Noob ? Again. Hotkey Q?

[Calchet]

The various selection commands are used in the army setup screen.

Double-clicking a unit in a squad selects all units of the same type, letting you move them to a different sqad.

Shift-clicking a unit selects it in addition to any units you already have selected.

Hitting 'w' adds all units in the current squad that have afflictions to your selection, but you need to have selected (i.e. clicked) a unit in the squad first.

'e' does the same, but for experienced units.

There are several useful earth spells at E3 or E4, though most of them are battle spells that increase strength, give large amounts of protection and such. Most rituals around there are summoning spells, some of them useful.

You can use empowerment to increase the skill of a commander in any magic type, spending an increasing number of gems to do so - blood, meanwhile, uses the same number of slaves instead of gems: These are generally considered much less precious, since you can produce large amounts by blood-hunting in your provinces. That said, just because some of your units have a bit of blood skill, there is no need to throw yourself into researching and casting large amounts of blood magic, and you're usually better off with other magic for those nations.

On the main menu, you should see "version 3.23b" in the bottom-left corner if you're up to date.