I'll second Sidney's comment. I've looked through the manual provided, and the 'tutorial' included is terrible. Be sure to setup your town in a good spot, train troops and go find stuff. There is a 5 page tutorial, and an 11 page history of the planet. After the cataclysm, much technology was lost, you'll spend most of your time trying to rediscover this technology. How? What allows you to reseach tech? Why should I have to go to the forums to find out that spells and tech aren't researched in the campaign? Would it have been that hard to put a "This has been disabled for the campaign" notice?
Now, I'm sure I'll have a lot of people who don't like my comments, but keep in mind that the vast majority of people on the forums have been playing Elemental since beta and know the game inside and out. As someone who followed the hype (I took the survey asking if I would like a follow up/sequel/spiritual successor to MOM), but never played the beta, I'm having a hard time figuring things out.
I love the concept of the game, but the game seems to tailor itself to the people who have been playing the game since the beginning at the expense of those who waited for it to come out to start.