Some basic new player questions.

1. Game version is listed on the main menu in the corner.

2. I don't do map packs.

3. Mages are armor-killers - cold and fire damage ignore armor. Mages are important strategic units that can defeat armies that are nearly unstoppable with normal weapons. On a sovereign, Mage is perhaps the most powerful specialization.

4. You can't. There's no good way to get high level administrators. You'll need to have your administrators *not* being in cities but moving around fighting on the map if you want to level them. Forget about administration, the system is broken as is.

5. Children of Storm is perhaps the most professional quality mod I've seen for any game. Lots more content than StarDock releases in their DLC packs and it's all for free. Extremely recommended!

Thank you for the information Apheirox. I will restart a new game and try to build a mage. Do you have any recommendations on building one?

Also, where can I get this mod "Children of the storm"?

For mods, nearly all of them (including Children of Storm) are linked in this stickied post at the top of the LH Mods sub-forum:

https://forums.elementalgame.com/446461/page/1/

I would second that recommendation, though I might suggest you try the base game without it a little first so you can appreciate the changes (and the base game is quite enjoyable too - CoS basically just adds lots more content.)

Along those lines (adding new Content) I'd also suggest Hellions' Champion Bonanza and Black Market Bazaar.

After that, most of the other really good mods get into modifying game behavior, so you probably want to know whether you *want* that behavior changed first.  

As for administrators - you don't need high-level ones.  Even low-mid level champs with the Governor --> Admin line of perks are quite good at reducing unrest.

@ larsenex; One minor adjustment to question #4.  There is/are buildings (settlement upgrades? - I forget - adventurers' guild?) that grant experience points every turn to heroes stationed in the settlement.   Placing heroes there will allow you to passivly get some administrators promoted.  Also, there is a spell (are spells) that allow you to add experience to heroes by expending mana.  This also allows you actively promote heroes to higher skill levels. 

Hey folks! I am new to the game also and have a few queries of my own.

Rather than start a new thread I thought I'd just post them here if that's OK.

1) Once I'm in the tactical battle mode, is there a way to see the unit details of the enemy like I could from the world map strategic view?

2) An enemy city cast the antipathy enchantment on one of my cities. I cast a dispel on the city but nothing happened. Is that normal? How do I get rid of the bad enchantment?

3) I see references to docks and piers in the research tree, but never got the option to build them. I assumed I'd need a city near water(which I have). Am I missing something?

4) Sometimes I forget to set equipment to automatically upgrade on my unit designs. When I edit the design, it seems to create a brand new unit even though I name it the same. Is there a way to simply edit unit designs without a duplicate unit appearing?

I'm still learning the game but those are some of the things I wanted to clear up. Hope I'm not missing the obvious.

Thanks in advance for the help. this is a great game!

1. double-clicking the unit will bring up more information
2. 'Dispel' removes a random enchantment from the city. To guarantee removal, sometimes it's cheaper just to unenchant your city, cast the dispel, and then place all the enchantments back on.
3. In the base game, you need to build your city directly adjacent to a river tile in order to have the option to build a Pier. Same goes for Lumberyards with forest tiles...if the city hub is not built directly adjacent then you will not have the option to build them later, even if you city expands in that direction.
4. No. Unfortunately it duplicates. You can 'hide' the older version as there is no current way to delete them from in-game either.

I recommend you start of with this list: https://www.dropbox.com/s/d7k7l5aw0iapr8k/Mods%20Used.jpg. They add to the game without overly changing the game from the designers original intent (imo). If you like what you see, you can download the package and unpack in your mods directory (don't forget to 'use mods' in your options) here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qgg40e7qtvj9h22/Mods%20--%20Dec%2027%202013.7z

If you don't like what you see, by all means, check out the stickied mods collection here: https://forums.elementalgame.com/446461/page/1/#3407832

Enjoy.

Thanks for the info! I think I'm getting the hang of things a bit more now.

One other thing. I got a message saying that monsters destroyed a caravan from one of my cities. Do caravans appear on the map? Or does this happen when monsters occupy road tiles?

There is a mod called Monuments XP (link) that gives increasing amount of XP to heroes and units for having the Monument (1 per city) which upgrades to Guardian Statue (1 per city) which upgrades to Guardian Idol (1 per faction).  This simple change makes a huge difference to levelling administrators, and it means your units and heroes are actually doing something when sitting in a city!

It's in my list of recommended mods.

Caravans do appear on the map. You get them by agreeing to a Trade Treaty with one of the AI.

If I remember correctly, dispel only removes negative enchantments (which are the ones you want to remove). The city info screen only updates with the enchantment being dispelled in the next turn.