In this first main article I want to concentrate on civilizations. For many this is a matter of personal choice, and in part depends on the type of troop you will mainly use which fall into either Infantry, Cavalry or Archer. That said you can change civilization later on so are not stuck with the same civilization. For that reason it is worth starting out with a civilization that assists you in what boosts you need at the beginning of the game such as boost building speed, research speed, gathering speed, action point recovery. In theory many of these will give a boost to one of these elements (you will get 3 different type of boosts per civilization, plus your starting commander). For me personally, I always start with China, as this gives a 5% building speed boost, 5% AP recovery and most importantly gives me a powerful epic commander which many will use in the early game - Sun Tzu. Other civilizations that are worth considering when first starting out tend to be Japan (for the...