How to start ?

My town had a spider nest right next too it.  Even though my mage was decent at taking out the spiders, I didn't have the adventure tech to take it out.

I failed to realize how soon the spiders would attack the city - so I sent my mage scouting around.

Soon after, a spider destroyed my city.  Somehow, I survived long enough to do the following:

Due to the auto battles, my mage was casting a decent spell that killed lots of things.  I couldn't cast the same spell in tactical combat, but that was okay for now - and my mage leveled up. [[ Update - read how to add more spells to tactical combat - make new spells part of favorite list ]].

I was able to take over a neutral city.  Unfortunately, this city was capped at lvl 2 - however, it was able to train a pioneer which I sent back with my mage to rebuild near the original starting point.

I spent many, many turns just building up the city and researching.  I didn't trust the default troops to defend my city, as it kept on being attacked by spiders.  Basically, my mage was trapped in the city.

After a while, I was able to build 4 defense units (I think with a mix of wooden and metal equipment) and 4 offensive units so I could go out exploring again.

I just found it really frustrating to get started in the game.  I felt trapped in my starting city, just hitting 'next turn'.

What are the rest of you doing ?

Do you build a group of 4 peasants and hope they can hold down the city ?

I also find it annoying how long it takes (research + storing supplies) to build my first group of 4 decently (not best armor/weapons out there) equipped troops.  I understand the game doesn't want us to walk over the entire world to quickly - but the starting pace seems really slow.  Not sure if I'm doing something wrong, or if this is the design.

I do understand that there are 'easy' difficulty settings, which changes this behavior - but I'm curious as to how the rest of you are handling 'normal' difficulty.