God of the Open Sky: 5000 FP, +1 wheat per worker, 5x hiring speed for wheat fields.
Legends of the forest: 8000 FP, +1 wood per worker, 5x hiring speed for forest, forest doesn't require wood to build.
Goddess of Nature: 10k FP, +3 wood per worker for each temple, +3 faith per monk for each forest.
Cromlechis: 15k FP, +3 masons per ritual, quarry doesn't require gold to build.
Pantheon of fat chickens: 25k FP, double farm effect.
Handwashing: 99k FP, +30 seconds to ritual duration, +1 to ritual automation.
Guru blessing: 600k FP, double school effect.
God of War: 2M FP, double xp for heroes.
Sacred path: 5M FP, cathedral not needed for relics, +5 faith/sec from monks, +25% to total faith production, +1 to ritual automation.
Ancillary Justice: 1B FP, -50% to religious servants perk cost, +2 holiness per sec if servant is selected.

+1 Holy/sec per wheat field
+2 Holy/sec per farm
x5 during wheat ritual

Hidden Granule: (1000 holy, 10x cost multiplier) Halves cost of wheat field workers, halves farmer cost.
Nutritious Diet: (50000 holy, 100x cost multiplier) +5 HP to hero, +5% HP to hero.
Happy Chicken: (1M holy, 1000x cost multiplier) Wheat production value added to holiness.

+1 Holy/sec per quarry
+2 Holy/sec per temple
+3 Holy/sec per academy
x5 during stone ritual
-10 Holy/sec per farm
-10 Holy/sec per school
(Holy can't drop below 0.)

Tremors of the Earth: (9999 holy, x10 cost multiplier) +99 stone per mason during stone ritual, +99 wheat per worker during wheat ritual, +99 wood per logger during forest ritual.
Stone Skin: (99999 holy, x100 cost multiplier) +99 armor to hero if hero starts battle during stone ritual. (Specifically, you get the bonus armor if the ritual is active when choosing a shield. If you activate it between choosing a shield and choosing a helmet, you don't get the bonus; if it runs out between choosing a shield and starting the actual battle, you'll still get the bonus.)
Forgetful god: (1M holy, x1000 cost multiplier) resets cost of Tremors of the Earth, Stone Skin, and rituals.

+1 Holy/sec per forest
+1 Holy/sec per temple
x5 during wood ritual
-1000 Holy per monster death

Forest magic: (1 holy, x10 cost multiplier) +10 wood per logger, +1 faith per monk.
Fairy Dance: (1 holy, x100 cost multiplier) +1 ritual power, +1 ritual automation.
New Life: (1 holy, x1000 cost multiplier) Cost of loggers is reset.

+1 Holy per monster death
-10 Holy when healing hero
(Holy can drop below 0.)

Blade: (25 holy, x10 cost multiplier) +5 damage for hero.
Bloodrage: (100 holy, x100 cost multiplier) +1 HP per kill.
Spirits of war: (1400 holy, x1000 cost multiplier) hero will return from being wounded once, with HP set to damage. (This can activate once per wounding/healing cycle, which makes this actually useful.)

+3 Holy per school
+3 Holy per academy

Quest for knowledge: (12500 holy, 10x cost multiplier) +20% school effect, +20% hero xp.
Quest for glory: (40,000 holy, 100x cost multiplier) +1% battle speed (max 25%), +1 fame effect
Quest for mysteries: (94,000 holy, 1000x cost multiplier) Creates a mystery on a random tile. (Gives +1 worker every 25min, +1 holy/sec, and +10% gold on abdication.)

Base:
1B faith: +3 to ritual automation.
5B faith: allow customizing the auto-hire ritual.

Chicken god: 5B faith, +500 wheat at start of game, +1 wheat from workers on wheat fields. Upgrade for +20% to wheat.
Goddess of Nature: 5B faith, +500 wood at start of game, +1 wood from loggers. Upgrade for +20% to wood.
God of Stone: 5B faith, +1 stone from masons, +300 faith when quarry is built, +600 faith when temple is built. Upgrade for +20% to stone.
Oni: 10B faith, unlocks hero classes. Upgrade for +2 AAP per level up.
Wise Frog: 10B faith, 100% minimum bonus for rituals. Upgrade for +10% minimum bonus. (If you have 150% minimum bonus, between 1 and 15 rituals, you'll have a 150% abdication bonus from rituals, rising to 160% once you complete ritual 16. This makes it completely useless once you cast enough rituals.)

