"HELP ME, OBI-WAN… YOU'RE MY ONLY HOPE" OR " A NUBIAN'S RECIPE FOR FUN IN ALTERNATE REALITIES"

This article is not intended to assist the newbie in achieving supreme power or give ideas on how to hit the heights on the MSI list. This article is intended to assist you in having fun. There are several very important rules to follow in your quests in a Lords of the Earth campaign. These are listed in (my) approximate order of importance, and I will elaborate on each to a degree. Read through em if you have a few minutes, and make your own order of importance.

Rule #1: Lords of the Earth is a GAME.

Do not under any circumstances allow this game to interfere with important things like your livelihood (i.e. job), education, or most importantly, friends and family. Similarly, take nothing that happens in this game as a personal assault or insult, even if you believe actions or words against you are intended to be taken personally. Those who heave insults and slander are beneath you. Remember, Lords is a game, it's not life.

Rule #2: Lords of the Earth is a game of politics.

Communicate with your neighbors, learn about them and their nations. Learn what makes them tick, and what they want from the game. Knowing what your allies/rivals want is the key to keeping them as allies, and to defeating them as rivals. Being totally incommunicado is a sure way of being left out of pan-theater alliances. Don't be an unknown. Unknown = Dangerous, in the eyes of most humans, and nearly all Lords players are humans, Scandinavians (Swedes and Danes) being the exceptions.

Rule #3: Lords of the Earth is a game which can't be "won".

Oh, there have been Lords tournaments on a few occasions, but the real games, more than a few of which have been ongoing for over a decade, are manawakolu, or without end. There is no real conceivable way any ruler can rule the world in the time frame of any current Lords campaign. Even Alexander the Great directly controlled about 20% of what the current mapset covers. You can't possibly win a Lords game like you can a game of Risk.
Now don't get discouraged. While the total victory is out of reach, a great many small victories are well within any player's grasp. Set goals, and achieve them. Set higher goals. This process can be played out on any number of fronts in the game system, whether with open or covert political control, religious conversion, societal and economic change and growth, technological advancement, or military readiness.

Rule #4: Lords of the Earth is a role-playing game.

No, not like AD&D. You can't heave lightning bolts, fireballs, or call down meteor storms. Not in my campaign anyway. There is some discussion as to just what role you're playing, whether it's the role of the Chief of State, or the "national will". After all, when the Chief of State dies, you (usually) still keep playing the same nation. You're the new King now. Occasionally, there's a "Dynastic Failure", or DF as they've become known and feared, and then you have to duke it out was the loyalists or as the rebels under the civil war rules.
Have fun in Lords by role-playing. Learn the history of your nation, and then change it to suit yourself. Make your mark on an alternate history. Act the part. Where or when else will you have the opportunity to address all of Christendom as the King of France, or issue decrees to mere mortals as the God-King of the Khemer Empire? Play the part, it really is a blast. I know, I wasn't always a GM.
Only watch out for this pitfall, cuz it's a doozy. The pitfall is game mechanics. Some knowledge of game mechanics is essential, even crucial to your success, because without it, you'd have no idea how to communicate your instructions to your GM (me). Then your leaders end up doing nothing and your nation goes nowhere. So you do need you get a feel for the action system, and the building of units and other goodies. But this game isn't Statis-Pro Risk. What you don't need to do as a newbie is get wrapped around the axle about what percentage chance X.X gp gives you in improving stat Y. Determine what's important to you as the King, invest/purchase in those things. Your opinions of important vs. unimportant will change eventually, and your investments/purchases will change with your opinions. Statistics mechanics is small stuff, and it's no fun to sweat the small stuff.

Rule #5: Trust in yourself, totally.

The surest way to lose faith in everyone around you is to put complete and total confidence and faith in a neighbor/ally, and find later that your best interests were not in his mind. One most often discovers this about the same time as the untimely demise of your ruler and subsequent invasion by your previous staunchest ally. This subsequently leads to some of the most depressing times you can experience as a player.
But if you think about it, you can really convince yourself you should have seen it coming. The question you need to answer isn't whether or not your ally will think of himself/herself first. Whose best interests lay at the forefront of your actions? Why yours, of course. Expect that from your neighbors and allies/rivals. Receiving assistance in gold, agro, or governmental assistance, is commonplace between the nations of nearly every campaign. Finding a nation willing to completely compromise its own future for that of another is nonexistent. To get any measure of cooperation from other nations, a measure of trust must be earned and granted. However, placing complete and total trust in another is folly.
Well, that's my story. I hope it helps you, the newbie, to have a more enjoyable experience playing Lords of the Earth. For assistance in conquering your hemisphere, contact an experienced player on another continent or campaign, but be sure his roommate isn't your Lords neighbor. In short order, the next newbie will be emailing you for advice.