[Sir Whiskers]

First off, keep in mind that there are a lot of different strategies, so some of these may not fit your personal play style (you've finished AP, so not sure how much of this is new to you).

I would keep the inquisitors, but be inclined to replace the rest. The bowmen are fragile, and other than their one shot flame arrow, have rather low damage output. The priests are also fragile and do lousy damage, though the healing and bless can sometimes be useful. The bears can act as tanks, though I feel polar bears are too expensive in both gold and leadership for their stats.

I'd definitely add royal snakes, combined with the snake boots that the fellow in Debir sells after you clear out the snakes in his basement (the boots add +1 initiative and speed to snakes). Royal snakes attack with no retaliation, have a rechargeable attack from 2-hex range, have decent stats and hit points, and do good damage, especially when they successfully poison their target.

I'd also recommend evil beholders, if you find any on Rusty Anchor. Their hypnosis ability can be very useful, but best of all is the chance to sleep an enemy stack when attacking with their normal ranged attack (the chance is highest against lower level units).

Two others to consider are royal thorns (summon thorn stacks to absorb enemy attacks) and griffins. Griffins actually have more hit points than their leadership! Add in good initiative, speed, and multiple retaliations. Royal Griffins are always available in Verona, but I don't believe I've ever seen them earlier than that.

If there are paladins, knights, or horsemen available on Scarlet Wind or Rusty Anchor, give them serious consideration. They have a good mix of stats, hit points, abilities, and damage potential. The only reason to pass on them is if there are too few to be useful.

Lastly, the dwarf NPC (Lin Thorvald) on Bolo sells droids. A good mix of battle and repair droids can be surprisingly effective. The battle droids can tank, absorbing damage, while the repair droids snipe from range and dash in to repair (resurrect) the battle droids.

As a mage, I tend to focus on the following skills early:
MIGHT - get to level 1 Anger, which requires level 1 Rage and Training. Rage boosts your rage points, training gives your dragon a slight bump in XP, and Anger helps replenish Rage in battle, hopefully keeping you with enough rage to summon those mana balls for more mana. I never boost Training beyond the required level 1, as I find my dragon levels up just fine as is. (Much later I try to get to Level 1 Tactics, which I find very useful, but it costs a lot of might runes to get there.)

MIND - I consider level 2 Scouting a must have. I also like to get a level in Holy Anger for the rage and mana boosts against undead/demons. Then I focus on getting to Neatness, which allows you to destroy items for crystals and runes (only level 4/5 items give runes, which requires level 2/3 Neatness skill). Those extra crystals and runes are very helpful. (Much later I try to get to Voice of the Dragon, but only if I don't have better uses for the Mind runes in the Magic skill path.)

MAGIC - Definitely the place to focus your efforts. Immediately get at least level 1 in the three magic schools, and I like to get to level 2 order and distortion as soon as I reasonably can. I no longer put points into Alchemy, as I can find crystals and use Neatness to destroy items for more. I do like Transmute - a nice boost to mana every time an enemy stack dies. Consider getting Summoning if you have multiple creatures that summon (royal thorns, royal griffins, druids, demonologist, etc). Then focus on getting to Higher Magic. A mage's greatest strength is magic and the ability to cast two spells in one round often makes the difference between an easy victory and a pyrrhic one.

Concerning the emerald dragon, here's a spoiler (stop reading if you want to figure it out on your own)..............................





Find Chief Sohaty on the eastern side of Rusty Anchor (near Zag-Zag). He gives you a quest to bring him 50 bowmen, 50 robbers, and 50 pirates. Bring him those troops and he gives you a key to the cavern behind Zag-Zag. Lure Zag-Zag away, enter the cavern and pick up the dragon and quite a bit of treasure too (sometimes there's also a troop stack that will join you). Just be sure to dodge the one enemy stack in there, as it's likely too powerful for you right now. The best part is that you can pick up the troops before you ever go to Rusty Anchor, so as soon as Sohaty gives you the quest, you give him the troops. No need to make two trips. Your current leadership is just a bit too low for the dragon, but you can always put him in reserve until you reach 1900.

Hope this helps. Good luck!