This game is great, but you really have to read the documentation, otherwise it's pretty much impossible. I found that the more games I lost the more I learned for the next game which made it just that much more fun. Learning new things also had the side effect of causing my games to run longer, so.. be careful :)
After having no idea what I was doing on the first fort, I spent an hour reading the Wiki the next day. I then proceeded to spend 6 hours straight playing it.