Technical question on experience & spiders

Silly suggestion, as you probably already know this.  But, just in case:  Buy traveling boots at the store?  Put SOV on a horse/warg? 

lol what the hell would boots or a horse do for a web attack from a spider?  I agree, its a pain in the ass.  Abilities like that are very overpowered in the game.

If your sovereign wont move it's probably some kind of game bug or problem, post teh game in the save game file.

Yes, entanglement can be a huge problem.  I've found, though, that the 'tougher' spiders are generally more worried about the Fire Giants, golems, and such, targetting them before your sovereign.  Of course, if your school of magic doesn't include summoned creatures, this can be problematic.

Best defense against entanglement is missile weapons/multiple spellcasters hitting the spiders with the entanglement ability first, and a large stack of units (they can only target a couple of your guys at a time).  Against the larger spiders, melee usually equals instadeath, so kill them at range before they can bite you.

If you don't have a group of archers in your stack at this point (4 or 8 archers in the unit), now would be a good time to build them.  Or catapults...

Finally, save your game before each combat.  That way, if you bite off more than you thought you could chew, you can always reload your saved game and try something else.  Unless you don't believe in mulligans...

In other games, i did not have any problem with spiders because i had an abundance of hero's tagging along with my sovereign, all with longbows. my sovereign is always placed up the back, so is never targeted first. Once he gets a turn, he flames the spiders, job done! But the map in this game is very expansive, and all my hero's are scattered all over the place, it is a large map, and it would take hours to gather them up. I wonder if just 1 well equipped Hero would be enough?

In my most recent entanglement with the six spiders, I pulled this off with a mid-level bow-armed Sovereign, sand golem, familiar, and one other hero. 

It took a few tries though, as I only had 15 mana to work with (3 fireballs and a fire dart).  I had an active fire shard at this point.  I whacked off the spider with the toughest attack first (who also had entanglement - rock spider?), then the next highest attack (Black Widow) using spells.  At this point spells were exhausted, but the other four spiders were sufficiently small that my familiar could kill most of them.  I did have to finish off the last couple of HP of one of the big spiders with my Sovereign's bow.  The spiders had entangled the sand golem immediately, so he didn't get to fight.  I never committed the other hero to combat, and my sovereign used bow attacks after depleting her mana on the two big spiders.

Also, I let the spiders do all the advancing.  My familiar stayed adjacent to the immobilized sand golem for the fight, with my Sovereign and hero behind them.  I should also note that my Sovereign's attack speed was 7.1 at this point (so she had 4 attacks/spells per round).

The Mage Armor I collected after the combat was worth the effort.

So with a little luck, I just might have been able to do this with only three units (the hero never did anything in the combat other than hide behind the stone golem and familiar), but as I said, it took a few tries.

I love that sand golem.  I wish he could be a champion and I could upgrade him or something, like in the book where that golem was starting to get consciousness...then I could marry the sand golem and we would have golem babies...but the sand in my crack would be irritating...

Looks like your focusing too much on combat speed? Anyway, my sovereign has Inferno + enough enough manna for at least 3 hits, combined with two fire shards, so i have little use for 'bows' (save for preserving manna) since most everything will be dead once the manna is out. I just need my Sovereign to get a turn, that's all, then he is invincible at this game level (easy).

I would have LOVED to have Infernal at this point, but research on Infernal had just started.  Again, the key was having the sand golem in the party for the spiders to expend their ranged attacks (entangle/poison) on.  Otherwise, I'm guessing that my Sovereign would have been immobilized early.

A Fire Giant would have worked just as well (and he has a ranged spell), as the spiders like targetting him, but he wasn't online yet...

I had picked up a couple of items that made a 7.1 combat speed a reality sooner than I usually see it.  Strength of 18+ is an early priority, to make the bows more effective against armored foes.  That and those +1 base attack books/items make longbow equipped Sovereigns almost/as/more powerful than many spells.  And no mana cost to boot.

I would have also normally had the +2 to attack spell active/slotted by this time, but due to some timing/encounter issues didn't have the 8 mana to spare for it (was about to summon Mr Fire Giant once the TOE came online in a couple of turns).  That +2 helps out with those bow attacks.

I only boost my Sovereign's mana to a certain point (start at 14, raise IF I don't have 16 mana by the time Fire Giant becomes available).  The +1 essence tech is usually one of the first I go for, and once I've grown a city enough, then Temple of Essence comes into play.  I find that some stuff in the later game doubles/triples the mana total, so all I have to do is wait... Again, I've found that strong Sovereigns with bows and some attack bonuses are pretty scary at range, hence combat speed being a priority for stat gains (allows more ranged attacks/turn).  I try to save mana for area attacks once they become available, and for summoning, if possible.

Besides, the kids generally have LOTS of mana, so I let them be the spellcasting geniuses, and have my Sovereign do the heavy lifting.

A quick note, I am playing on 'normal' difficulty, and 'fast' turns as opposed to normal or epic, should anyone wish to know.

I delayed research on treasure in my game for quite some time, That is why i have had Infernal spell already when facing my first spiders.

This delaying researching treasure is a huge mistake i think on my part, because i have been focusing on getting my city gold production up when a far greater gold capacity awaits in treasure! Now that i think of it, Early treasure research can deliver gold that can buy more heroes leading to more treasure (exponential growth)!! Am i right?

Any idea on the experience issue in my first post anyone?

I try to research up to Notable Locations level 2 fairly early, as that's the level which significant gold shows up.  Then, levels 3 and 4 once the ruins/locations start drying up.  Also, I snag heroes whenever I can, so they can go their separate ways and grab more heroes when the treasury spikes.  At one point in the game I'm playing now, I had about 4000 gold banked, mostly from exploring ruins, so I researched a hero tech to get more of them to appear. 

Also, I form non-aggression pacts with almost anyone I meet that isn't slated for immediate takeover, so that I can enter their areas and raid the ruins 'under their control'.  This incidentally keeps my heroes safe for a bit, until they can find their way back home for upgrades/escort units.  Sometimes I'll visit the 'nearby merchant' in other kingdoms to get some upgrades temporarily, but they generally don't have as much as I have available 'at home'.