[Taqwus]

Mages with no other orders will cast spells, unless somebody in melee range prevents them from doing so (random chance).

Demo saved games should still be compatible with the full version.

And yes, curses are generally pretty manageable, especially for nations with lots of nature magic (regeneration to cut down affliction risk, GoH to heal them) or recuperating-units (like most Pangaean units).

Something like D9B9 would be an irritating dual-bless, in that you might not want to throw expensive melee SCs against hordes of cheap D9B9 flags, but that's sufficiently expensive that it -should- be at least a little mean. And those flags will still die en masse to archers or Blade Wind (granted, your Blade Winder might be horror-marked, but the cost might well be a fair trade).