Dominions 3: The Awakening/First Turns

The first turn
The first turns are nearly equal for each player:
 * Scouting: Move your scout or spy into enemy territory. You will find the heartland of your enemies fast, so don't attack independent provinces with your scout if it is not necessary. On the way, you may discover useful indie provinces that are home to amazons or druids.
 * Probing: Most players will quickly expand into the independent provinces around their capitol. If you have no scouts in a province, however, you may not have good information about what you may face. A probe attack can give you a good preview of an upcoming battle. To execute a simple probe attack, place a cheap commander in the rear of the battlefield and script him to retreat.
 * Prophet: Any commander can become a prophet. A Scout prophet has the advantage of stealth, which means you can increase your dominion in enemy-held territory. A priest becomes one level more powerful when made a prophet.
 * Mercenaries: Is an auction going on? Mercenaries can act as quick throw-away troops, and sometimes you can hire a force much more powerful than you can otherwise have early in the game. Only bid if you want attack in the next few turns.
 * Recruiting: You usally can recruit your best commanders (like mages) only in your capital while you can get a generic troop leader in every indie province. Some elite troops are also capital-only. Don't spend turns recruiting cheap troops in your captial if not necessary.
 * "Blind" attack: It is risky to attack indies without knowing what you will face, but if you trust your combat pretender (preferable an immortal one) enough you can try to win a province while the other players are busy researching.
 * Diplomacy: write every human player a message. Keep in mind that every human player is your foe and *will* backstab you (eventually). You are playing to win, after all.

The second turn

 * Intelligence: Make sure to read every combat report and watch the battles. The first border reports from neighboring provinces should come in now. Move your scouts!
 * Random event: The worst that can happen is that your temple burns due to a random event. In that case, you can not recruit any priests. But only priests can build a new temple. A good safeguard is to make a commander the prophet, who can then build temples. Be careful with your prophet early in the game; if you lose him, it will take six turns before you can prophetize another.