as an option, direct damage spells never miss.

Well, I wouldn't say never, but almost never). And in this case, almost counts. I've had cases where even Magic Fist missed with Ice Bolt and Lightning Bolt, but I never had any misses with fourth-level Chaos magic spells. And regarding ghosts, I've been convinced of this many times: if ghosts are on your side, the computer hits them much more often on the first try, even though the same 50/50 formula applies. I've even had cases where they hit my ghost twice. But if you're playing against ghosts, you can try as much as you want, and you'll have a hard time hitting them on the first try. I don't know, maybe I'm just unlucky, but no matter how many Heroes campaigns I've played, I've never managed to hit ghosts on the first try. Therefore, my tactic for fighting them is this: I simply split the stacks of ranged units into single units and shoot with them first, so that the larger stack of ranged units has a better chance of not missing. Therefore, the single units miss, but the larger stacks usually hit. Although, there have been cases where the single units hit, and the larger ones didn't