In situation where you have hero, sacrifice and use summon devil which finishes whole site alone - yes, summon can take up to 56% of total exp. Is it gimping? If you could win without it - yes. Imagine situation, where you use this spell, kill T4 unit and get 2-3 levels at once, then you can clear much stronger sites without this help.

If you cast ghoul + phantom form and let him tank 6 minotaurs - he will get abysmal 1-5% of total exp, because disease doesn't count in activity rating, in phantom form he doesn't take damage and doesn't deal it either. And as undead he don't spend stamina.

That's interesting. So even stamina loss factors into experience gain? I must say, I really like this experience system.

Never thought a ghoul would be able to tank that kind of damage even with phantom form on it, good to know.

Another question if I may, looking at the stats it would appear a Necromancer cannot actually subdue a vampire, but a mage could? Necro lvl 3, +1 necro power means a wiz/scout can subdue ghosts, however the mage could potentially get necro lvl 5 and manage vampires?

Edit : ah, figured out the lvl 20 bonus :)

Yes the level 20 Necro bonus gives the vampire, or 2 levels above what you have. The thing is that a Lvl 12 Wiz could have Necro skill at level 5 already and get the Vampire so much sooner.

Well, initial damage he probably wouldn't be able to tank without additional stone skin or magic armor(used to tank it with medals when it was possible to give them to undead)

Disease will kick in (-3 damage), couple rounds later stamina penalty (up to halving), eventually health penalty (again, up to halving) - and they will have like (x*0.5*0.5 -3) damage

Alright mates, im joining the pub.

As i continue to conquer shards (5th shard) i came to a small shard that gave me few surprises.. I took a warrior.. he was louzy and died because he forgot to look in spell book (had web spell) . He didnt build anything in castle but took a walk in a "Plate Armory" there he spent all gold on "Guards Breastplate" defence(+5) Ranged defence(+5) speed(-1) Attack(-1)

After resurrecting him he also remembered to put a guard inside castle(thank God). He took it serious and finally managed to beat few barbarian tribes.. After a while he noticed there is some "Weapon store by Orcs" in Nomad hills.

Now he cant believe such luck as he continues to browse the shop of most awesome weapons!
Among some good solid but simple weapons he found some most impressive ones...:

1. Spear or Retribution -> First Strike Attack(+3) Counterattack(+6) Stamin(+2) Hex(+3)
2. Soulslayer -> Attack(+7) Counterattack(+4) Soul Stealing(+5)
3. Enchanted Blade -> Attack(+2) Counterattack(+2) Magic Strike
4. Sword of Instanity -> Attack(+11) Counterattack(+5) Berserk(+4)

..My hero is yet to understand his true potential..

P.S. I play as "begginer" and was very unpleasantly surprised my opponent is "skilled opponent". But now i welcome the challgenge ^^

You can build everything without resources it just costs more (price of the resource) , there is no sense in gimping yourself to save some gold.
When invading other masters, they get all the starting benefits they have obtained (I assume), so they have a big advantage. These are the fights to spend lots of your own energy in.

If I don't have iron, then there's no point in unlocking troops with Iron costs unless I'm so far ahead that I know that they won't ever die. If I have to buy a new army every four turns, then the cost of iron will go through the roof and I'll go broke trying to keep up.

Maybe I'll wait a bit longer and try throwing all of my energy into one invasion. But I don't know what to do other than power game. Maybe I'll make a Commander, spam Brigands for most of the game, and switch to try to sustain a tier-two army with minimal losses while rushing to take over iron; maybe two monks and some horse archers with swordsmen for the font line; maybe Pikeman for the front line and Crossbowman for the back line, alternatively. iirc, the invasion was an Average size map.

Well, the point would be to have iron units, but if you lose your army every 4 turns then I agree, the extra costs would be a problem.

It's probably my fault. It seems like winning tough maps requires very detailed management and carefully picking fights and never using auto battle except in extreme one-sided cases. I like using auto-battle because the game is extremely time-consuming even when you never control troops directly. It is far too easy to lose an entire army of high-level tier 2 troops if you get greedy, and the predicted battle outcome feature is far from reliable.