Random questions

[Seravy]

Does land size affect the total number of land tiles or how joined together the land is? Or does it do both?

My ideal would be small land size, but less islands and more large continents. Is that possible?

It decides the total number of land tiles.

size of continents is entirely random.

[MrBiscuits]

What do people build first in games? I'm looking for some tips for the early game.

I'm thinking marketplace now there is a free sawmill followed maybe by a few settlers.

[MrBiscuits]

Any ideas which spells troll magicians get? 

Most seem to just have chaos spells, but one of mine has access to my sorcery wizard spells and only fireball from the chaos spell list.

Edit: I've worked it out, most of mine have chaos channels on them, but that one didn't. Interesting that it affects spells they have.

[MrBiscuits]

I've used mind storm on some gorgons to reduce their resistance to 7, but creature binding never seems to work on them. I've tried it 5-6 times and it never works.
I've had the same problem on other fantastic creatures, does creature binding work correctly? Or maybe I am misunderstanding how it works.

Edit: Seem to be the same deal with stasis. It never seems to work even on creatures with 6 resistance.

[Seravy]

Weird, I never had a problem with that. I see two possibilities :
-The RNG hates you (yes I have failed a 70% success chance 10 times in a row, it's possible)
-The target had a situational resistance bonus you didn't notice, such as Resist Magic, so in reality it had a lot more resistance than it looked like.

I suspect it's the latter.

[MrBiscuits]

Weird, I never had a problem with that. I see two possibilities :
-The RNG hates you (yes I have failed a 70% success chance 10 times in a row, it's possible)
-The target had a situational resistance bonus you didn't notice, such as Resist Magic, so in reality it had a lot more resistance than it looked like.

I suspect it's the latter.

Ah you could be correct with resist magic, I forgot to check for that.

Next set of questions:

What is shadow damage?

Bow item attack bonuses only apply to ranged attacks, if I give that hero focus magic will the item bonuses still apply to their magical ranged attack?

Does resist magic and magic immunity work against things like life steal?

Does spell save -1 apply to things like wrack etc. if that hero casts it? Getting that hero to -7 spell save and the hero casting terror and wrack would be very effective if so.

Magic immune says it blocks all magical ranged attacks, but ghouls still killed my magic immune hero with ranged attacks.

[Catwalk]

I know the answer to the Ghoul question: They killed your hero with poison.

[Seravy]

Bow item attack bonuses only apply to ranged attacks, if I give that hero focus magic will the item bonuses still apply to their magical ranged attack?

Yes. There is a bow hero that has magic ranged attacks naturally.

Does resist magic and magic immunity work against things like life steal?

Yes. It's a Death realm effect so it counts as magic.

Does spell save -1 apply to things like wrack etc. if that hero casts it?

No. Enchantments don't benefit from Spell Save because the effect itself is not coming from the hero, it's coming from the spell.

I know the answer to the Ghoul question: They killed your hero with poison.

Correct : Poison is the only resistance based effect in the game that isn't magical.

What is shadow damage?

No such thing. Some magical ranged attacks belong to the Death realm but aside from that they are just a magical ranged attack, it only makes a difference against Bless.
If you mean the Shadow item power, it grants thrown equal to the hero's melee/2 but only if the hero doesn't already have a ranged attack type. Ideally it would be of Death Realm magical melee damage instead of normal thrown but I can't do that unfortunately.

[Arnuz]

Bow item attack bonuses only apply to ranged attacks, if I give that hero focus magic will the item bonuses still apply to their magical ranged attack?

Yes. There is a bow hero that has magic ranged attacks naturally.

I recently noticed that normal ranged attacks become magical and even get the bonus with focus magic, that seems way op to me. I saw it on a hero, if it works like that on normal troops it makes (horse) archers incredible.

It was 4.01 if I recall correctly.

[MrBiscuits]

If I give focus magic to slingers with orilhalcon, would they get the latter's +2 range attack bonus?

I can't remember if adamantium/mithril give the bonus to ranged as well as attack/defence.