Guru, 1B faith:
Knowledge of ritual (300 holy) +1 to ritual automation.
Help with ritual (150 holy) +10 seconds to ritual duration.

Missioner, 3B faith:
Preaching (250 holy) +5 faith from monks.
Piety (200 holy) +5 holy per second.

Chaplain, 15B faith:
Military sermon (2 holy) +2 AAP for heroes.
Health care (20M holy) Doubles hero's HP.

* I recommend completing anything that I say takes less than a day. If I say it takes multiple days, it's a slog and I can't really recommend completing it. Luckily, none of the trials that take days also have important rewards.
* Give some thought to what your main game will be doing while you're in a trial. For some of the longer ones, you might want to wait until you have shipyards so you can actually get gold while you're waiting on this.
* None of these are required for progress; they're nice to have, but it's perfectly possible to skip any you don't want to do.
* There's not really any way to make these easier. (There's a rumor that waiting until you have upgraded relics helps with the 3rd trials.)
* The amber rewards may sound nice at this point in the game, but you'll get better sources of amber later on.
* While you don't have access to permanent amber upgrades, you can use the regular amber shop. It's really expensive, but amber gets easier to acquire later in the game, and this is the only way to speed these trials up.

Chicken God 1:
Requirement: any relic
goal: 5 tiles (start with 1)
reward: +20% food production if chicken god is chosen.
notes: reasonably easy. You start with rituals available; an autohire, hire speed, and +wheat ritual combo is good for starting out, or +wood and +wheat to afford a farm. Then just use the +wheat ritual to get a good multiplier to abdication as well as extra wheat for workers. Takes about an hour or two.

Chicken God 2:
Requirement: Chicken God relic
Goal: 10 tiles
Reward: +20% abdication gold
Notes: The trick is the Happy Chicken upgrade. This turns wheat into holiness, which the trial turns into faith. If you're going for this, only get at max 2 levels to Hidden Granule first, and make sure every ritual has +wheat in it, or else this will take a while. Once you have 8 spaces, use combat to get the last two. (I suggest 2 wheat, 1 farm, 1 forest, 1 quarry, 2 schools, and 1 academy.) Took about a day.

Chicken God 3:
Requirement: All relics, 20 tiles
Goal: 15 tiles
Reward: +10% food +10 amber
Notes: I got the 1M gold tile, then switched to combat. Try to get significant gold while getting combat tiles, though; you want to save up for the 10M space, and you can get 1M+ gold per run. Once you can get the full 500% XP mentor bonus, go ahead and get that when convenient, as well. I got the last tile with 10M gold, but I don't think getting it via combat would have been that much harder. Took about two days.

Nature 1:
requirement: any relic
goal: 13 tiles (start with 6)
reward: +20% wood production if Goddess of Nature is chosen.
Notes: reasonably easy. You want the 5B basic relic, and I'm not sure if this is provided for you or not, since I had it before entering. Because you start with the Goddess of Nature already selected, the instant you get a forest camp, you can get a 20x multiplier on wood. Once you hit stone buildings, the bonuses on rituals can give you an absurd number of monks, as well as generally get a good multiplier. I used faith to buy one space. Trial took a few hours to complete.

Nature 2:
Requirement: Nature Goddess relic
Goal: 16 tiles
Reward: +2 ritual automation
Notes: I got the 100M faith square, but I think sticking with the 10M faith square and getting one more gold square would have been about as fast. Took about 12 hours.

Nature 3:
Requirement: All relics, 20 tiles
Goal: 19 tiles
Reward: +10% wood, +10 amber
Notes: There are two main builds here: bunch of temples (plus two cathedrals if you can possibly afford it) for faith, or a bunch of quarries and schools with Cromlechis for gold. In either case, just set everything up, schedule a hundred rituals and come back in an hour. I got the 100k gold square, the 100B faith square, the 10M gold square, then finished up with faith. (I put a third cathedral in the 1T faith space.) Took about a day.

