Started playing Saturday afternoon paused for 8 hours sleep at 2 a.m. Continued at 10 a.m. till 10 p.m.
Results (I always play medium maps with everything on random and normal difficulty)
1st heat:
Played Wraiths, focused on magic research. Took ages to find space for new settlement, recruited lots o heroes, advanced in magic a lot due to lots o shards. Everything went well until the Tarth(?) declared war on me due to to much trespassing. Suddenly, so did everyone else so I got my ass handed in a hand basket.
2nd heat:
Played Trogs and focussed on warfare. Built second settlement quite soon, third too but then a rogue Juggernaut destroyed my second settlement and Resoln which had me surrounded with settlements almost immediately built there. Lost interest.
3rd heat:
Play Altar and focus on civ tech and later warfare. Built second settlement soon, sov and shamp (both enchanted with regeneration and 25% faster levelling) got a quest that resulted in a group of archer girls dedicated to their cause. After that every encounter is a piece o cake! Third settlement blooms. Trained some Spearmen, Defenders and now Archers. Noone is my parties equal. I smell victory! 
Oh, and on the tech side: Not a single crash, hang or what not. Good job, devs!