I find the beginning of this game too confusing - I may or may not have lost most of my potential starting army to starvation while exploring my base at the start, was able to conquer two towns (and dominate two women), and then ... had negative health, couldn't figure out how to make any kind of forward progress, and could just pass time and have my newly-captured population start dying off because it was basically impossible to get anything resembling enough food since tribute was way lower than was required to feed them, and the map was uninteractable. :(