Newbie questions

[oceanclub]

I bought it cheap on Steam this week and am liking it so far, despite the fact I'm still confused about many things.

1. Fights alternate between hard and easy - is this deliberate? Am I somehow meant to be able to tell which enemies are higher level _before_ I engage them in battle?

2. Once I engage a higher level enemy, I can either fight to the inevitable death or run away. But if I run away during the battle, I still lose my entire army. What's the point of it?

3. In the fight screen, there's a number and up/down arrow beside each character - what is that?

4. The health stats/damage stats I see when I right-click on a character seem to bear no relation to the scrolling damage counters I see when attacks are made.

5. As a mage, when exactly can I cast a spell? There seems to be no on-screen indication I can do this, so I end up simply spamming the B (Spellbook) key during battles until my spellbook opens. Can I only ever cast one spell per round, or can this speed be upgraded at any point?

I'll probably have a few more questions at some point... cheers,

P.