Getting My Ass Kicked

[MrBlister]

So, I downloaded this game as I was a big fan of the Heroes of Might and Magic games. Played them all to death.

I started with Orc's March or whatever, since it's basically the first campaign with additions, right?

I go with mage, because I like more active gameplay. I choose normal mode, but, I get trashed, like, hardcore. Since spawns and drops are limited, there's no way to farm back, and I couldn't seem to catch up. So...I made a new game, choose normal again. Chose mage again. Got trashed again.

So, I made a new game, chose normal again, but this time I made a paladin. And now I'm doing the ass-kicking. Like, it's not even funny. The game feels like it's almost too easy. I'm winning all my fights with plenty of troops left over, I'm rolling in gold, got items galore. It's pretty damn friendly compared to my games as a mage where I suffered massive casualties every fight, never had any gold, and eventually was running around the map looking for gold drops while timing my mad-dashes between packs of roaming monsters, like it's mario running through the pendulum blades or something.

I feel like no matter how I invest my skill points, my spell damage can't keep up with the growing enemy monster, and my leadership stays too low to afford an army that can actually deal any damage. That undead castle on the first island was a nightmare. The only way I made it through was using my rage on stone walls to keep the monsters away from my units. In some ways my second mage game was harder than my first, since in my first I found a scroll of the phoenix, and that firey big bird was the only way I managed to do anything.

So, please, someone, tell me what are the tricks to playing a mage in this game and not getting rocked?