Stone 1:
requirement: any relic
goal: 12 tiles (start with 6)
reward: +20% stone production if stone god is chosen
Notes: The cave is unneeded at this point. Took about 6 hours.

Stone 2:
Requirement: Stone God relic
Goal: 18 tiles
Reward: +20% to wheat, wood, and stone production during any ritual
Notes: Stacking quarries with the Cromlechis pantheon is a good combination. You can hit multiple million gold per run if you get the forgetful god upgrade. You'll also want to get a mentor run for the extra XP. Completed with the 10M tile and 1700 kill tile. Took multiple days.

Stone 3:
Requirement: All relics, 20 tiles
Goal: 24 tiles
Reward: +10% stone production, +10 amber
Notes: Got the 100M gold tile, (with just the 1M tile, I got 110M+ of gold) then did combat runs to the 5000 enemy tile. For the 5000 enemy tile, you really want a second mentor run; the initial battle will get you to 4000, but then you'll be defeating 10 enemies per battle if you're only at level 14. (Still possible, just annoying.) Also make sure to have a decent amount of forests. (Don't bother with the Ronin class; needing to have a stone ritual going for shielding means that you can't just idle to high enemy counts.) Afterwards, I did a 1B gold run (probably a mistake; this took days) then finished with one more combat run. (Annoying, but once you hit level 18, you can manage without too much trouble.) Took over five days to complete.

Oni 1:
Requirements: any relic
Goal: 5 tiles (start with 1)
reward: +20% hero xp if Oni is chosen.
Notes: Be careful when starting. You can get stuck with negative holiness from healing unless you buy 2 levels of blade and one of bloodrage during your first battle. If you mess this up, I'd just abdicate. You don't get to keep unlocked items and mentor XP from the main game. Because you have extra damage from religion perks, the slingshot is actually really good early on. For your second tile, the training hall gives you +10% HP with your starting wheat, and the hotel gives you auto-attack points for a more idle approach. Either of these are more directly useful than the handful of gold a wheat field would give you. Trial took about an hour to complete.

Oni 2:
Requirement: Oni relic
Goal: 10 tiles
Reward: -10% mentoring cost
Notes: The berzerker class does well here. Once you hit 5 fields, wheat, forest, and two training halls is a good combination. (Training halls are additive.) I think you can squeeze in a second academy at 8 spaces (1 wheat, 1 forest, 1 quarry, 1 school, 2 academy, 2 training hall) but I didn't try that. Trial took about a day to complete.

Oni 3:
Requirement: All relics, 20 tiles
Goal: 15 tiles
Reward: +10 HP, +10 amber
Notes: When you're going to leave the game overnight, try to pick up God Of War as a heritage. I did this at 10 tiles, but you could do it at 9. At around 12 tiles, the berzerker starts needing a bit too much healing. Try switching to Ronin; the massive pile of AAPs that class gets is really useful to let you just leave the game alone, even though it can't kill two monsters each turn, so it'll take twice as long to capture a space. Becoming a mentor would be really useful, but it's also a lot of gold, so you're not going to be able to afford it for quite some time. Still, better this than most of the equipment you could unlock. (Especially if you're using Ronin.) At 13 spaces, I had 90k gold, so I went ahead and did a run to push gold over 100k, a run to get mentor XP, then did a run with two academies to finish off. (The mentor XP gets you levels above 15, which do have some interesting stuff in them.) You can pick up a second level of Spirits of War in that last run; I suggest getting that before the 5th level of Blade and the 3rd level of Bloodrage. Final configuration was 2 wheat, 1 forest, 1 quarry, 2 school, 5 training hall, 2 academy (includes the free one). Final equipment (needs level 18) was the +100 damage sword, +50 armor shield, and starting armor added to HP helmet. Even though both spaces say 17000 is the goal, as soon as you capture one, the other will need 19700. Took multiple days. (It might be possible to speed this up by building a second academy in earlier runs. 9 tiles is pushing it, but I'd suggest that for 11 tiles, even though I didn't do that.)

