I play on Expert and can use Warrior, Archer and Commander reasonably consistently, but I'm still struggling with the Wizard.

Whenever I get the chance, I try to force myself to start as a Wizard. To play Wizard what I want is basically ~10 gem income in my first circle and a nearby Province I can use Dark Ritual on repeatedly (I think Goblins and Halflings are best for this, but I'm not sure).

Like that I can conquer the first circle easily and clear all easy/intermediate locations. Most of the time I use 3 Barbarians + School of Illusion for this part of the game. I also will get a wand for my wizard so I can use his attack instead of spells to level him up.

At this point I have no idea where to go. I don't know how to keep earning money and tackle harder locations and provinces with just tier 1 units and spells.

I know that a Ghoul + Phantom Form will clear many province and location guards, but for that I need many tier 2 buildings and a level 2 unit slot. So how do I get there?

Park the wiz at your capital and scout (or fight there) every turn until the area is 100% explored

Lizards produce gems and the regeneration is nice so a wiz should get them onside

Also take a commander and use him to push out a bit while the wiz stays put… he doesn't need repairs and the troops will be better trained than what the wiz can make on his own

A wiz has two basic decisions to make;
Good or evil (you lean towards evil) & buff or damage (sounds like you want damage)

Thanks for your reply! If I'd explore my starting province to 100% I'd be spending a lot of turns. Isn't it better to capture provinces with already explored locations so I can clear them? Yeah. Since their quest is to kill Slugs and Zombies can kill Slugs pretty easily I have considered doing that should the opportunity arise. The period of time I'm talking about is far before I can afford a secondary hero. I'm pretty much stuck with tier 1 buildings because I can't clear anything beyond the easy locations/provinces. I base those decisions on what I think is the best solution. So far I've only had success with Necromancy so I went with that. I'd be glad to know other options.

To answer your questions:

1: Yes, would take a lot of turns, and yes you should attack provinces with dungeons in them before you explore. You should do things in this order: Attack dungeons, if you have no dungeons that you can defeat, than take new provinces with dungeons, and if you can't take the new provinces or cannot defeat the dungeon(s) in the new province, then you explore for new dungeons.

2: Ghoul + Phantom Form is awesome for that, with maybe a skeleton to soak up ranged shots. Although as you said earlier, you'll need enough cash to get to tier 2 magic schools. But did you know that you don't have to have a tier 2 unit slot to summon a tier 2 unit (applies to other tiers too)? Of course, you will need a tier 2 unit slot if you wish to keep the ghoul in your army, as well as a few levels inn necromancy, but you'll usually have at least one tier 2 unit slot by the time that you can afford tier 2 magic schools.

3: Also commanders need lots of cash to be effective, because you'll need to buy a lot of expensive troops (you can use brigands, but they die very quickly) as well as wanting to unlock tier 2 units ASAP even if you do find a recruitment building (because dryads are expensive and harpies aren't very survivable). BTW, thugs are the best tier 2 unit for commanders, unless you are planning to make a ranged commander, then you'll want horse archers.

4: Necromancy can be powerful, but it uses a ton of gems (which is probably part of the reason that you've been having crystal issues). It's generally better to use buffs and debuffs, as they are far more crystal efficient. Pure damage spells are far more expensive, and aren't nearly as effective on expert as they are on the lower difficulty levels because neutral enemies have a lot more HP on expert. Instead of necromancy and summoning, invest your skill point into spellpower, concentration, and thaumaturgy as these will make your buffs and debuffs more effective.

Thanks this is really helpful!

1&2: Yes, I agree and that's mostly how I do it.

3: I tend to go with barbs for the start, Swordsmen if I'm certain I can sustain them. Then get a healer asap. Thugs do seem like the best all-round T2 unit, but I tend to specialize my commander around what I've got available. I am playing a game where I had harpies in my starting province right now and loving it. They make for a pretty fast start and if you pick your targets they can easily avoid death using their high speed.

4: I haven't really tried this yet, but it does seem very strong with Web.

Hmm which T1 buffs/debuffs would you recommend using?
Astral Energy/Web are obviously really strong.
Burn Ammo is really useful overall.
Slow/Haste seem underwhelming and don't scale well with Wizard skills.
Bless doesn't seem to be worth a turn, especially if you don't have strong units to cast it on.
Curse does a little bit of everything, but does it really make a difference?
Magic Armor seems worthless as the AI will attack other units first.
Magic Weapon I could see being useful only on barbs, thieves or ranged units.
I haven't tried using Panic at all, but my guess is that it's not as efficient as other spells.
Magic Armor/Magic Weapon


I'm also thinking about which kind of unit I would be aiming for to make the most out of magic. Warlocks (and Shamans, too) could potentially reduce resistance enough so my spells would become more devastating. But seeing as I will not have many unit slots available until at least level 10 (which is 4x tier 1, 2x tier 2 if I recall), I'd really want to make the most out of these slots.

How would I go about making Necromancy/Demon Summoning economically feasible?

