At the beginning, there are usually two different strategies which you can pick, which both work fine if you use them in the right way:

Ordinary strategy (recommended):
• Build about 95-100 star mines (for income)
• Build 15-20 probe factories (so that you will have a base amount of probes to get inactive’s stats with during the first days).
With this strategy, you will be able to get a good military force in newbie mode, but you won’t have many probes early on.

Probe strategy (harder):
•Raze about half of your powerplants. Construct about 75 factories and 60 mines.
With this strategy, you won’t be able to grow as fast while in newbie mode, but you will probably have at least 4k probes when it ends, so that you can more than double your hourly income with robbings. It is not recommended that you use this strategy if you are an AL or someone else who is likely to get targeted or hit by multis early on, since your army will be weaker before newbie mode is over.

The rest of the steps are the same no matter which strategy you have picked:

Before the game begins:
• Put 25 land into exploration. Always explore max while in newbie mode, if you can. The land is cheap, and it pays back quickly if you just make a few mines or residences on some of the new land. As long as you can afford it, you should always keep exploring until you have at least 1k land.
•Assign your scientists to money research. This is the most important one early on, and you should try to max it (25%) fast.
•Put as many soldiers into training as you can.
•You can usually not pick land- and money rewards on the first day of the game after signing up, so if you notice that you can't do that, there is nothing wrong with your kingdom. Just wait until next day instead.

Powerplant strategy, a few hours after newbie mode has started (optional):
• In newbie mode, you usually have an excess of power, so it can sometimes be a good idea to raze some of the powerplants and construct mines or factories instead, then build powerplants later on, when they are really needed. However, don’t do this until after a few hours. Then you will know how much power you gain every hour so that you know how many powerplants you can raze safely, and if you miscalculate and raze too many, you won’t go powerless immediately since some power will have been saved up.
•Mystical Lands and Volcanic Inferno players can convert their nuclear plants into fusion ones insead, which give more power. If you do so, wait a few hours after the game starts, first convert 16 nuclear, convert another 16 later, convert 7 of the remaining nuclear plants if that's also necessary to get enough power income (leave one - that makes it impossible for people to destroy your fusion plants with probings), and you will probably not go powerless.

Newbie mode:
•In SK 2.0, rewards have been reintroduced. Therefore, don't forget to pick both money and land rewards in the menu to the left once every day. Later on, it won't matter at what time of the day you pick them, but in the first days, it is better to pick the 10 land reward as early as possible, and wait until later on the day before picking money reward, until your kingdom's income has increased. Whatever you do, don't be stupid and pick money reward immediately since it is based on income, and you have 0 in income before the game has started.
•Explore max land. Build what you need. New residences are not needed early on, since it takes some time for the first 80 to fill up completely.
• Draft 100-150 scientists, a few at the time when you can afford.
• Research money & pop. bonus, in that order. When they are maxed, or when it is 24h left of newbie mode, start researching military bonus too. Power bonus isn’t really needed until after you leave newbie mode, since you have an excess of power before then.
• Start saving the money your mines and residences are producing, for military units.
• Train as many soldiers as possible all the time.
• Build housing for troops & civilians.
• 24 hours before leaving newbie mode, start making military of your soldiers. It is important that you do this in time, since it takes time for military to finish training, so if you can't be online when it is 24h left, do so earlier.

End of newbie mode:
Before you leave newbie mode, it’s time to look for good targets. The game will be extremely slow when it starts, so have a list ready before, with inactives on the same coordinates as you, and attack four of those kingdoms immediately. You don’t need to probe them to find out their military stats - just look at their NW and land. If there is any inactive in your own sector, you will have something to compare other inactives with. A person with 250 land, and land defense only, you will be able to break with 100 troopers or 50 tanks, if you have full military research.
Those who are considered inactive for me are kingdoms with less than 275 land or 20,000 NW when leaving Newbie Mode. Later on, it’s those who haven’t been logged in for two days (the SL can tell if they are inactive or not, since he will be able to see a star after their kingdom name if they are) If you find someone who is that in another sector, you can of course attack him as well. However, making other sectors upset by attacking their active kingdoms immediately is NOT a good start. (exception for inactives and suiciders).
The attack time differs a bit depending on the defending kingdom’s sector coordinates, and your forces need less time to return home if you attack a kingdom with XY coordinates close to your own, so pick targets close to yourself, if possible. For example, if your kingdom is on X3:Y3, it would probably take about 14 or 15 hours for the war leaders to return after hitting a kingdom on X3:Y4, but 19-20 hours when attacking another kingdom on X8:Y7.Your troops will also need a bit less time to attack when hitting someone in your own sector.
Keep hitting only inactives and suiciders/open kingdoms for the first days, and let your kingdom grow.

Later on:
•Always try to have enough defense at home to avoid being attacked. That means either at least 60% of your military or more, or as much military that you would not want or dare to attack yourself if you had been your own opponent. You may never know if anyone will attack you, so it’s stupid to take any unnecessary risks to be able to conquer just a little bit extra land.
•After you have 1000+ land, always try to have at least as many scientists as you have land.
•Don't forget to pick both rewards every day.
•As I mentioned before, always have enough barracks for your military, or else they will kick out your population.
•Training camps aren’t that very important, unless you are an all-tank player… if you’re not, you might as well use that land for other buildings instead (see strategies chapter at the end of the guide).
•It is NOT a very good idea to start researching Tactical Fighters, Dragoons, or Laser Dragoons immediately…If you are going to research them at all, try to build a strong military offense and defense first, and then start researching AI Technology when you have at least 2000-3000 land and as many scientists + all other things which you find more important are fully researched, like Laser Dragoons (a good defense is more important than a good offense.) If you can’t defend your land, there is no use attacking, since that will only make you a better target.