Wise Frog 1:
Requirement: Wise Frog Relic
Goal: 7 tiles (start with 1)
Reward: Mysteries are 5 minutes faster
Notes: To get from 6 to 7 spaces, I used wheat field, farm, forest, quarry, temple, school. Use Quest for Knowledge a few times and you'll be in good shape. Pay attention to what you put on the mystery tiles, especially if you're leaving the game overnight. Took several hours.

Wise Frog 2:
Requirement: Wise Frog Relic level 3
Goal: 14 tiles
Reward: Mysteries are 5 minutes faster
Notes: You don't get the upgrades for the frog relic, or even the benefits from the first trial; this is exactly like the first trial, only with a higher goal. Thankfully, once you have 7 spaces, you can start using combat to get more. I suggest getting the 1700 combat tile; that last one will be annoying, as Wise Frog doesn't have that much useful combat upgrades, so you'll need to manually run the last 700. (I used the evasion mace at level 14.) That will get you to 12 spaces. For the last two, I used wheat field, forest, temple, cathedral, 4 quarries, and 4 schools, with Cromlechis/Guru Blessing to get 110 million gold and got the last two spaces at once. Took about 2 days.

Wise Frog 3:
Requirement: Wise Frog Relic level 9
Goal: 21 tiles
Reward: Mysteries are 5 minutes faster
Notes: Good news, you actually get the other relics for this one. They're not upgraded, but they do speed up the early bits of abdications. Get the 100k gold tile, then with the berzerker, clear the 3700 battle tile, with 2 mentor runs and enough extra gold for the 1M tile along the way. Then, collect enough gold for the 100M gold tile, for a total of 16 tiles. Next, return to combat, using the Ronin class. Use 4 forest camps, and at least 5 schools, and get into the higher levels. (Still use Cromlechis/Guru for the pantheon, and run as many rituals as you can; you'll need more gold at the end. A quick third mentor run might also be a good idea at some point; not capturing a tile, just fighting until the mentor bonus is maxed.) The level 14 evasion mace is good, but getting to level 19 for the werewolf staff is the actual goal. This will be a slog; I suggest aiming for 100B stone to get a second academy if it's at least moderately realistic. You probably won't hit it until after the first tile is captured, but it still saves setup time over abdication. For tile 21, go for the 1B gold option; you should have a good chunk of that already by the time you have tile 20. A gold run with 20 tiles should get you 500M gold without too much trouble. Took an entire week.

Equipment by level:
Starting: (weapon) +10 damage axe; +15 damage axe; +5 damage, +5 armor staff; +5 damage, +50 evasion slingshot
Starting: (shield) +10 armor; +20 armor; +5 damage, +5 evasion dagger.
Starting: (helmet) +20 HP, +5 evasion; +30 HP; +20 HP, +5 damage
1: (weapon) +14 sword
1: (shield) +3 to weapon damage per kill dagger
1: (helmet) +30 HP, +5 damage
2: (weapon) +20 damage, +30 evasion bow
2: (shield) +15 armor
3: (weapon) +5 damage, +20 armor staff
4: (weapon) +4 damage, +2 armor per second hammer
4: (shield) +10 armor, blocks 1 damage
5: (helmet) +20 HP, +2 damage per kill
6: (weapon) +30 damage sword; +20 damage, +20 evasion, +4 to evade if you failed to evade bow
7: (weapon) Damage = HP sword
7: (shield) +16 armor, double axe damage
8: (helmet) +1 HP, +50 damage
9: (shield) +15 armor, +15 HP
10: (weapon) +41 damage, doubles daggers/helmets evasion
11: (weapon) +25 damage, +15 armor axe
12: (helmet) +50 HP, +10 armor
13: (shield) +5 damage after evade, +15 evasion dagger
14: (weapon) +22 damage, +44 evasion mace
15: (shield) +50 armor
16: (weapon) +50 damage, +10 HP per enemy
17: (weapon) +100 damage sword, add armor to damage
18: (helmet) Starting armor doubles and adds to HP
19: (weapon) +99 damage, +99 HP, when wounded, hero turns into werewolf (+666 damage, +666 HP)
From this point on, new equipment doesn't get marked with "new", so you'll need to actually check everything.
20: (weapon) +100 damage, +100 HP, +100 armor, +100 evasion
The following equipment requires the great blacksmith.
21: (shield) +60 armor, 5x sword damage, 5x helmet evasion
22: (weapon) +200 damage, when hero gets tired, will change to a random weapon and fatigue will disappear
23: (helmet) +750 HP, +25 damage, +25 armor

