IMHO, Lord Markin fits well with Commander. First advance him to Life Disciple so he can heal, then Healer (on the General pane) so army will regen faster between battles. Then Commander, along the +accuracy / +initiative line, so the whole army will be more effective.
Higher initiative means more than just moving first: it also increases how frequently you move.
Gilden's unique weapons are hammers, which are slower weapons (-4 initiative). Also, they have Light Plate instead of Chain Mail, which reduces initiative even more. To me, this combination was a problem: mid-game I had guys on horseback with hammer, mace, or maul, and Light Plate, and their initiative was only 10. Not good when facing chainmail swordsmen with initiative 20.
I personally did not finish that Gilden game, because I had not foreseen this problem, so I had not taken Lord Markin down the + accuracy / + initiative trait line.
I have not gone back to Gilden, even though it appealed to me. The Light Plate is the reason. I prefer (relatively) high initiative guys on horseback with chain mail (custom design) and Bloodthirsty or Finesse. Reach the first enemy units and eliminate them before the enemy has a chance to react.
As general advice, make sure you reach mid-game with enough money and metal to upgrade your existing units. For the money side, make several towns, and get to Trading (for Market), then Cooperation (for Tax Office) a bit earlier than you would for a more magic-centered game.
For metal, scout in advance where all the nearby metal is. Sometimes you might make an outpost by metal even before you've settled all the city sites you can grab, to be sure no other faction claims the metal instead.
I usually make first city a Town. Ideal is 3-3-2 (food-material-essence). Meditation for mana + Magic Hammers for faster production. Or 2-4-2 for faster production, but slower growth.
For 2nd city, looking for ideal Fortress site. That means high material. I don't like food less than 3, though high material is more important. Ideal is 3-4-1 (food-material-essence) with a clay pit nearby. Lord Markin has Earth magic, so he has Magic Hammers. 4 materials + 1 for clay pit + magic hammers = 6 materials. Given that, it is easy to reach Construction tech, make Mason and Great Mill, before any other faction. Can crank out upgraded units mid-game. After buildings made, remove Magic Hammers, put on a unit-improving buff. I like the additional hit point per level. This is another hit point FOR EACH SQUAD MEMBER per level. If you keep your early units alive, once they are upgraded to 6 units (Company), thats a total of 6 hit points per level. Merely getting to level 5, that's an extra 5 x 6 = 30 health on that stack. Each of your stacks will have 100+ health at that time. 2-4-2 is an alternate option for great fortress. the low food (2) can be overcome if you have a lot of towns, and make all their faction-wide food buildings.
For 3rd city, a Conclave.
After that, I make a couple extra Towns. For money, and faction-wide food (growth). On a high difficulty setting, others probably will recommend more Fortresses. I only place another fortress if I find an even better spot, or if it is a frontier location that needs Hedge Wall and Fort to defend it easier. Otherwise, I focus on the economy. And making sure I have enough metal sources. One top-notch Fortress can consume all the metal you can find, faster than you can mine it.
Early-to-mid game, all my towns must temporarily stop economic development, to make the next set of military units. That is, I go light on military expenditures until the enemy factions sound like they are going to pounce me, and I've got halfway-decent military tech. Experience shows they will pick on weak opponents, so this is a risky approach. But done right, it avoids wasting time (and wages each season) on many wimpy early units, and then having to spend a fortune upgrading them. Usually I manage to have the fortress make most of the units, but sometimes that needs to be augmented. Even though the units from the Towns won't have the upgrades from the Fortress.
Alternate strategy is two Fortresses. The one with less materials makes units while the best one is doing Mason / Great Mill / Blacksmith / Armorer / War College. This avoids a gap in the military production line. Not as good units (2nd fortress maybe only thru Barracks, then starts producing mid-game units). But more of them.
BTW, if I was playing against human opponents (or on Ridiculous difficulty, which I haven't done yet) I would not dare to be so focused on economy, at the expense of military, in early game. As it is, if Yithril is my nearest neighbor, I have to modify my strategy. Darn Juggernauts are too tough against my light military (early mid-game for me, late mid-game for the opponents). Although I just survived an Expert level game (world at Normal, factions at Expert) where Warlord Verga hit me hard and early. But I was able to take one of his cities, camped ALL my surviving military in it. He sat there just outside my territory with his main army, while building a second one. Then hit me with the weaker army. Was that supposed to be a softening blow? Didn't work. Yithril should have merged the newly made juggernauts into his main army, switching out the wimpy scouts that were its weakest units. He would have wiped out my entire military force in one turn. A human opponent would have been even smarter, and gone around that city with one army, started chewing up the rest of my territory. Meanwhile, since I had poorly predicted enemy hostility, I had to pay tribute to all the other enemy factions, or they would have ganged up on my. Not ideal.
