Hi, welcome to the forums! When I first came here, I was new to the game as well as the forums. I found the 'Questions and Help' sub-forum to be the most helpful then. I just spent time reading in there. Much of what I read was above me, but the further I played, the more I was able to wrap my brain around the various mechanics/strategies. I asked questions when I got stumped; some of them were really elementary looking back, but all were patiently answered by veterans of the forums. As I reached the end of Chapter 3, I looked in the 'Battle Help' sub-forum to make a decision regarding developing a military or not. I had not up until that point. In retrospect, that was probably one of the better uninformed decisions I made due to the imbalance in the battle system at those levels. I have been able to develop a military and have a more balanced approach to clearing provinces and participating in tournaments mostly through reading those 2 sub-forums. Lately, I've begun to take an interest in future direction/events/etc and have been dabbling more in other sub-forums as well. That was my approach to the forums, and thus far I've been pleased with participating here.