Aaa...) all other questions simply disappear.

Someone here is unfairly criticizing diplomacy and the messenger. I recently decided to revisit the Outlands for fun. Haven against Necropolis. Haven below, Necromancer above. I took Orson against Axel. It was amusing. The Necropolis had one and a half times more messengers than the Knight had Izabellas. Not to mention the liches, whose damage was comparable to that of the Izabellas. And not to mention a bunch of vampires (who were almost all defeated).
I realized one thing. Against Haven, it's not necessary for the Necropolis to focus on magic, which is what I did, since Haven has good protection against darkness. You need to maximize the melee units, and take luck, defense, attack, education, and leadership. This way, the knight crushes the melee units without problems and without any mind control.