Fear is actually one of the most effective tier 1 spells there is, especially at higher difficulties. Once you knock a unit down to 0 morale then it's pretty much out of the fight and just waiting to be picked off (morale can slowly regenerate, but as long as you're keeping momentum going in the fight then just the unit being hit and units being killed will keep it panicked). Get your spell power and thaumaturgy up a bit and you can incapacitate most tier 1-2 units with just a single cast. Fill up your spellbook with enough Fear slots and you can incapacitate the entire enemy force before they can do much/any damage (as long as you're not up against multiple archers/fast units).

For squishing some more money from surrounding you can use barbarians+summon zombie in all slots. 8+ units (4 barbs into 4 zombies) can clear even provinces from third ring and many sites with T2 units. Web would let to take on occasional T3 unit like knight or executor.

There are couple of choices for development:
1. "Fear train". Fear spell was nerfed three times since release, it says something about its power :).
Sorcerers can get Fear spell on level up (after third), so get them.
Deadly terror - T2 necromancy ritual which decreases morale.
Cloud of terror - T4 necromancy spell.
So, setup like - "Deadly terror" + Cloud of terror+ sorcerers finish those who still has morale can net you win on first turn against most guards.
Initiative (wand mastery) and Thaumaturgy are crucial for this. Initiative lets you prevent death of squishy units from strong ranged damage or fast fliers. Thaumaturgy is the most important skill for Fear - it gets 0.5 power per spellpower and is decreased by 2 per resistance.
Bear in mind that unit spells don't get penetration, so unit with 4 resist wouldn't get morale damage from sorcerer without Vulnerability. Unit with 6 resistance would resist Vulnerability from Sorcerer, but wouldn't from mage with Thaumaturgy. Vulnerability stacks with itself, so you technically can stack it to the point where Ghost wouldn't have any armor.
Scared units give abysmal exp. First nerf of fear, actually - feared units could give full exp as dead ones, so it leaded to things like 0 level mage vs lone hydra - 7 levels in one battle.
Because of this you should get units which dish out damage while enemy runs in panic. If you have Vulnerability and sorcerers - pick bowmen (or elves). You can count on one hand amount of units which would have ranged defense after first vulnerability, and you can always place second. Against ghost you would have sorcerers.
Transition would be: barbs + summon undead ->add sorcerers->dilute barbs with bowmen->get some helpful meat in T3-T4, which would save your squishes - like spider, or fast damage dealers like Griffin, Demon, Manticore, Phoenix.
2. “Spell duration”, slowing down everything, putting enemies to sleep, and mass disease. Multiclassing with commander can be helpful for mobility, additional hp from Flags and Spell duration bonuses.
Start from adding crossbowman to your party (Bowmen would be worse because Fear train significantly decreases attack; crossbowmen are sturdier and would be easier to save). When he gets third medal of sniper, add second, and so on. Get T2 units - Guardsmen and Monk. Web and later Sleep would be your bread and butter.
Transition: smth-> crossbowman-> T2 melee -> more crossbowmen + monk-> add support. Slug can be an alternative for Ghoul – potential 10 poison flesh and 3 poison attack with 3 medals of defender under phantom form is a really interesting pile. Hit – 3 poison+ counterattack (10 poison), next turn – opponent’s attack (10 poison flesh) + counterattack (3 poison) – 26 poison damage for 3 turns. Disease + Slow together decrease speed by 3, not many units would have chance to outrun this.
This ends up with really strong army, which makes heavy volley, then T4 “Stop time” – another volley.
3. “Horde of berserkers” – spellpower.
Fire ball + berserkers – guaranteed berserkering when you need it.
You need to have [(resistance-thaumaturgy)+3] spellpower to pull this off.
So, on first turn damage group of veteran berserkers with fireball and start healing them(with monks). When enemy would reach you – stop him with web and chop. Berserkers can reach 30+ attack easily.
Mage can make veterans easily. Interesting medal for Berserkers – Order of the Victor [+5 hp +3 Morale +2 attack, +1 counterattack]
This medal demands losing at least 80% of the initial army (hero and summons don’t count), unit should score at least 1 kill.
Minimum requirement – you had 5 units and unit got one kill, he has 40% chance to get this medal. Each ally and kill would add 5%.
Trick – start easy battle (like 6 goblins) with army like 4 slingers + barbarian, kill slingers with fireball, damage goblins with fireball (they should have around 2-4 hp after one), let barb finish them all. (21 + 5 + 6-20)/20– 65% for medal.
Higher level mage would start to kill goblins with fireball, switch to stone rain then.
In T2 place monks, T3 – minotaurs would be ideal for the same berserkering.
4. You can multiclass into warrior. Pros – warrior has starting penalty of 30% on exp, so you will reach 10th level faster than him, you will have more spells and stronger debuffs due to thaumaturgy bonus. Cons – you would need to use crystals to have same stats as warrior, no round attack.
Extension of 3. - using Axe of the berserk or Sword of insanity (get berserk status with your army and change weapon for something better), with veteran berserkers and monk– you will have really great time overcoming hordes of weaklings.