Hello. If you're a new player, you're in the right place. The Forum, along with the CoW Discord, are the main ways players can interact with each other and learn more about the game. Here you can ask questions, suggest new features, report bugs, or just talk with other players. There's also the CoW Wiki and CoW Fandom which contain important information that can be accessed by anyone.

As for your question, making the transition from a noob/amateur player to an experienced player takes time. It requires learning about the game itself, the game mechanics, the strategies which come with specific games, etc. For example, you'll need to figure out things like:

• What playstyle is most effective for me?
  
• What doctrine(s) are best to use my playstyle with?
  
• When entering a round, what country should I pick?
  
• What types of units should I use?
  

And many more. Although there are LOTS of different strategies players use (many of which are well-documented in this very forum), here are some general tips you should think about when playing a game. Most of these tips apply to all rounds, nations, doctrines, etc.

1. Units are expensive. Do your best to conserve them.
   
2. Resources are important. You can't do anything without them. Build industry in your core cities and max it out fast. There's no such thing as having too much resources. More resources allows you to construct more buildings and produce more units.
   
3. Don't waste your resources on anything that you don't absolutely need. Don't research units you won't produce. Don't build production facilities you won't use. Don't build multiple production buildings in one city; you can only produce one unit at a time.
   
4. Research is important. Identify the units you will use the most, and make sure you're researching advanced levels of these units as they unlock.
   
5. Air superiority is crucial. Build interceptors, and lots of them. Level them up. Even if you're not going to build any other air unit, interceptors are invaluable.
   
6. Building off Point 1 - Avoid Melee Combat whenever you can. Even if you'll win the battle, your units will take damage. Better to use ranged units to deal free damage, right?
   
7. Your core provinces are the heart of your country. It's where the bulk of your resource production takes place. Defend your core provinces at all costs, even if it means leaving your non-core areas vulnerable.
   
8. Be picky about who you ally. Don't ally with random players out of the blue. Check players' stats before you ally with them. If they have a player K/D ratio under 1, chances are they are an amateur player who will go inactive in the next few days. Not much help to you when fighting wars. Don't join a coalition on the first day; 90% of first day coalitions will go inactive within a week.
   
9. Try to expand at a "Goldilocks pace": not too fast, not too slow. Over time you will learn approximately what this pace looks like. If you expand too fast, players will see you as a threat and team up to defeat you. If you expand too slow, you won't have as much resource production as other nations, which could make you fall behind in the arms race.
   
10. Study the game. Take time to read, research, and experiment. The links below are just a few of the many resources out there:
    
    • Buildings Reference
      
    • Units Reference
      
      
    • Doctrines Reference
      

Of course, the best way to see if these playing strategies work for you is to hop into a round and start playing! I recommend a "Clash of Nations" map, which aren't as difficult because most players go inactive. Test things out. Try new strategies. Don't be afraid of losing.

As in the words of Sun Tzu: “If you learn from defeat, you haven't really lost.”

Artillery is your friend. I routinely build 2 ordnance centers and research artillery first thing. Note that unit production centers are very quick to build, so it doesn't much delay the slower resource production centers to build them first. When the tech tree allows, research and build rocket artillery, which is more effective vs the infantry units that dominate the early game.

The first thing I build are my unit production buildings. I usually build barracks in one city, an ordnance foundry in another, a tank plant in another, an aircraft factory in another, and a naval base in the last one if I have a seaside city. If I am landlocked and I can't build a naval base, then I might build a secret lab if I am a Comintern country (to produce rocket artillery), and if not, I will build either a barracks or a tank plant in the last city, depending on what resources my home country produces the most. After those buildings are all built, I will build level 1 industry in all cities. Since industry takes metal, oil, and rare materials, after the industries finish I will build level 1 recruiting centers in all cities, since manpower is an issue in the early game and recruiting centers take food and goods, the two resources that the industries do not take. After that, I will probably build level 2 industries, then level 3 industries whenever I have the resources for it. I won't build level 2 unit production buildings until at least day 4 or 5 when I start researching advanced unit levels. I usually wait to research past level 1 of all units until day 5 or 6 to save money, to build more level 1 units, and then I can upgrade them later when I research level 3 or 4 of those units.