My Campaign is at Beginner Level and I am 3 Shards in. So far I took:

Ligson - Tiny, Mixed, +2 Energy
Market (Building Storehouses very nice!)
Infirmary
Craft Shop
Light Infantry Contract for 80 Energy
Shortsword in Treasury for 35 Energy

Butzar - Tiny, Hills, +2 Energy
Merchant Court
Warriors Guild (The Patrolmen seem to do a better job.)
Crystal of Power (Early quests)
1 Gold per Turn for 25 Energy

Feratre - Small, Seas, +2 Energy
Thieves Guild
Foresters Guild
Watch Tower
Church
13 Gold Reserve for 13 Energy
3 Mana Reserve for 9 Energy

The first three were chosen because they give 2 Energy instead of 1 and I am not sure if that matters. I am also looking for Buildings that I am actually going to use. So in the first shard, I was interested in the Market and Storehouses, and the second one for the Patrolmen and the Crystal of Power.

I will look at what shards have come into sight since, but the next shard I am looking at is a nearby Tiny one, and I would be looking for the Drivers Guild. There is also a shard way out there with 4 Energy and a Shipyard.

Once I got a couple shards down I just started going for the highest energy income. Obviously pay attention to buildings you are going to use, but also to buildings that are prerequisites for buildings you will want as they can't spawn until you've gotten all the prereqs as I understand it.

I haven't played nearly enough to know if you should be avoiding certain things if you want particular endings; I believe I read there are 12 endings, I still haven't finished it once and probably won't before the new game is out.

I'd focus on getting shards with important buildings to start with, since the energy income values of shards will climb steadily as the campaign moves along; getting +2 vs +1 now won't matter much a few turns later when you're looking at shards with +5 or +7 income values.

First priority - Market
Second priority - watchmen
Third - trappers guild - Easier to build than fort, T2 units from here could be very useful. Spider is the best disabler in the game.

Then for evil lord:
fort + thugs and second level of necromancy

For goodies:
Magic school with phantom form (best spell for saving healers)

then for both
Carpenter shop to the max
(very good items for scout , warrior and commander)

What about the crystal? I would have thought thats very important as a starting cash booster.

In older versions crystal's quests were completely random, so you could get something like "kill 10 elves" on regular basis.
Even in current game it checks all sites, hidden included, and you can get 10 healers or fairies (very common in forest area).
Because it have HIGH gem cost for expert difficulty (starting amount - 20, crystal - 30+5 for mandrake) you can't build it before healer+library or even before second hero - these things drastically improve your efficiency, and crystal - not.

Ah that is a valid point, I still play one level below Expert and there the crystal can be built pretty quickly.

When I play single Scenario on Expert I still try to get the crystal before my 2nd hero as it lowers the price a bit as well as generating 1 crystal and giving those quests.

Sadly I really hate when it gives you stupid quests to kill monsters that rarely you can find or that appear only 1 of in a group like Elves, usually found with Adventurers but only 1. Lol unless you take on an elven province of course and they just mow down your troops with their armor piercing + Double Shots.

Is there a way to edit the quest list to stop it from giving certain quests at all? There are a few that really need togo although others are ok just difficult to take on multiples of like Imps, they annihilate my swordies after I spend so much time getting their defens, counter atk and parry's up not to mention medals.

For the Imps I wait for either a Mage with Fireball or the Warrior with Astral Energy + Bless.

On the fourth shard, it is Turn 125 and I just realized that I can finish up the (tiny) shard, score about 45 Glory, and move onward to the next. I can explore a bit more and ding the Explorer Award and maybe try to get the Collector Award, but together that amounts to about 9% of 50 points, or 4.5, plus gains from Victories and leveling characters.

I have pieced together some translation on how scoring is done. Is it worthwhile to optimize on the score, or just finish up the shard and move on to the next?