I agree, much of the stuff said is opposite from what you need to do, they seem very...contradictory and counter-intuitive. When I was first starting out I figured since I *had* the other goods factories on my Tech Tree I had to spend KP/coin/goods to research it, therefor I should build them. When I saw quests were able to be declined but then was warned about doing just that - and then saw here where folks had gotten stuck due to quest stuff - I was like "Huh?". Then toss in the quests telling you to do things that "push" you in ways that you don't need to be "pushed" (I'm looking at you, you stupid Scout/Finish Provinces quests...). The big one was the "Choose to grow your Army or Negotiate" - made it sound like I could pick a path and be okay - *NOT*. They really do need to get it together and make things a bit "smoother" and not have so much room to "mess up" and not find out you've messed up until much later.