Started first FE game yesterday

Oh, yeas. Don't think too much, just try it yourself. You will be pleasantly surprised.

I prefer pariden, and traits of no cost heroes as well as some magic for starters (enchanted hammers by earth especially). Some people post about beastmaster being the latest craze but....

Then 1-2 towns, 1 fortress, rest citadels and full research...

Max monsters for hardness, and challenging.

Clumsy is a bit of a gimmie, just don't stand next to a friendly when attacking.

If you find yourself, as many players do, frustrated away because monsters are too hard at the beginning ... consider playing with Beastlord profession, and that turns some of those monsters from menaces into a potential powerful military for you.

Excelent!

If monsters are going to be annoying in FE as they were in WOM then that can be 'fixed' the same way i did in WOM, by making my own maps.... specifically by planting a few hero's that can fight monsters at my starting location (and a few extra weapons goodies)! Worked fantastically in WOM, don't know about FE? 

Monsters are actually much tougher than in WoM.  Early level champions, even in a large group, have no real hope against slags, dragons, dark wizards, earth elementals or other very difficult foes.

Some animals you can Tame, though, have unique capabilities and can work well as tanks.  Trust me, the first time you meet an Umberdroth (very fast, powerful beast) or Harridan (essentially a massive and high-level spider), you'll really really wish you had the capacity to tame them.  Plus, Champions cost maintenance and you have to find equipment for them; tamed beasts, on the other hand, require no maintenance.

Interesting,,

Hero's cost maintenance?

If i am making my own map, i will put equipment 'goodies' nearby, so my hero's get free equipment. (one of the earlier versions of WOM had minor races and you could by very good armor and weapons from one of them, they always just happen to spawn nearby in my maps hehehe)

Can i use the map editor to give myself beasts if i do not have the beast master trait?

Basically what is needed, is some way of reliably defending against monsters in the early stages of the game, otherwise I'm just going to be restarting a few times, then walking away from the game in frustration just like i did in WOM before discovering the map editor!

I don't know what you can control with the map editor, but one 'goodie' you can get from loot is a collar, which gives you a one-off 'Tame' spell essentially.

Resoln, I think, can actually train spiders out of their cities ... I've never played them, but in my current game (which I've been capturing to video and uploading to Youtube here -> http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLucltIH-umI-_3RGG4RJHWG5eUjzmRu34 <-) they declared war on me, and then started sending Pioneers through my territory escorted by Captive Widows which seem to essentially be black widows, which I in turn Tamed to my side (and killed their pioneers).

Ok brilliant, i can use the map editor to place heaps of 'lost collars'! Thanks.

As for those pioneers.... well far be it for FE to break with the tradition of every AI in every strategy game ever made (where cities/colonies are founded) whereby the AI gets its rocks off shoving cities as far up the players nether regions as possible! Yes I'm looking at you Civ4, king of city shoving up nether regions!!!! Soooo anoying.

I've really only done 1 game (although it isn't finished yet). Mind if ask what your reasoning is for only 1-2 towns? I did 2 fortresses, 2 conclaves, and the rest towns (5-6 of 'em).

That's funny, I loved shoving my cities up the AI's nether region in Civ IV, especially in the late game pushing my borders into 'em hard.

Why would you build cities late game when you can simply take their cities???