Disclaimer: I only started playing 3 days ago.
To my newbie-self, it seems like the "easiest" wins happen when one player starts scoring and gets early achievements, while the other player is focused on building up the board for end-game. If that second, build-up player, doesn't get at least one or two early achievements to block the first player, they're probably going to lose.
Metalworking and
Clothing in particular enable the score-early strategy, as they cannot be ignored and forces the other player to either react or lose.
Some example games:
http://scorepile.org/gamelog/201304/01/game-20130401-141444-dfc230c4.htmlhttp://scorepile.org/gamelog/201304/01/game-20130401-143004-32b2ce9f.htmlhttp://scorepile.org/gamelog/201304/01/game-20130401-145222-f53a5e16.htmlAs a new player, what should I look out for if I want to try to execute a "build-up" strategy but don't want to get passed by early-scoring?