Okay, so I recently bought my first AoW game, shadow magic, and there are two things that are bothering me:

1. How do you increase your parties move distance? seems like most of my units cover very little ground per turn.

2. Why are my units so prone to miss? I've lost quite a few units that I shouldn't have just because I order them to attack, they miss every swing, and then get countered.

Thanks

Movement is affected by terrain so stick to roads whenever possible, also if you have the air domain you can caste haste on your units. Your units ability to hit is based on their attack score as well as distance and elevation for ranged units. When you select a ranged unit and highlight their target it tells you the percentage of their chance to hit in the lower left corner. Try moving the unit a few steps to a better vantage to increase your odds. Abilities like archery and hurls stones tend to sacrifice accuracy for number of shots. Crossbows and guns are much more accurate but you only get one shot. If you see red rings in your projectiles flight path that means there is an obstacle, the more rings you see the more likely you are to hit the obstacle instead of your target.

Obviously not true for AoW1. All terrain is flat and distance is not calculated. Moving blocks archery (and spellcasting) in AoW1. That's AoW2/SM, not 1. AoW1 shows percentage chance to stop at this obstacle instead of rings.

As for the missing issue, calcuate the difference between your attack and opponent's defense. IIRC for every one point of difference, there's a 5 percent change in hit chances, with 50% as "base" - e.g. if your attack is 7 and enemy's defense is 5, you have 60% chance to hit. Grunts are generally good only against grunts, until you level them up; also try Enchant Weapon for melee units and (Wind) Seeker for ranged units, both buffs give a bonus to attack. Yes, there will be a lot of missing anyway, but that should be part of your tactics.

If you reread the original post he was referring to Shadow Magic being his first AoW game, not that he was playing the first game in the series.

Well damn. I'm going blind D:

[edit]If that's so, maybe some better advice then: Haste spell, Explorer wizard ability (in UPatch though - and you should be playing UPatch - Explorer has increased cost to research/acquire), stick to roads or at least avoid forests. Elevation, distance, obstacles. As noted above, when you click target, you'll see actual, adjusted attack in lower-left window. From there, calculate the attack/defence difference. Having an unit with Leadership ability helps (in melee), as does Enchant Weapon, Wind Seeker, and, of course, gaining "medals" on weaker enemies.