First English empire point: (weapon) +30 damage, +30 evasion, +3 HP, +3 evasion per kill if hero is not tired, bow. (This is really good for the first few battle tiles, because it's available at level 1. Use with berzerker so you'll keep getting +HP all the way. Even after your hero needs healing, you can just send them back with this and still gain significant progress.)

American:
2x gold production / tile cost halved: This is very good. Gold production is a multiplier on abdication gold, plus with halving tile cost this is basically a 4x multiplier. It shouldn't be the first bonus you pick (because you don't have access to gold production yet), but getting this as the second or third is a no-brainer.
Superheroes Academy: This is okay. The majority of your high-level heroes will just be using the level 5 combo, which will kill everything without this help.
Random Superhero ability: This is also okay, for the same reasons as the previous bonus. It has a negative effect, in that you now have an extra popup to close every time you hire a hero.
-20% cost: Does exactly what it says it does. Pretty good.
Cheaper academies: This is quite good. This lets you go from 2 academies to 4 if you push it, which helps with the main downside of combat: the amount of time it takes.

Egyptian:
+5 ritual automation, -50% cost: this is quite good, especially for the cost. The automation is the main benefit, as rituals cast is the easiest multiplier early in the game, and this lets you babysit the game less.
Pyramid: Incredibly good. This is another multiplier on abdication gold; having some pyramids around will be useful for the rest of the game.
+holiness: Very good. This is an easy way to get actual holiness for the Oni religion, and provides decent holiness for the other religions as well.
+ritual power/automation. Very good. The +ritual power is the reason to get this; this triples the gain of monks, which provides a bunch of extra faith.
Ritual duration: Good. This basically lets you either double the amount of rituals you run (if you want the abdication bonus) or double the amount of time before you need to babysit the rituals. It's not amazing, but it is close.

Greek:
2 Pantheons: Good, especially for the cost. With your heritage, that gives you three pantheons. There's no incredible combos that need three pantheons to work, but it's one point.
Theatre: Good. It's more workers in the school, which directly impacts abdication gold. It's not a doubling, or even close to that, (call it, say, 15 "free" workers) but it is nice.
+faith from theatres: It's okay. If you're stacking faith, cathedrals are better, and once you have the pyramid upgrade, you'll always have some around. Call it 1-2 "free" cathedrals of +faith.
-50% pantheon cost: It's okay. Pantheon cost is no longer an issue by the time you're delving this far down the empire bonuses. It mostly just ensures that your run to get your heritage takes less time.
2 Heritages: Like 2 Pantheons, but 10 times as expensive, and you've already gotten the three best pantheons.

Japanese:
Twice as long for heroes to tire: Only useful if you're not using the berzerker class, which you probably are.
Dojo: I've barely even used the training hall.
Training effects are doubled: See above.
-25% hero level up costs: Would be more interesting if it was cheaper, but by now you should have easy access to enough wood that this isn't that exciting.
Capture new tile: You can use this for exactly one academy. Might be okay if you had 4 academies, and you sent the first academy out again using this, but that's an edge case, and this bonus costs 10 points.

Romans:
Buildings start with 10 workers: Nice. These workers still increase the cost of the 11th worker, but it's 10 fewer clicks per building, and that adds up.
Aqueduct: Not that exciting. Farms aren't that expensive, and get outclassed quickly by schools.
+1000 resources: Farms still aren't that exciting.
10 AAP: This is conditionally interesting. This can let you power through high-level areas, but combat is probably falling off in use about now.
Buildings start with 100 workers. Very good. This stacks with the amber bonus, but replaces the 10 workers from the first bonus. (So a school starts with 10 workers, but a wheat field starts with 199.)

