1. Not sure about that one. Spells should go up to level 5.

2. You can rush all the spell levels if you want to (although researching the next level takes longer than researching that level's spells), and you can still research the lower level spells.

3. I believe you have to use magic there. Also, note that when you have a squad, although it shows a combined attack total, they don't actually use that value (each unit rolls for it's own attack value, so divide the total by the amount of troops to get the real attack against).

I finished the game, and thru the in-game help guide I guess I had all the spells. I decided to try the spell of making thinking maybe this unlocked more spells. To my surprise it's victory condition, and game ends. So I reloaded from a save and continued on. I finally got to the end quest against the mad hermit and ya spells did him in, probably real hard to get over his 100 defense, and melee/bow him. The rest of that group I just melee/archered them down.

I think what is/was looping me is the fact these spells do so little damage, the heal spell is so worthless, and the fact it was offerning me higher spell levels made me think there was more spells. But there wasn't, I bum rushed the spell list so fast, and hard, I collected them all real fast, probably to fast compared to my first three games.

I still cannot figure out what is the difference between learn knowledge and learn spells but oh well. Some the of stuff in this game is not making sense so far, but I will get there.

the game really needs to make people aware that "increasing knowledge" and researching the next spell level are the same thing.

Ah I see, sorry for the wrong info and thanks for clearing that up!    As for the refined warfare techs, sorry, I don't know...

Thanks for looking into it Arch-Element, I did the same finally lastnight, and saw it stack, I didn't get to try +attack though. Movement still not sure on that one yet. 

New question on Caravans, might as well ask in this thread instead of opening a new one.

What is the best way to do these? I have tried all caravans into the capital city, and I have tried capital to city2, city2 to city 3 etc. and so on. In a earlier game I noticed one caravan was getting +14%. That game was long one though over 300 turns, since then only +10% to gilders. Now it says it does something for food production, but I have not noticed any change in that. One last thing, it shows the road getting darker, and darker, once a caravan makes 30 trips, but I cannot tell what that does, if anything?  One last thing I have tried mixing caravans, each city can have 3, but once a few are destroyed by bandits having a hard time figuring were that caravan was coming from, going to to. Thanks again, for any answers.

Here's my opinion:

1. 1 caravan from each city to capital - capital builds all the gildar bonus buildings. In my 1.19d game I had 16 settlements, 1 route from each to capital, was maxing population in capital and built all the gildar bonues, was cranking out 1,100 gildar a turn from that city alone.
2. The other 2 caravans build road networks to cities nearest to that city
3. The routes upgrade after so many trips which increases from 10% to 15% to 20% (don't remember the exact #'s). So it is in your best interest to build the shortest routes possible so they upgrade faster (i.e. a road network from one side of the map to the other side will take a hell of a lot longer than a short trip between two close cities)
4. Caravans no longer do anything about food. That was a pre 1.1 mechanic as all caravans used to provide a food bonus instead of gildar.
5. Try making routes through your ZOC only and if you have uncivilized lands between cities try to civilize it by making another settlement or increasing the ZOC of cities. Unfortunately you will always have to micromanage caravans if you leave them traveling dangerous lands.
6. Agree that it is tough to manage caravans if they are constantly attacked - key thing here is to agressively manage monsters and try to only make routes through protected lands.

Try a custom sov who's bard and max charisma. If you focus on making all of your cities at least level 3 (if kingdom that means 2 huts) your ZOC's will push the uncivilized lands back a good deal. I hope this helps.

Xander is a sovie in the book content.  Buy "Destiny's Embers".  Register the magic code you get with the book.  Go to Impulse and you should see "Elemental: Destiny's Embers" as something you can install.

Then Xander, Nym & others appear as sovie choices in the startup screen.

They are both fun, and there is some welcome variety in having to play the game with ZERO spell casting ability until the kids grow up.  Nym is super fast, but Xander seems much stronger overall.