Strategy:

Early Game(turns 1-4)

Goal: get a good position, and try to make it to the mid game with 6-8 connected countries and no 'islands'

Tactics:

Get Connected. Do anything you can to connect up all your countries, even if that means taking risks. If you're in the midgame with only 2 or 3 connected countries, you're cooked.

Get position: Go for a peninsula first, then a corner, then an edge.

Attack every country where you have the advantage. Take chances. The only exceptions is if there is a large stack near you that will reak havoc if you leave yourself undefended. Losing one or two countries on the counter attack is fine, 5 or 6 is disastrous.

If you have any singletons that aren't connected, just attack suicidally with them. You're better off not having them. The only exception to this is if it's got 7 or 8 dice on it. Just let it fill up and then it's not sucking away dice from where they're needed. If you can make a mad dash to connect up with the rest of you countries later, go for it, otherwise, ignore it.

Mid-game:

Goal: Turtling-- you're goal is to have 8 countries with 8 armies each by the end of this phase. 6 is probably enough to end with positive points.

This is the turtling phase. Play defensively. Only attack if you have the advantage and the new border will be surrounded by smaller stacks. Otherwise, just end-turn, end-turn, end turn.

End game:

Goal: This phase starts when somebody has 8*8. If that's you, congratulations, you're almost guaranteed points. If it's not you, you're playing for second. The strategy now is to attack when you have enough dice in reserve to completely refill. There's a bit more to it here, but i already typed all this out once and it ate my post so i'm not going to do it again.. others can elaborate if they want.