@Dew Spinner and
@Alram
This is the first game I ever played (so I had no prior experience) and I was still playing solo and in dwarves before I joined the Forum (and FS two months later). I did just fine. I saw the Elvenar advertisements for their wiki and joining the forum, but it didn't register as something I might care to read, so not much in the way of reading materials, research, or Q&A homework (I did look on the wiki from time to time, but I don't recall anything of significance except for understand the dimensions--which number indicated tiles in which direction). I didn't know about Gems of Knowledge or ElvenArchitect before coming here. I just played, did what I wanted, and followed my intuition to do what the game characters told me to do or ignore them (I hear new players complain about a hardship they're dealing with and blame it on "the game told me to" and I roll my eyes). I have almost no regrets (can't even think of one at the moment). While it is true that joining a FS undeniably accelerated my city's progress, I do not regret the six months playing how I wanted and developing my goals and playstyle on my own (without well-intentioned voices telling me how I might not want to do that, putting it nicely). Sometimes too many cooks in the kitchen isn't a good thing. I am glad I had that time to listen to myself, and now I have been coming here and deciding for myself which advice I want to follow or ignore. And I am very happy with my city.
I didn't fumble but some of the pitfalls can be devastating to some players. There is no reset, oops, go back and try again. You're stuck with the consequences of the uninformed decision and that can really impact a new player's satisfaction and willingness to push through. This is quite unfortunate. I'm not sure what the solution is, however.