, some people love efficency and they count literally every turn, others(including me) don't care about that. Gremlion never said that your strategy doesn't work, he just pointed out that it's not efficient enough, so if you happen to give a damn about efficiency you would listen, if you don't then don't :)