Hi,

I have been playing this game almost three months now. I also have a second account in which I try to learn from mistake I did (and do) in my primary account. So, here are tips I learned, the are good to use when you start off...

When you start off, gaining a level is fast and if do things right, you should finish the first day above level 20. Follow the accompanying general's instructions to the letter! Read and understand what you are told and while you follow the tutorial, you should pay attaention to join an alliance (initially it doesn't matter to which). I will talk more about this later. 

Tech: there are a few different aspects of tech you can pursue - the combat upgrades and economy are probably the more important ones. Note that when you unlock new unit or new unit types it will affect the type of unit rewards you receive in special ops. Why is this important? Because if you develop your abilities in (for example) regular infantry so you have strong marines but you can already build the wildcat (armor), when you win a prize in special ops, it is likely to armor than regular infatry. Another thing to note is that if you invest in upgrading your gear (can cost a lot!) and you are loaded with type 1 legendary gear (which improves only regular infantry) as the game progresses, it will not be useful for you as the bulk of you army will be mechs or armor. 

You should also think about balance. You can stay with regular infantry and never upgrade to mechs and just invest in improving your marines/grenadiers but when quantities grow, food consumption will be a big problem. Using mechs, armor or aviation takes a lot of investment but ration consumption to power ratio will be much better. Also note - if you want gear that improves armor or aviation you will have to do very high level special ops which will cost you a lot in army power (and you might not get a reward). 

Missions - as most people figured already, cache missions are good at lower levels but a big risk at higher levels as you might lose you whole army just for a few thousands fuel or munitions. If you want to do PvP missions, make sure you recon first and don't fall into traps (like attacking a strong player without first disabling his defense annexes).

One tip I can give you is as follows:

Send a recon on a player - make sure it is something you can finish off. 

When you decide to attack, another recon first and immediately, send the attack party. There should be 10-20 second difference between the second recon and the main attack force. When the second recon hits, immediately check the report and make sure nothing changed (like you target pull a ton of troops into the home defense or maybe someone sent reinforcements to assist). If there is no change, let the strike force hit the target. If you see a ton of defenses all of the sudden, immediately abort the attack. It is better to pull back at the last minute than to lose your army in a well planned trap. 

Alliances: remember the seven days probation which is why I advise to join quickly. Also, if you join a formidable alliance you are likely to be left alone (after all, no one wants to mess with a strong alliance), but the down side is that strong alliances have high demands that might not fit with your plans or current abilities. 

One final tip (might be unpopular): if you are in a habit of never paying for a game, just ignore this. If you do pay once in a while for an online game, make sure you buy a package early on in the game. Later in the game, getting another build slot for a week when many things take more than a week to build is less useful use of your money. Same with research. Gear seller is in my opinion not worth the effort. If you look at packages, find the one that has a lot of diamonds (18,000+ is a good number) and which includes build or research slot (or both if you are lucky). Don't invest in time boosters (unless you get those of 1 or more days) or in an army (which you can buy or win) unless strategic units are offered. 

Good luck, and careful with the addiction...

Manticore (-103,32 for now...)