Mages – their development.

I like the Mentor the most among the magic factions. With him, the mages are simply unbeatable. And starting with 1 mage is a big help. You upgrade combat units – the Tent and the Ballista – plus the usual mage upgrades like spellcasting. Later, if the map is large (I love huge maps), by the end, when everyone has mini-artifacts and all the initiative artifacts have been bought from the shop, the mages can defeat anyone. I managed to get the mages to move one creature per turn. The enemy will never reach you. In battle, I prefer Elder Hermits (because of their repair ability), Archmages (Meteor Shower when there are no more than 40 of them, and then just shoot), Djinns (level 2 – Plague kills 2-3 monsters at a time on level 7), and Storm Titans (Storm is devastating). I build money and a Castle first. During the battle, I put the mages in one corner, the Colossi, and all the others further away from them. If the initiative is high, you run and kill everyone without looking. If it's low, you wait for the hero's turn and move the Golems closer to the archers while they are being attacked, and then bombard everyone with fire from the mages. The surviving enemies will be easily finished off by the Rakshasa.