Hello fellow goggers, I just picked up HoMM2 (played homm3 like 10 years ago i cant even remember) and even though I am familiar with the game style, ive never been good at the game, I understood the grid based combat but not the tactics outside of that. Right now im a bit lost as to what should be my build priorities, what to do with the first hero? How many more should i recruit? What should I attack first? What are the best stats/perks?

I keep taking bad engages with random NPCs and wasting armies, then I rebuild and theres the enemy player sieging me with much better army.

Any tips would be appreciated

Build strategies depend on size of map and difficulty.
The smaller the map the more important it is to build creature dwellings.
On larger maps it's a good idea to build an economice foundation in the first week, and then build the creature dwellings in the second week.
In the meantime flag all mines you can, and pick up all loose resources. Also farm any creature dwellings on the overland map, as well as windmills, watermill and things that give a weekly bonus.
It's a good idea to have one main hero to lead yout troops, one to bring new troops to the main hero, and one to harvest all the once a week sites.
A Warlock is good for scouting, and the Gargoyles are useful to block enemies with missile attacks, like for example archer guarding a Gold Mine.
Barbarians are generally the best troop leaders, especially if you can't afford to build high level magic guilds. Their Pathfinding skill can be very useful.
Usually it's best to secure your own area first, and let the enemy come to you. It may be a good idea to leave independent stacks between you and another player in peace to keep the enemy away for as long as possible.

Good skills:
Logistics
Wisdom
Ballistics (for army leaders)

Useless skills:
Eagle Eye
Estates (at least for army leaders)

Useful depening on map and class/faction:
Diplomacy (extremely useful if you have lots of gold and there are lots of independent stacks, but takes time to develop)
Pathfinding
Navigation
Leadership (can be replaced by artifacts)
Luck (can be replaced by artifacts)
Mysticism
Archery

This will come with experience, but learn which creature stacks are easy/difficult against what you have. Don't feel compelled to attack just because they're there.

Learn about unit's special abilities. Trolls regenerate to full health; if you manage to get them in week 1 (possible depending on circumstances), then you can take out all stacks of monsters that don't deal enough damage in a round to kill a troll, with just a single troll (or a stack of them).

Also, if it's not something you're fundamentally against, save before the fights and if you lost too many troops just reload and either avoid it or try a different tactic.

The sorceress might be a choice good beginner player. They're balanced between strength and expense and got 2 solid ranged units. However their special ability (navigation) is often useless, unless it's a map with lots of water, in which case it could be extremely useful.
You might want to avoid playing with/against necromancers till you get more experienced, since managing them might require more advanced tactics.