I love how elaborate this is. There were plenty of warnings about the long tutorial, which I went through all of, and while it does need some work, each page just got me more excited to play. Having _each_ phase choose who goes first, dang I feel dumb never having thought of that! As some others have noted, I'm not certain it's the best choice but it's definitely novel, you just need to tweak and experiment to find what fits the flow best. I still haven't pieced out how everything works but I've lost several times and look forward to trying again.
Given the constraints, I think you made the right choice having a long tutorial that you can skip. I think, over time, a lot of this could be moved to smaller, in-context help for each phase but it will take a while as you refine the game itself, and the feedback systems. Awesome work!