How about the Dovello? I've never played them, never seen them as a major power in any of the games that I've played. Do they have anything to recommend them?
Few Doviello hints: (Not really experience and I play at rather low difficulties, but it should give some basic idea of Doviello gameplay. I play WildMana, so some of the specifics might be incorrect. I'll try to keep it as general as possible!)
1) Play Mahala, because Charadon (Aggressive & Barbarian) doesn't have the same synergy. Being allied to Barbarians is "handy", but only really useful if you're Clan of Embers since you'll have Rantine to convert Barbarian cities. If you're playing with high barbarian presence, the barbarians might be pounding your neighbors rather hard making them easier to conquer, but where's the fun in having them do the pounding?
2) If you followed 1), then you're Raider/Ingenious, both immensely strong traits for the Doviello. Cheap upgrading will allow you to bring your army up to date at every key tech and raider lets you invade the lands of your targets and keep up momentum.
3) Economically, the Doviello have nothing special working for them. Early on, you'll have some starting money from Ingenious. This, and some lucky money from goodie huts, will allow you to run a small deficit for quite a while early on. Money isn't important at this stage, so don't worry about it.
4) Warriors are generally a waste of hammers so you're inclined to build the absolute minimum needed for defending. The Doviello is (on of) the exception(s) on this: those lowly warriors can be cheaply upgraded to Sons of Asena. So cheaply that building warriors and upgrading them is much quicker than building Sons of Asena directly. The 10% city attack isn't bad either.
5) Fight barbarians and animals. Not only will you gain precious experience that carries over when you upgrade your units, but you can also get random promotions. The first few promotions are hard to reach as most barbarians and animals have the same strength, but once you have the first few, the rest will roll in easily. I find that having a few high levels and many low levels outweighs the benefit of many mid level units, especially when targeting cities. You'll want Combat and Shock.
6) Once you reach Bronze Working, you're going to need some cash to upgrade all those Beastmen you've been pumping out. If you can found a religion and get its holy building, then spread it. If it's RoK, get some temples up. On higher difficulties, that's not an option though. The easy alternative is declaring war to the first neighbor to get his workers and start pillaging. Making the Beastmen work to finance their own promotion seems oddly fitting for a tribe of savages. If you run out of things to pillage, move on to the next Civ and let the first rebuild.
7) If you've teched up to Bronze working, the upgrading can start. If you have the money, upgrade all of them, leave some defense and let the rest head for the nearest neighbor. On higher difficulties, you might not have a tech lead on everyone so pick on weaker foes first. If you lucked out on getting Copper really close, your 5str SoA will make quick work of their 3str warriors. If you're low on cash, upgrade the high level ones first and move the slider down for some quick money. After all, this is your key tech, so better make the most of it.
At the moment you tech Bronze Working, there might be several weaker Civs. By the time you've conquered one, there might not be, so it can be in your best interest to take on several weak Civs at once. This is where your World Spell comes in handy: it basically doubles your army. Time it well (After every Beastman is upgraded to SoA, when you've connected Copper, ...) and your army should be sufficiently large to spread around.
8) Before attacking a city, think about whether you're going to take it over or raze it. In the latter case, you might as well do some quick pillaging. Send out single unit stacks to pillage outlying improvements, because attacking you would cost them several units. Your opponent should have mostly Warriors, so your Shock&Combat should easily beat them. (SoA with Bronze (5str, +10% city), Combat I (+20%) and Shock I (40%)= 5*1.7=8.5, while fortified Warriors on a mountain with Combat I don't even have 6.) If they have some high experience units, you might have to suicide some 0xp units.
9) Once you captured/razed your first few cities, you should have the income to upgrade warriors consistently. You should be pumping out beastmen at a high pace and send out pillaging parties to Civs you don't feel comfortable attacking head-on. Your palace gives -40% War Weariness, so you can easily wage war with several Civs. Pillage as if your life depends on it, because it probably does. Also mind that every city can directly start producing any unit, so a freshly captured city can start refilling your ranks as soon as it's pacified.
10) Remember, your moment of glory is at Bronze Working. After that, it just goes downhill. You have barely any +% buildings, so large cities won't benefit you much. Spread out quickly and build those Markets & Councils (and RoK temples!) to sustain your economy, but more importantly: keep pillaging! You can't lag behind if your rivals can't get ahead!
All in all, the Doviello are straightforward. Basically, they are a human-controlled Barbarian tribe: savage warriors ravaging your lands early on, but they just can't keep up with the others. If you can't take out half the map before T3 comes, it's over.
Thus, the only wonder I need to rush is Catacomb Libralus (for easier Witches and Adepts). It does not that important to have Industrious.
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