The start was quite slow as is normal for these games. I got the military guys. I knew from reviews not to fear the critters. I left them alone until they attacked first. It was the normal protect home city with one unit, and look around with another while growing. I took a naval tech thinking I could create one naval unit and explore with that too, but some reason I could not build naval units. My city was adjacent to a coast line tile. Maybe I did not research the correct tech.
Anyway, I eventually ran into some red Chinese guys, and eventually a couple more factions. One died off before I could even meet them. The red guys declared war on me for some reason, then never attacked me once in many many turns. Then they offered peace, which I demanded that they pay tribute first

I tried to create a second city fairly early on. I guess plopping it down 2 hexes away from a hive was a bad choice. I found out the hard way that infantry is very fragile even with upgrades. Too bad for Cumae. After researching some tanks, I went back to the same spot, build the city again, and killed off the hive too.
About this time, the alien critters were quite frisky. I had a xeno taming gun, but no idea how to use it. The critters were giving more of a battle than the factions. So I decided to explore the war portion with the red guys. I took out their capital, and purple dudes, who I am at war with too, took them out the rest of the way. I could not hold the city as it was right next to the purple guys. Then I called it a night.
One UI note, I could not figure out how to rename my unit designs. If it's not there, then it definitely needs to be added at some point.