Im in the same boat as you ahira..got a lv 11 mage (on normal)and i have the Axe pack and robot boss in the cave on bola..and on rusty island i found the packs of enemys pretty hard..i always make it just on the edge ..after that i have to spend shietloads of money to rebuild my army again ..tnx god for lvl 3 chaos magic..but i hope its getting easyer as the most ppl says after the first 4 islands
PS: sorry for my english ..its not my homelanguage

I must be blind for I cannot find the freaking door. Can anyone point it out to me? Some landmark?
I have the password since the start of the game, and now I'm lvl51 kinda going around to finish all the little quests; and still can't find the door!
Thanks.

Found it. haha...

Yup, the parrot tell you the password even if u dont talk with the drunk guy. I only talked to him the 2 first games, but the other 4 talked to the parrot directly. So i think the drunk guy is just that, a drunk guy loll.
One thing, if u think the game turned too hard, don be afraid of facing very strong + troops, cuz they are not that strong and u sometimes needs to kill someone stronger to advance. Not always u will face "equal en strength" - troops.

LOL, well at level 51 the things you find on the cave will be almost useless xD. At level 51 i left 2 or 3 little quests incomplete, but i the game was near the end and i decided to finish Tahu and Baal. Enough KB AP for me..

im having the same problem as thread starter
im lvl 12 paladin and 3000 leadership and all on rusty anchor and verona are very hard and lethal, i cleared everything on the first 3 islands so far (except 1 stack guarding a map)
what to do?

You need to support us with some more info. Which troops are you using? Spells? Items etc.

Have you managed to win no-loss fights to earn the leadership medal?
Are you able to buy any lvl 5 troops, or +leadership items.
Do you possess a "Call Colossus" or Call of Death" wanderers scroll?

Some tips

-Search any shop on the 5 islands to see if you can find "better" units
-Search for items, which will suit your hero troops

Troops who work well in most lineups.

-All lvl 5 units, especially dragons and trolls
-Any troop, that summons troops. Especially Demonologists, Druids, Royal Griffins
-Paladins

Lvl 5 troop + Stoneskin + heal can get you past most troops. Lethal armies aren't really lethal if your troops are better survivors

There is a reason why there are guaranteed units on the starting islands:

Debir: royal thorns, royal snakes, inquisitors
Scarlet: archmage
Bolo: repair droid, guard droid

When having trouble getting no-loss or just having trouble defeating enemies at Bolo/Rusty use this lineup:

royal thorn/repair droid/guard droid/repair droid/archmage

The repair droids repair each other and the guard droid, the guard droid tanks, the archmage cast magic shield on the guard droids to make them tougher tanks, the royal thorn summons secondary tanks and dishes out a not-too-shabby ranged damage. Your weakest unit here is the archmage, which is not so bad considering he has a reasonable Defense of 24 and 140 HP.

Hope this helps.

hmmm i have no lvl 5 units and cant find them either

my units are inquisitors , bears, royal snakes, priests, royal thorns
problem is i have 4 royal thorns but i have room for 7

im a lvl 12 paladin with like 3000 leadership and lvl 2 divine magic
i finished the first game on normal pretty easy, but this one seems to be alot harder

well You obviously need a new tank. the Bears arent really good enough on Verona

You can get 9-10 Paladins in the University on Debir. more to buy once you can beat the guard on the bridge to Montero, and there are usually Tiatans there to recruit.
or
Song of the wind can give you Royal Griffins
Call Colossus can give you your salvation
Call of Death can give you Bone dragons
(100% certainty i resently learned in these forums)

Anyway, get a high hp, high defence/ resistant unit and tank with Stoneskin on. Arch Mages can support even further defence with the Magic Shield, so you could swap your priests for those.

Divine Magic = Order Magic? If yes, I suggest you get distortion for the Target spell and the Stone Skin.

there were only 5 paladins in Debir university
and i could only find 6 archmages but it still worked better then what i had before