Zechnophobe pretty much cover all of it.
Yeah generally KB is knowing what you have (units, spells, pet dragon, items at your disposal) and what enemy have, then figure a way to defeat them.
As for kiting, i do kiting but not map kiting.
My reason for no map kiting is not because i feel cheating, to me it's because map kiting=more days to finish the game. I care about the final score
, and map kiting=more wasting time due island jump. The best time waster is the island jump.
Anyway, not all enemy must be killed in an island after you unlock that island, in fact most invincible enemies are to be left untill you go to that island again in your next loop(s), yeah the key to no map kiting is knowing the right island loops, right island loop is all that matters for no map kiting fast game run/walkthrough.
There are no downside for no map kiting especially if that is a blind game run (no KBScaner used) unless you do no loss no map kiting, in this, your unit choices are very very limited.