Well, there we go
I've completed the playthrough I've been looking forward to for quite a while.
I must admit the Paladin is a force to be reckoned with if you develop him properly. The key to the easy going with a Paladin lies in 3 skills, which should be fully developed in this order ASAP - Learning, Resurrection, Rage. Learning lvl 3 gives 20% more XP per battle, Resurrection lvl 3 lets you use scapegoat units all the time (100% of which will be resurrected in the end of the battle), and Rage lvl 3 improves the rage income in battle by 60%, which puts you on an even foot with the Warrior. I also made sure I stared with Marshal's Memoirs artifact (+5% XP) and got the Shark Tooth from Jim Crowd for 5% more XP. So I had +30% XP per battle very early on. I even found the Hand of Necropolis - +10% XP more, so I had a lot of XP to go around.
So with this build, I had learning lvl 3 and resurrection lvl 3 by lvl 18. Until that level came, it was tough as hell (still, not as tough as a mage). After I got that behind my back, the game get way easier. Achieving Resurrection at lvl 3 made me sacrifice every possible spell improvement, though. I was using only the healing spell until lvl 19. Doing that put me at a wicked disadvantage, but it was very rewarding after I got what I wanted. I'd have to admit that with Inquisitor's Sword - guaranteed drop from Thomas Torkve (Torque?) and Warrior of the Light medal (+20/30/40% to Paladins, Inquisitors and Priests' damage), the Paladin may get a wickedly powerful army, which is worth more than it looks. So there is nothing unusual that I used these 3 types of units - as soon as they became available - pretty much through the entire game. The only battles I missed out on them were the 2 boss battles with Ktahu and Zilgadis. Top that with some items that improve the crit rate and watch the carnage
Even with the scapegoat units, and with only 164/290 battles without losses, I was amazed I ended up with only 3326 losses. I was expecting this game to go into about 10 000, but nothing of the sort happened. This saved me tons of gold - at one point, around lvl 50, I had over 3 million gold, so I even started buying runes to complement the ones that were missing.
I also noticed why I was missing out on some of the quests in my previous playthroughs. There are contract heroes, which have a bounty hunt-type quest associated with them. It would appear that I have been missing on 5 of them all the time. Now I missed on 1 of those, because I never knew it existed until it was too late - I had already killed the hero it is associated with, which automatically fails the quest, as it cannot be undertaken. This is very important for everyone who tries to get all the quests done.
So, in the end:
Final level: 57
Final pet dragon level: 55
Difficulty: Impossible
Ending date: 13
Quests completed: 86
Follower: Moldok
Total followers: 2
Attack 28
Defense 33
Intellect 26
Rage 87
Mana 74
Runes obtained: 208 Might 370 Mind 196 Magic
Gold: 1069451
Crystals: 601
Battle count: 290
Killed enemies: 458784
Casualties: 3326
Killed heroes: 73
Killed bosses: 6
Damage: by troops: 84%, by pet dragon: 16%
Best troops: Paladins, Inquisitors, Knights, Priests, Archmagi, Demonologists, Executioners
Final score: 1729
Decent, I guess