If your playing Rise of Venice for the fist time, as the game states playing Campaign mode is a great way to learn the basics.

Once your in Campaign mode, it will go through a story, which you can skip if you wish to, by pressing 'Esc'.
Once your past the story, the first mission will appear. When the mission appears, it will give you an option to watch a film, it is quite important that you watch this, otherwise you will more rthan likely 'bleed money' during the game and only last a few minutes.

When your starting a new game, you should try to not spend too much gold, as you will run out of of it pretty quickly.

Particularly at the beginning,as an inexperienced player you should try and avoid naval battles, since you have only a convoy of one and you probably can't afford a new convoy after a loss.

If you click on the blue button at the bottom of the screen, it will allow you to make notes whilst in-game.