How to manage AI equipment in The Lord of the Rings: War in the North

I recently installed Lord of the Rings:War in the North in my computer and I am having some questions based on this game? Can I actually level the companions up and choose their skill or it is automatic? Will I be able to control them or give them some orders? Can anyone also tell me how should I manage their inventory or equipment? Thanks

The companions should be able to equip items on their own. If you want then you can also give them some equipment incase they dont have anything better and they will certainly use it. You can also control them in between levels and when you get the option to switch between companions then you can try to modify their skill points and also the equipment. The AI companions will level up automatically when you are not playing them.

For an example if you choose a dwarf and then customize him with skills and equipments and after that switch to some other one, then the AI will take control of the dwarf and rearrange him. If you take the dwarf back again then he will be restored to your last setup with all the progress that he made being available for reassignment. Hope this gives you an idea.

I spent the whole first chapter patiently giving the matching class items to the crew and finally switched over, to complete their inventories; and guess what, ALL GONE.

None of items were there, all missing. WTF is this, WTH I thought. Then, with a smile, I remembered how I didn't pay for the game and couldn't care less, how the developers were lazy to make a logical single player system.

Total waste of time, it's unbelievable how they could do this. Completely ruins the game, like totally. I hope whoever was in charge of this gets fired; like really.