You should also note two very important factors. 1) Most of the shit in this game is random, if you get Resurrect in Darion - Awesome! - but I didn't get it until well into Elflands, nor did I get a satisfyingly large ammount of inquisitors, so I just had to deal with the losses, using strategy as the main tool to keep them at a minimum. 2) A lot of the things in this game are modable, while I'm sure that some people could have pulled it off with pure luck and effort, I'm just as sure that one could fake with it only some minor code editing skill. Not to mention you can manipulate time and numbers in dev mode.
