Fireball is very useful early - helps to minimise losses, but it quickly loses its effectiveness. You need to stay above the 'difficulty curve' in this game by constantly increasing the damage you can deliver.
Freedom Isles was actually the easiest part of the game for me this time because I was ahead of the difficulty curve (even on Impossible) at level 9. This was due to finding Ice Snake, having prioritised Chaos 3, and having 15 Intellect.
My game is plodding along at level 21 now. I had left a few hard fights in Kordar when I started on Ellinia, but I decided that I needed Xeona. I had used Feanora for the whole game due to her very useful children, but it was getting to the stage where I had some items I wanted to equip, and Xeona is the best for this IMO. I also found that my team of Royal Thorns/Shamans/Royal Snakes/Griffins/Demonesses was losing effectiveness. There were a lot of big stacks (Very Strong or higher) in Great Forest that looked like I might start to struggle with.
So off to Demonis, before which I cleared out just about everything in Kordar (Underground Sea etc) as well as the first 'double fight.' This time I had a lot of trouble with the fight against Xeona. I guess level 19 is a bit early for this, and on Impossible she has massive stacks (like a stack of 400 Cerebus - ouch) I had to reload and go get Kerus's sword first, which I got from completing the Ultrax world quest (well, I still had to pay for it). Interestingly, I noticed that Griffins were really seeming to lose their damage power, so I traded them out and went for an all demon team (I don't have tolerance).
Having whipped Xeona the second time, I stocked up on demons (Demons, Cerebus, Demoness, Scoffer Imp, Imp - couldn't find any Archdemons) and headed back to Ellinia to clear that out. I still can't find Fire Rain which is annoying, but I am having fun with Demon Portals and Geyser. I've got two Archmage's Staffs again (5 Int each), one which was an upgraded Disciples Staff, and the other which I got from clearing the Magic Range. So my Int is 27 now. I want to get it above 30 and max out Higher Magic soon. But I need Fire Rain - that's the best direct damage spell in the game IMO (except Armageddon, but I don't like hitting my own units).
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