I suggest to create hotseat game for 2-4 players and try different starts for each player.
Like first - warrior +barbarians, second - commander with barbarians, third - scout with swordsmen...
Or 2, and skip turns for second.

If you can only manage to get a level 10 hero when the enemy already has 3 level 10+ heroes on beginner then you are leveling him up way too slowly. A solo warrior in particular can be leveled up insanely fast on the lower difficulties. See here on what to go for:
[url=]http://www.gog.com/forum/eador_genesis/favorite_hero/post30[/url]

Some things to know about the beginning phase of a shard:
- Leveling up your hero is the top priority, along with getting necessary demesne buildings. Try to waste as little turns as possible with moving around between provinces and exploring. You should be fighting something on most turns. It's also best not to lose money building province buildings and demesne buildings that don't help your hero (like a show booth).
- Using brigands or thieves in the beginning as cheap throwaway units is often a good idea, no matter which hero you start with. Let your hero deal killing blows when possible for more XP. As soon as you think your hero is strong and well equipped enough to let other units survive with him, use those (like barbarians/swordsmen + healer).

As for the thieves guard, I think your warrior should have been able to deal with them well when placed in the top left corner, if he has enough defense to only take poison damage and enough attack to 1 hit kill thieves. There's also always the option of placing your normal units in a fort and taking along sacrificial brigands when attacking certain guards.

Thanks, I tried your approach of just getting fights on my hands on most turns (if they are not simply dumb fights). My Warrior/Dark Knight now beats up guards nearly alone, but I always bring a complement of Barbarians (and in the start healers/barbs/occasional pikemen just to help my hero stay alive) as fodder for doing as much damage as possible before dying (after which I turn them into zombies, sometimes skellies) This time I managed to get at my opponent quite easily and I think I can take down his garrison with ease.


I think my problem was with me "managing the kingdom" too much and having too much focus on the ordinary units. This time I managed to level up quite fast (fast enough to respond to my competitor.) I will probably restart the campaign at some point and do some hero-build tests just to see which works and which doesn't. Thanks for the advice, everonye