[Alneyan]

Oh, looks like your scouts may have ended up in other provinces too. If such is the case, you might wish to consider using the "top-notch intelligence" method to know how well a province is defended.

To do so, use a commander to attack a province, put this commander as back to the left as possible, and give orders to Retreat. That way, the commander will retreat on turn one, and should be out of range of any attack... except fliers, and possibly a couple of spells independents might have. In all other cases, your commander will retreat to a friendly province, and you will be able to replay the "battle", allowing you to see all the troops in that province, how many there are, if there are annoying mages, and so on.