Russian:
Cheaper tiles: Incredibly good. Almost certainly the first bonus you'll want to pick.
Custom Office: Very good. Not because of the gold per second (you won't even notice that), but because it opens up international trade early. Being able to decrease tile cost with only 20 tiles means your 21st and 22nd tile are much cheaper. Then in further abdications, you can buy bulk wheat, wood, and stone the instant you restart.
Custom Office, but better: Even better than the last bonus, for exactly the same reasons.
+% to resource production: Good. It's basically +20% to +50% to abdication gold. Not earth-shattering, but good.
Buy tiles for faith: You can probably pick up 1-3 "free" tiles with this. Bit expensive, but worth picking up if you don't have better choices.

English:
+30 damage bow: Very good, especially for the cost. This bow gives +3 HP per kill, and is available from level 1. This can get a hero to area 1500ish by itself, which makes the first few combat tiles much easier to capture.
Royal dockyard: Very good. More ships mean a higher abdication multiplier. By the time you unlock this, two points isn't that expensive.
+1 Gold/ship: Very good. Basically doubles abdication gold.
80% tile refund cost: Good but annoying. Gives you a popup to close after buying every coastal tile; gives you about one free tile in return.
+1 HP per ship: Meh. By now, combat isn't that important.

Chinese:
+1 wheat/wood/stone: No, it doesn't multiply meaningfully with schools, it's just additive.
Pagoda: Cheaper monks are nice, especially for the cost, but not that exciting.
Pagodas don't need stone: Basically useless at this point.
Heroes block 1 damage: Not interesting.
2x Mentorship effect: Actually okay, but 10 points is a lot to ask.

German:
Heroes start at level 2: A bit pointless. Doesn't give them free xp, and level 2 doesn't unlock anything exciting. The helmet is nice, but that's basically just 10 HP.
Mining camp gives resources on abdication: It's difficult to even notice the effect.
Mining camp gives faith on abdication: See above.
-cost for clearing tile: This is actually okay. It basically gives one free clearing per abdication, which is good when you realize you forgot to build a temple or what not. Technically doesn't do anything, but is a nice quality of life. Once you have the next bonus, it lets you slightly modify things between abdications.
Restore buildings: This is a game-changer. Instead of rebuilding your empire after every abdication, you just click a button. (Early in runs keep an eye on your gold so you don't accidentally spend it all.) Aim for this the instant you unlock it. (When it says "without workers", you still get the free workers from the amber bonus and the roman bonuses.)

+500 workers in the first building built.
-90% hiring time, -50% hiring cost
+15 faith/second, +5 ritual power, +5 ritual automation.
x4 wheat, x4 wood.
+2 gold/sec, international trade is immediately open.
x4 faith production, free servant summoning.
x4 stone production, stone can be bought with gold. (Same price as other resources)
Each battle, one random weapon has one more level.
Once per abdication, the chosen god can be changed. (Holiness will remain.)
+100 HP to hero, x4 experience gain.
x3 abdication gold, better trade deals for basic trade. (Base 50 resources/gold to 600 resources/gold. Does not affect international trade.)
Faith production is taken into account for abdication gold.

My recommendations for your first points are x3 abdication gold, x4 stone, and +2 gold/second.

Ritual automation lets you automatically recast rituals. A +1 to this stat lets you cast 2 rituals in a row before you need to click anything. The game will continue cast automated rituals while offline.

+1 ritual power increases the power of whatever the ritual does by one. (2 monks every 15 seconds instead of 1, or a x6 multiplier to speeds instead of x5.)

AAP are autoattacks. If you have 2 AAP, and set your academy to auto, it will battle, heal, battle, heal, battle, and then need manual intervention. Note that you still need to pay for the healing. Also note that AAP are not renewable. Once used, they will not come back; you can only earn more.

You can combine rituals. (Say, hiring speed + auto-hiring.) Cost increases linearly.

Faith per second is not used in calculating abdication gold.

