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 want to 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.
 * Research: If one of your starting commanders or your (awake) pretender has magic skills, you can start researching now.
 * Forging: If one of your starting commanders or your (awake) pretender has magic skills and you have enough gems, you can start forging a magic item. Even a cheap armor can make the difference between life and death of a valuable commander.
 * 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.
 * Research Race: You need gold to raise your first army, but don't forget that being out-researched can be a sure way to loose a game. Save money for hiring mages. Compare how much research-points for gold each mage gives you. Later in the game, you may find indie mages or even sages who excel at research.
 * Site-searching: Soon you will have your first provinces conquered. All of them are close to your capital, so move some mages or your pretender into this new land and do site searching. Later on, you will have researched site-searching spells so that your mages can avoid traveling. Assign some mages (ideally with different magic skills) to your main force. Everytime the army waits for fresh troops, let the mages search for magic sites.
 * Supply: Care for your logistic needs now, it may soon be to late. You need nature mages or food-generating magic items to maintain a large army. Nature mages are very valuable for this reason. Research forging magic, or find a trade partner.

The third turn

 * Attack: Nobody sits idle in his fortress for more than 3 turns. If you have not conquered some indie provinces yet, hurry ! Your enemys do not sleep.
 * Logistic: In your new conquered land, recruit simple troops like archers or cheap commanders. Free up your captiol to produce elite troops and mages. Have the cheap commanders lead the reinforcements or pick up left-behind troops.
 * Scout academy: Most indie provinces allow to produce scouts. Pick one and make it a rule to produce a minimum of one scout per turn. You will need lots of scouts. Send them in all directions over the map to locate your enemys, and let them sit in every indie province around your empire. And if every indie province around this provinces. Apart from intelligence gathering, scouts are useful for blood-hunting, item / gem transporting and patrolling. Some scouts (in enemy provinces, not in indie provinces) will get detected, so send replacement scouts  soon.
 * Second castle: Check the map for an ideal place for a second castle. Save money and produce your second castle soon.
 * Militia: raise the province defense of conquered provinces at least to one point, so that you get automatic combat reports.