Can't Get A Handle On The Game

IMO your second approach is the best one.  I wouldn't get hung up on the faction ratings shown on the screen.  I don't think that I have had game where I wasn't one of the last 1 or 2 factions in the ratings list in the first part of the game.  As you beat back a couple of a rival faction's armies and take a city or two those ratings change quickly.  FWIW I play on Challenging difficulty and can't speak for effective strategies beyond that difficulty setting.

At the Easy level or lower, monsters won't attack your cities, or the AI's. 

One of the things that makes the start so interesting is deciding where to settle. I generally agree with relmich. You have to decide if you will be strong enough to defend a city by the time its borders expand into the monster's lair. Hopefully, we will get some alternate opinions suggesting a more aggressive approach with some tips how to make that work.

One thing to consider is if a city gets to level 2 and you select Town, its zone of control will immediately increase by 1.

Try to learn the tactical combat system a bit, figure out what you can fight (farm them for exp) and what you can't (avoid), then use your sovereign and a few fodder troops to clear an area before or while settling (this means you almost never have to defend it), and delay settling near dangerous mobs until you can handle it. If you control your ZOC growth afterwards, so that you don't disrupt strong lairs, the only thing that will ever threaten you is the off chance something comes wandering your way. For that, use tactical spells, tremor/freeze to hold so that you can bring an army back, or just cloud walk if you have it.

Also, get the Trading tech to link your cities up, or if you're playing Capitar use pioneers to build roads.  Especially over rivers and through forests.  Just beware that roads outside your influence can be used by enemies and sometimes, bizarrely, monsters.

Yeah, I know.  Wolves travelling faster along roads, it's crazy.

What Kalin said: just don't build close to the most powerful monsters, clear out everything else.

And don't feel bad: the early part of the game is by far the hardest, imo.

try this...

Dont create a city.  Just run around and collect a couple champs and loot.  when you've found a couple nice spots you can settle pick one and go through the motions of building that on up and studying what each improvement does.

And dont forget that losing is part of this game.  Often its more fun than winning.

I guess you have read the newbie's guide, and you know the basics of the game. After some games, you will realize that your expansion options are:

- Like a crazy. That lends you to monster harrassment. Hard to manage.

- Assured expansion. Cleaning first, then settle. This is slow, and lends to AI  expansion. Advantage: instead of settling, you will capture the cities...later. Disadvantage: you will see yourself in lots of wars, and probably, AI dogpiled.

- Balanced. It means that you will have to take some risks when settling, expecting that future leveling of your champs will deal them, and avoiding the places with strongest monsters.

What it is for sure, is that some cities will be near of strong monsters which, sooner or later, they will begin to roam.  So balanced option is, for me, the best.

Another way is trying a strong early game tactics, that will help you in managing initial expansion and increasing Faction power to stay happy with neighbour AIs, at least untill you can develope your empire for stronger units. There are some of them, and nice to play as they offer different gameplays. I include these:

- Beastlord. Designing a good beastlord sov. will provide you lots of beasts under your control.

- Binding faction. Each shard you get will give you a free summon. They are weak units, but enough for the early game (armies + faction power).

- Magnar slaves or a custom Quendar faction. Slaves are cheap cannon fodder, you can have a great cheap army, enough at least for faction power.

- Altar Quest loop. Henchmen and quest loop is an OP tactics. Nice at first, boring at late because of the OP (it just breaks the game).

- Wraith dodging, I've not tried yet, so I'm not sure if this can be usefull for early game. But it seems that the new +20 dodge since 1.1 for this faction, allows to stack dodge in the units (wargs, shields, traits, etc.) so they become nearly untouchable in combat.

Another way to help settling is to use manual building placement. Depending on monster location to your city, you can prolong the time until your city envelops the monster's lair, and it comes raging out.

True, I go for Sol's balanced approach.  I pick the best production + essence spots, as long as food is 2+ its fine, and take a look around.  

I'll usually have the one roaming army to start - sov, 1st champ and whatever else I can get (beastlord, summons, etc).   If lucky there will be the weak quests for panca archers or spearmen.   That means I can usually only clear one direction at a time. 

I'll clear the easy mobs around start position for some equipment, then pick a direction - possibly randomly and check for fertile ground.

I'll clear the fertile ground if possible and use that for my first expansion.   Then I either a) continue in the same direction if it looks promising or backtrack a bit to sell and clear another direction.  If its a tough spot, near a non-pushover mob - that my initial army can't handle - I may try to go beyond or as I said, backtrack.  For the first 2 cities I don't want to anger a slag or something.

As I go to clear a second direction I should be starting on my pioneer spam - I've done tower of dominion, any production buildings and maybe a shard (especially if binding) or a -unrest.  I want my early production to be as efficient as possible - so any production buildings, any enchantments and -unrest that I need.

Then as I'm clearing in a given direction I should be settling on the spots I've found, and if possible having a couple extra pioneers to explore. 

If I'm lucky I'll have a few quests to do for good xp/loot/units and find another champion or two - hopefully enough to build a second minor roaming army.

I'll do some civ research - at least to get "rush" and workshop.  Then either mounted combat or heroes will be my next goal and I might sprinkle in trading for roads.   Kind of depends on what I find and how rich I am.

At some early point I should have 3-5 solidly producing cities, no mob threat and still working on expansion.  I usually meet up with the first couple AI and depending on traits (beastlord, binding, etc) I will be at the mid or bottom of the faction power line. 

With all that said, every game is different.   Very much depends on what you find and what you're settings are.

Also, if you're playing Masters affliction mod - all bets are off, good luck clearing anything.

I try the balanced approach, but my dominion eventually expands and I awake the beasts who ravage my cities and I eventually have to restart.  I guess my balanced is not quite balanced.  =/

Those Skalds or Skiths or whatever they are called are just way too strong for my level 5 sov, champ, and a couple militia.

Remember to put all your armor on your Champion. Mobs will always go for him first so he needs it, and your Sovereign survives even if he dies so he isn't as useful early on (trick/exploit, auto complete just before you win, and your sovereign will get xp as well even if he died) Doing this and using ZoC (mobs next to a target will always target that one) you can solo most stuff and get items quick to clean up those juicy sites.

Useful trick when dealing with them. Backtrack, don't stand and fight. They won't use that triple damage bite if they move first. That can make you able to focus one or two down fast before needing to "eat" a bite.