The enemies are in a specific order, in a loop:
area 0-1000: crab, rat, spider, spider, rat, spider.
1000-2000: bat, rat, wolf, spider, rat, wolf, crab, rat, crab, bat.
2000-3000: pig, wolf, spider, bat, spider, pig, wolf, rat, bat, crab, bat, wolf.

A good combo for a level 4 hero is:
Hammer: +4 damage, +2 armor/sec
Shield: +10 armor, blocks 1 damage
Helm: +20 HP, +5 damage

At level 5, switch to the helmet that gives +2 to damage after each battle. At this point, you can go to area 1000 without healing, as long as you start at the right time. (You really don't want to fight a crab in your first couple of battles, because it will destroy your shield. After you have some extra damage, you can take it out quickly enough to keep going. Refer to the enemy order above.)

To go beyond area 1000, I suggest the berserker class, Oni religion, and make sure to get Bloodrage while you're still in area 100-200. Because the berserker can kill two monsters in one go, it can stay ahead of the damage curve until after area 2000.

Your long-term goal is to get to 20 tiles (which will make the ocean tiles visible), then to 22 tiles (needed to get an oceanfront tile; they are always 2 blocks away from your tiles), then 25 tiles and 500 ships. (Once you have a shipyard, you can use international trade to decrease tile cost, so this isn't as bad as it looks.)

Okay, But, how to get 22 tiles?
Gold: Your goal with the Russian empire point will be about 5M gold. To get this, you'll want Cromlechis and Guru blessing for pantheons, Goddess of Nature religion, and more than 300k gold. Construct a bunch of quarries and schools, as well as at least a couple temples and an cathedral. At that point, it's just a matter of casting as many rituals as you can. I think you can also stack forests as well, with a similar setup.
Combat: You'll need to hit 8480 monsters to unlock the 22nd tile. The berzerker is good, but he'll need help. You'll want God of War and Sacred Path for pantheons, (not that important to be honest, they're just the only ones that give reasonable bonuses; I wouldn't bother changing your heritage over this) Oni for religion, and more than 300k gold (600k preferred). You'll also need a good XP multiplier; +2000% is a good goal. For buildings, you'll want 5 temples, 1 or 2 cathedrals, an academy, then divide up the rest between schools and forests. Most importantly, only attack once, to get your hero to level 5. Instead, your first goal is to hit 3B faith. At that point, you can get the Missioner servant, which gives free holiness. Now, equip the standard combo of +2 armor/sec hammer, block 1 damage shield, and +2 damage per kill helmet, and go to town. Get Piety ASAP, then bloodrage, spirits of war, and a second level of bloodrage. That should take you to 7000 enemies, and level 16. (Technically higher, but you probably don't have enough wood.) Continue with the 75 damage axe, double axe damage shield, and 50 damage helmet. (20 kills per healing.) Once you hit level 17, switch to the 150 damage sword, 50 armor shield, and 50 damage helmet. (About 35 kills per healing.) Total time taken should be about a day.

While the requirements for setting sail increase each time, they max out at 50 tiles and 1500 ships.

You can open up space without resetting anything, so go ahead and do that the instant you have the option.

While the planet ore output says it depends on Empire Points, it does not.

Grinding amber in the main game is the best way to speed up this portion of the game.

Before going to a new planet, you'll want at least 200 amber in the bank, so you can immediately buy a new upgrade that unlocks. (This is a minimum; having more around lets you use more timeskips. This is useful both for the main game, and for rapidly completing divine trials, if you want to do that.) I also recommend at least a 1000% amber multiplier to all resources, at least one each of the 99 amber upgrades, and the 999 amber upgrade. (Again, this is a minimum. I had a 1200% multiplier, and a couple of the 99 amber upgrades. It's pretty quick to grind out amber at this point, so might as well.)

Going to a new planet resets almost everything. You'll keep amber/amber upgrades, and get access to mutations and an Empire Point bonus, but everything else goes away.

Divine trials will be reset. The only ones that I can really recommend doing the second time around are Chicken 2 and Nature 2. Whether you do those again or not is up to you, but the other trials are obviously not worth it.