The Fastest way to advance in this game is without a doubt to play on Hamlet (easy) mode you progress so much faster on easy mode. Playing on harder modes will decrease basically everything from stability, culture, research etc. I have found this strategy so effective that anything else seems asinine in compression. You can tell someone's Newer to the game when the start doing the Empire - Humankind modes instead of Hamlet-Town modes, But lucky this switch from Empire to Hamlet mode games is a pretty change to take on only requiring plays to change the difficulty before starting a game, but even though this change is relatively simple I see very few players changing it. In the new players defense they are very ignorant and know very little about the game mechanics, So as i see it it's really up to the Grandmasters at this game ( Such as myself who at the time of righting this clocked in 8.9 hours) to educate the new player on one of the most crucial mechanics of the game.