Start on "Hero".

The hero is presented with a choice of which creatures to build. And that's great. It progresses very smoothly: Gremlyns - Gargoyles - Djinns - Titans. If you also build Golems and Mages, it's not certain that you'll reach the Titans quickly. Rakshasas are the most expensive. Considering that you immediately buy two more heroes (usually of your own and another race), there's enough manpower to push through (and there's also the Bandit Camp and the Conflux). We get gold from chests, sell a lot of unnecessary artifacts (through the market) - there are no problems with it. We mine ore on the map. If the map is very difficult, and the AI rushes me quickly, I at least build a Stronghold, and as soon as an enemy hero appears, I hide in the Castle, he attacks - I kill him (usually, the threat level on him is high if the map was generated poorly). If it's a good map, the threat level is medium, and it's not necessary to hide in the Castle. You don't need many Guilds if the game isn't going to be long (2 levels is enough). I just hope for Chaos to appear in it (you don't have to level up the magic itself). Nothing else is needed at the start. The map also often has spells that can be learned. Two heroes for scouting are a good thing. Sometimes, Regeneration drops, and the combination of Titans with it is excellent; sometimes, I get Light to level up when the game wants to be long. There are Fire Warriors in the summoning pool - they are also very useful. Against the AI, and especially if there are many players, you need to level up for yourself, for pushing through, etc. But if there's a human opponent, you need to guess the "counter" against him. Having Chaos spells, you can weaken the opponent with Cockatrices, and if you also have Mentoring leveled up... )))