is the game too easy?

[fruithead]

i am a little confused. this is my first playthru, so i decided, what does a mage do? go for high intellect, that's what! difficult parts of the game, i don't mind. i loved the beginning, which was indeed challenging. but i am bothered by the possibility that demonis will be impossible. hard i'm cool with, even really hard, but i sure hope it won't be impossible, especially since it would annoy me if i couldn't play the game purely as the character i wanted, e.g.; if i played warrior, i would be investing very very little into magic skills and such, as those would be "helpful", but the thrust of my game would be based around my army. so too, as a mage, i would want the main part of my game to follow the path of magic, where my army is either augmented by magic, or takes a backseat to it.

sadly, going through my spellbook has made me realize that many of the games spells do not reflect higher effectiveness for the mage, despite his elite magical skills. for instance, although the game says that every 15 points of int grants an extra turn of spell effect, spells like sheep, target, doom, pygmy, hypnotize, etc, have a set amount of time they affect enemies for. is this an oversight? does this mean that i will simply not be able to compete when pure damage is no longer as relevant as it is now?

i would certainly appreciate if anyone had helpful comments or advice.