Hi there; your happy moderator/designer here..

[StormcloudCreations]

Hmmmmmm.... maybe I just got lucky!
It was my first "real" game after messing around with Overlord for a couple of hours. Based on that, my impressions were that: going to town was mostly too expensive; a strong military was the highest priority; a 500+ copper reserve was needed.

Visting town functions are necessary most of the time though for the smoothest game. You can get a stronger feeling how a town is actually doing with the leader's feedback, and change the internal functioning of a town (shift the priority more towards military, trading, or farming), gain money through extra taxes for a time if you need the money, attract more people to the city, and other things. Yes, a strong military in each city is important, and yes, keeping an extra copper reserve is essential.

I said Yes to all requests if I had the copper.

Well, this is generally good, but don't put yourself out too much for the leaders; they may grow to depend too much on you and put you in a bad spot financially at some point. And make sure that you aren't just bailing out a dumb leader that isn't doing a good job; keep their stats in your head, esp. Intelligence and Honor. You don't always necessarily want to be funding a "ruthless dictator", so to speak.

Thanks for your feedback! If you have thoughts or questions on any of the other games, feel free to post them.