Revived

I've been playing the new version for 8 weeks, but without success. At the beginning, I had to restart several times because the game persistently wouldn't grant me the Necromancy and Spiritual Bond skills, which are necessary to resurrect Stefan and, consequently, get reinforcements for further progress. I think something needs to be adjusted here. Later in the game, I had the following questions: 1) I built the Temple of the Underworld and transformed the Iris birds into vampires, but this wasn't reflected in the quest, and moreover, the next day it was destroyed without the possibility of rebuilding it; 2) how do I activate the Ring of Teleportation or the Boots of the Abyss for instant movement on the map (which is simply necessary due to the constant "visitors")? Finally, at the beginning of the 9th week, I was stumped by another visit from Glen the Engineer, or rather, his upgrade and army. He is level 18, attack 26, defense 11, magic 4, knowledge 8, morale 5, luck 3, then 12 Archangels, 95+110 birds, 150 knights, 400+155 archers/snipers, and most importantly, a ballista that takes out about 100 vampires (my main combat force) in one turn and has some insane initiative. Nicholas was level 18 at that time, attack 11, defense 8, magic 9, knowledge 7, morale 2, luck 3, his army consists of 20 riders, about 180 vampires, about 200 archers, and some other minor units. I couldn't fight him in the field or in the castle because my vampires simply didn't have time to reach the ballista before they were all killed. In general, the question is, how do you play on this (as I understand it, a more difficult) version?