The latest news says there's a wiki
http://wiki.galava.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
There are 3 categories of spells
You get apprentices as you progress and can spend them on spells types or mana. Buying mana gives you more in storage as well as a bigger capacity that regenerates after use. You can't pick what spell you want apart from the type. It just says somethign like 10 apprentices for the next level and then afterwards you see what you got.
Holy spells: I've got a few but at most they give me +2% to my attack or defence for up to 5 hours. I haven't focussed on it though so I don't have many of those spells.
Dark spells: Same thing as Holy realy. I do have fireballs that will destroy 25 enemy structures.
Elemental spells: I've focussed on these because they improve my resource gathering for the next day. There's also a few spells like Earth splitting or Meteroites that destroy enemy structures. I'm the sort of player that goes along slowly. Make sure I make a lot of resources, spend alot of it on defence and although it might be slow no one seems to atatck me. I haven't bothered casting spells lately since I make enough resources and cash every day to meet my needs.
You receive new things like University (science stuff eg agriculture to improve food gathering), arcanus (spells) and sanctum (artifacts) by buying progression points and when you have enough, buying a discovery (said facilities and units). Structures aren't facilities. They're stuff like mills, walls and roads.
You can also buy new territory for your provinces, but it takes a alot of progression to get a new province. I'm up to 3 with about 450 progression. The next province is at 800.
Different province types also give you different resources which you don't gather but can trade with others for bonuses eg Nightshade gives you a bonus to your arcana.