While I am really enjoying this game, I find the difficulty to be very.... uneven. It also kind of bothers me to leave so much undone in an area before moving on to the next one.

Maybe the game is designed to be that way and if so, that's cool. I just wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing something since this is my first King's Bounty game.

Thanks!

Yeah, the difficulty is all over the place. It may seem very easy for a while and then it can sky rocket without warning. Also you're right, all the games in the series encourage skipping certain parts that are harder only to come back later when you feel more confident or have better equipment / army.

Some basic advice I can give you is to grab everything you can without fighting on your map (kite the enemy where possible) and then engage.

That's cool - just wanted to check and make sure that I wasn't doing something I was supposed to be doing the whole time or missing something totally obvious and face-palm worthy.

At the moment I am kind of stuck in the Dwarf area. Everything seems very strong. The problem is that the stuff in the Freedom Islands that's left is also too strong for me too...

Also, I am playing as the Mage character. Was that a poor choice for a n00b?

Mage characters are the strongest in The Legend. The problem with them is that they need to get some levels before they really start to shine (Higher Magic as soon as possible, since you have to lowest leadership, you need as many casts as you can get to offset the smaller army).

My advice is to get as many pickups as you can without fighting, just run around the maps and collect whatever you can get to get a bit stronger. While what army you can recruit is generally random and differs from game to game, try to use units that have strong specials (royal snakes for no retaliation, bears all kinds since they can tank and really dish some great dmg, inquisitors for resurrection, shamans for totem tanking, units that can summon other creatures are also really good). I remember during my mage playthrough that I got several demons early who made the early game really easier which is where the mage struggles anyway.

Being a HoMM player, I have been very concerned about mixing and matching troops of different "types" due to potential morale penalties.

I know that morale is a factor in this game but just how big a factor is it?

Also, will troops like bears and snakes ever go to "horde" status for recruitment purposes? It took me a while to realize that the troops were not replenishing as I was recruiting them. Once I had that realization, I have been building my army primarily of troops that there were "hordes" of - mistake? Am I gimping myself by using inferior troops for the portion of the game that I am in?

I really appreciate all the advice!

Concerning morale:

+3 Morale (High) - +30% to base Attack and Defense; +40% critical hit chance
+2 Morale (Good) - +20% to base Attack and Defense; +30% critical hit chance
+1 Morale (Positive) - +10% to base Attack and Defense; +20% critical hit chance
0 Morale (Neutral) - no positive or negative bonuses
-1 Morale (Low) - -20% to base Attack and Defense; -25% critical hit chance
-2 Morale (Bad) - -35% to base Attack and Defense; -50% critical hit chance
-3 Morale (Critical) - -50% to base Attack and Defense; -100% critical hit chance

- The Black Knight, gives +1 morale to undead
- Unicorns give dryads and sprites +2 morale
- Druids give elves +1 morale
- Emerald green dragons lose morale if giants are in the party
- Giants gain morale if Emerald Green Dragons are in the party
- Marine units get a morale bonus in water battles
- Priests don't lose morale with undead in the army
- Undead & Demons make most lose morale (except themselves, animals and pirates(?))
- Dryads give +1 morale to Ents and Thorns
- Undead get +1 morale if fighting in a cemetery

Dwellings restock / gain more units usually when you finish a plot quest and some low level troops become "horde" later. You should focus on stronger units, (since you can actually run out of money eventually if you keep losing your army and continue buying more and more low lvl creatures) but that of course depends on what troops your game generated when you first started.