No technical problems with the game.  Works great, fast, clean, no problem whatsoever.

However, I don't really... get it.  The following is nonderogatory, i swear.  So far it has played like a messy gal civ 2, but with semiglobal magic and these weird heros-that-aren't-exactly-usually-heroic. 

I'm having a huge problem properly balancing my game development, so I wanted a couple broad-stroke kind of tips.

1.  How many hero folks are the right number of hero folks.

Farmers?  Get those.  Production?  Get him.  But i tend to get everyone else, too.  With their "attack 1" and 1 research point, these don't seem like incredible folks.  Certainly cant get a gaggle of them and muck with spiders.  I'm operating on the mentality that I'll have 1 adventurer\soldier type per army, and then leave the others to boost research and etcetera.  OR, should I be aggressively getting these folks and uberleveling them to create veritable demigods?

2.  Cities.  The game does not seem disposed to massive-scale city spamming.  This is what the AI has done-- on every resource tile its come across-- one fertile land and nothing else, its "city time" apparently.  I got sick of it and swept through and took four or five of them.  However, now I have all these crapholes that ive got to develop and protect.  Should my first unit be a pioneer?  Should I spam harder?  

3.  Magic and tech.  I tend to play a lot here, and just get whatever.  I get like level 5 in civilization, then start balancing points across each area.  Same with magic-- little of this, little of that.  I just learned today, however, that not only is magic apparently broken (shards don't work) but you have to actually design units to put equipment on them.  Silly me and my massive peasant spam.  Not much of a question here, but should I be pushing hard for these so-called notable location tech business?  Should I focus on a couple schools of magic instead of a smattering?  What do you folks do?

Generalized tips would be grrreat!