I finished the game two more times on Normal level. First time I waited till I researched and casted Spell of Mastery (although I was able to destroy the last opponent long before). I got some extra points for the spell, but at the same time lost some points for finishing the game later. All in all, made it to 29%.
I did some experimenting with custom wizards, trying to see which is the best combination. So far, I'm happiest with Chaos Realm, due to very powerfull offensive/combat spells. It's also very useful to select Channelling as ability if you prefer dealing with combats by casting a lot of spells.
I also like to select Fame, cause it makes heroes come to you quickly. So far my favorite hero is Fang the Draconian - after he gets a few levels and a few chosen items, he becoms pretty much invincible (only a group of drakes/wyrms or phantom beasts can take him out, though at really high levels, only phantom beasts unless you have an item to make him resist illusions).
Alchemy is useful early in the game when you have either too much gold and not enough mana or vice versa, but after that it's only waste of a point. Other skills have their obvious use. I'm considering selecting Warlord next time I play, but the truth is that in the end, I tend to use almost exclusively heroes, sometimes supported by summoned creatures, so that makes the idea of being a warlord a bit useless.
The part of the game I enjoy the most is those first 100 turns or so (maybe more, cause it's easy to lose track especially at the beginning when you spend so many turns just to reach the nearest city/lair/node with your two troops). I like it because you still explore and you can still get defeated easily - you pretty much have to stay away from most of the nodes/lairs and cant even consider conquering a Tower. Once you get a few powerful heroes, the only thing that limits you is how fast you can get to the last enemy city.
I might give it a go on Hard level, just to see if it gets more challenging or simpy too frustrating - sometimes it's a thin line to balance between those two.
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