I admit, I was also a noob when I first started playing Evony more than a month ago. I was clueless on what I am doing and all I know is I should follow the Quests. After a few sessions of groping around, following the quests' instructions, I am finally starting to learn playing evony.

So, in order to learn how to play Evony, you should also follow the quests. The best way to learn after all, is experience. However, there will be somethings here that I learned on my own which are not included in the quests.

Quests
Evony provides quests to help guide you in playing. There are quests that help you hands-on to learn how to build buildings, resource fields, train soldiers, attack valleys, scout cities, how to be promoted, among many others.
The [Quest] button which have a scroll icon is found on the lower left corner of the window, the one encircled in the picture. This opens the quests window.

The quests window consits of a pane where the quest lits are found and a main window that explains the quest. You can choose from the various quests found in the pane, although when you are still starting, only a single quest is available.

More quests will be unlocked when you finish some quests as a requirement. Also note that there are some quests that have subquests, which is shown on the lower half of the pane.

On the main quest page, the quest description is shown. It just tells some boring comments on the quests, although sometimes it explains what it will do.
The quest guide shows you what you should do. Follow the quest guide and you will be finishing the quest in no time.

Quest targets are your goals to successfully finish the quest. It will have a red exclamation mark when it is not yet finished and a green check mark if a target is finished.

Your reward is also shown. After finishing a quest, be sure to claim reward to remove the quest from the list and to get the reward. Sometimes, this also unlocks more quests.

When you finish a quest completely, a green check mark will be beside the quest title in the list.