How to play a mage on Impossible difficulty?

[Sigma88]

KB:TL is the only king's bounty game i've played so try not to mix in tips from other games like spells to use and such.

As the topic says how exactly do you play a mage on impossible?
Right now I'm level 20, about half way through finishing elven lands, I just cleared Magic valley and thousand river and on my way to clearing great forest. My leadership right now is 12600+.
I've been fighting my way through here and i hardly used any damage inflicting spells. But maybe i should but i don't have a clue where to start. Do the spells even do alot of damage? I ask because I'm not convinced that it does. Or maybe I'm considering the wrong spells.
The enemies health range from 10000 to 14000+ and even with a maxed destroyer and 26 intelligence, according to my calculations, some of these spells are only doing a couple 2000-3000. I find myself using crowd control spells all the time to make my fights easier. But i feel like all that intelligence i have is a waste. However it does help with resurrecting my guys.

Can someone any tips on how to play a mage?

[Fatt_Shade]

Hello Sigma88 :-)
I`m glad you`re having fun with this great game.
As for your question, there are basicaly 2 ways to play mage(difficulty irrelevant).
First is leading full leadership army and using them and your spells/rage spirits for hard control of battlefield. Expl : antimage + green dragon combo for magic shield/telekinesis/dragon pull/mana flare attack, this things in combination with you casting trap spell on locations you move enemy units with telekinesis is great to control flow of battle. Orc shaman unit is also great for his special abilities, to heal ally/dmg enemy units and block path/control movements (also shamans are sturdy and easily kept alive with high hp). If you like demon race demoness+demon is great to cast some buff spells on your demon stack (stone skin/magic shield/magic spring/target ...) and swap them in enemy lines with demoness ability and leave them there to soak up dmg while you kill enemy stack swapped with demon.Same idea goes with demoness+knight combo (a bit lower moral but lots more buff spells you have on disposal (fire breath/bless/divine armor/avenging angel , and knights round attack is sometime better then demon endless retaliation, + they are easier to resurrect). This are just some of ideas for unit combinations and spells that are good for controlling enemy units and not much dependent on intellect and spell dmg (stone skin, magic spring, divine shield ...).

Second way is having couple of easy protected units (green/red dragons +archmage, archdemons-highly movable and easy to avoid enemy attacks)in army and all resources concentrated no hero intellect for mainly spell dmg battle.

You said 26 intellect, and that is rather low for lategame you`re playing, but it depends on your luck with altars through game and choices you got on lvlup of hero. That should be decision made on start (Start game and decide what you want to play and build hero in that direction (12600 lds is high for mage).Problem here is that you dont know on start what`ll be available to you during game items/units/altars and lvlup choices, so it`s much luck dependent, and that is one of great things in this game.
If you provide info on your army lineup (unit composition) and maybe screenshot of hero screen, maybe ppl would give some ideas what to do. As of now anything some1 may advise you, could be useless if you dont have army/items needed for some mage strategy.
Lastly I`ll reccomend you to this mod for KingsBounty Legend, to check out how much is game mechanic changed and how much complex are player choices on playthrough:
http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=27802
On first post in that tread is link to mod download, and full description on changes in it, and how to install/play it.
Have fun :-D