As a relatively new player, I actually found Realist's thread(and his comments in strat) pretty helpful when I was starting to play again. The game is almost entirely situational, and the only way to get better is to understand how mechanics interact at different levels of play(intra-province, intra-kd, inter-kd, in hostilities, in war, in protection, ect.). Having something like "OPA" is worthless if you don't know what OPA does, how offense and acres interact, what you would do with that in any given situation with relation to the rest of your KD, ect. Similarly, the things about race/pers that are in the guide are only interesting/worthwhile if you can think about them mechanically. Most questions that aren't answered with questions can be answered in the game's guide, or are only useful to know insofar as it helps to explain different interactions. Unfortunately, discussions are almost always better had on IRC where you can ask questions, and respond to questions more fluidly, so getting a quick orientation here of "just do more damage to them then they do to you" is actually pretty solid advice.