So in the tutorial I must have "bought" my way through enough buildings (I played the tutorial for FAR too long, not really knowing it was a tutorial and had purchased and levelled much too much :) ) and I never realized what allowed me to purchase guards for my conquered provinces.

So now I'm on my first shard, and for the life of me I have no clue what building to research at my stronghold, to get it so I can buy a guard for my provinces. Any help? In the tutorial I was only ever able to purchase a militiaman - on my first "real" shard after the Astral / gremlin scene I can't even do that and I'm not sure what buildings to construct to allow me to place units in my conquered lands :(

Some of the creature dwellings allow to purchase guards, one of them is the militia man (which isn't recommendable btw). Just click on the creature buildings (there is also a mouse over help text) to get a description which of them allow guards. If you can't build them just now, then you are missing a prerequisite building, these are shown on the bottom of the detail screen (in darker color). You can click even on them to see which further buildings you might need.

Depends on your unit preferences. Strong early gurads - barbarian+shamen; thieves;restless undead. Useful - watchmen. Placing militia guard in most cases would make game even harder for you - they are, basically, free exp to enemy hero.
I would recommend to get Watchmen gurds first (prerequisite - slinger).
Start hotseat for 2 players to check all available buildings, then make thoughtful choice what to pursue in campaign.

I think the best early 1st level province guards are "Guards". They are comprised of 6 Swordsmen and 4 Crossbowmen all with an average level of 6.

To have access to these guards requires the following (I will list them in the order your likely to purchase them):

Forge
Swordsmen School
Workshop
Stonemasons Guild (allows building Outposts)
Crossbowmen School
Lookout Tower

You can now hire them the price of 120 Gold + 2 Iron Ore and 1 Wood with an upkeep of 8 Gold a turn.

These guys can reliably take on pretty much most random province invaders including THE INQUISITION. Sadly the computer ofc does not use them optimally in battle as you would so they are not as good as they could be. Anyway these are usually my guards of choice until the T2 Guardsmen guards.

You also get individual "contracts" with guards on occasion. Most often it's adventurers through upgrading the tavern building tree, but you can also get other guard contracts through random events or activating an advantage at the start of a shard. Those work like normal guards, except that you can only hire them once per contract. Some are very powerful, and better than anything you can hire from your buildings.

Don't think that you need to have a guard in every province, though: you'll just end up crippling your economy. I generally only hire guards on locations I think are likely to be attacked, such as those bordering an enemy's land or areas which have had certain random events in the past.

Oh, or if the guard has some secondary benefit I want, like improving population mood.

Okay good advice all. So it sounds like only certain units can get set to be hired to guard in provinces? I HAVE seen an option to build a building that would let me recruit militiamen but they looked worthless, so I opted not to buy that building. It looks like if I want to put units in my provinces I need to research the buildings that allow me to hire units that "guard." There isn't a particular building I need in general to guard? (for example - I don't have to research "outpost" before I can have units stationed in my provinces, do I?).

Have you ever considered 'not' having provincial defenders?

Honestly, that is my usual strategy because it is just too expensive and the number of annoyances where you would have needed guards are pretty minimal and easily shrugged off.

I generally get enough guard 'contracts' to put defenders on provinces with key resources and provinces adjacent to opponents, but as for building stuff to get guards, bah, no way..... oh except forresters, putting forresters in forrest territories is a given, since they boost your economy!

I did consider this and was leaning heavily towards it, it's just when I was playing last night I realized I couldn't assign them even if I wanted to - and in the tutorial map it seemed like it was just an option that was always available to me. I was mostly curious what I'd have to do to get them if I wanted to as I totally missed whatever requirement let me get them in the tutorial shard

Oh and one last REALLY silly question... do I "restart" after every shard? Do I keep any of my heroes / income / etc and bring them along, or is it a fresh start every shard.

And if figuring this out is part of the game, please DON'T let me know! ;)
(I don't know if "what happens" when moving from shard to shard is part of the mystery of moving forward)

Each new shard in the campaign you have to chuck away your hero and start from scratch and there are strict build limitations which are reduced with each shard you take.

Or you could simply do the sensible thing, ignore the campaign and go straight to sandbox where all the build options are available without having to chuck away your hero 30 times to get them!

Yes you pretty much start from scratch on each new shard in the campaign mode.
However you can earn rewards that can then be used when starting new shards to let you start with a few extra things right from the beggining such as resources, units, buildings and/or equipment.
You also start to earn more and more buildings beyond the starting ones. For instance in the First shard (the Tutorial one) you are limited to only 4 of the possible 12 first tier units. Also you only get access to 1 possible type of guard on the first shard unless you manage to find some contracts as loot.

You get access to: Militiamen, Spearmen, Slingers, Healers and the Miilitia Guard.

On the second shard you play you will have access to those + Archers, Swordsmen, Pikemen, Crossbowmen, Barbarians, Brigands, Thiefs and Shamans.

Most Province "Guards" require a structure to be built in your capitol unlike the Local Militia. From my post above for instance you need to build the "Lookout Tower" which becomes available ounce you have built the other 5 structures which it requires. (oh and if you have "unlocked" it as well as a reward from a previous shard).

There are other types of Province guards you can get early as well. Actually each of the first tier units has a guard building available. For instance you can build "Chieftans Tent" if you build Barbarians and Shamanwhich allow you hire the Tribe Guard but it can only be placed in Plains.

Just right click on the building structure and see what it "Gives Access" to in the description.

Excellent I think I'm good to go (for now!).

And I'm sensing a theme here - I should possibl forgo the campaign and just roll up a random world to play in with the "full" game at my fingertips. If I get bogged down in the campaign I just might do that ;)

Oh and really thanks again for the quick responses to my silly questions - nice to know this game has an active community to guide newbies along!

Noo, I think it's awesome fun to unlock the buildings, especially since you can choose between a couple most of the time. Buying boni with astral energy is fun, the banter with Zarr and the other lords is great. Just don't spend too much time on the lower shards.
But the vote is split, some only play shards, some both, me I played 3 campaigns and only a few shards with the forum and the mod new horizons.

I like the campaign building-unlocking too.

I'm on my second run-through now, and I've currently got a completely different set of buildings available than from the first time I went through it. I probably won't finish any campaign with the full set of available buildings, from the look of how it's going so far.

The keyword is hiring. Your units are recruited, but guards are _hired_. Nice idea. Some even have agents providing contracts to hire... It cost me Irthorn becoming a thorn in the ir to realize this guard thing.