Since my post doesn't seem to be here:

I have my game set to Auto-pause nearly constantly. Here:

Character Sights Enemy
Characters Turn Finishes
Characters Weapon Breaks / No Ammo
Characters Target Dies
Character Finishes Casting a Spell

This means that my game is very much not real time, and I find it very fun and enjoyable.

Perhaps you just don't have what it takes to handle this game.

In a way Baldur's Gate doesn't have real time combat, sure there are times you can just steamroll over things which wont require anything more than clicking on some puny enemy but any even half decent fight will require you to pause the game to apply tactics. Infact in any battle that's remotely evenly matched you will spend more time with the game paused so you can think and give orders and plan the next round, that paused time which is the majority of the battle is all strategy and tactics.

Keep in mind it's not remotely like a RTS (Real Time Strategy), instead you have a comparatively extremely limited number of "units" each of which could be extremely diverse or focused with extreme weaknesses and strengths, in such a situation tactics can be critical in even moderate battles and the strategy can begin before you even get to the fight in what spells, items and gear to take into it.

Tactics is critical in harder fights and the wrong tactics will make some fights impossible. Tactics ranges from the spells you choose to memorise, what buffs to use before a battle, who is going to attack who using what and much more and even where someone is going to stand. With such micro management tactics is king. In an evenly matched battle tactics could result in an almost flawless victory or complete annihilation.

Strategy is so critical and requires such detailed management that there is no real time combat for any worthwhile battle, at least not if you intend to win. The only way real time combat in such a game is truly feasible would be to have a human behind every party member dedicated to that party member.

Anyone saying there's no tactics/strategy to the combat in Badur's Gate games (and the others like it) is clearly missing or misunderstanding the fundamentals of it's combat system. I don't meant to sound offensive, it's just the way the game is, it's not the kind of game where you just run in and hack and slash everything and run away to take potions when things are going bad.

In BG strategy can even go so extreme as keeping track of every second between pauses, every round, every turn of every combatant friend and foe. If an enemy mage has just cast something he probably won't be casting again that round so do you pull your magic uses back and try silence him, send a fighter in to pummel him, or instead ignore him and start shooting at him when he tries to cast something again causing him to miscast. Well the answer there would depend on the buffs he's put on himself. If he has magic protection silence will do nothing at best and you might silence one of your own, if he has protection from missiles shooting at him will probably mean your back guys get a fireball to the face and die, if he has mirror image or protection from normal weapons sending a fighter in won't get anything done in time to stop him casting something again and he might cast charm on the fighter. Even in this one simplified example of an enemy mage it's clear one has to consider their strategy carefully while keeping what's known about the enemy in mind.

I'm sorry but saying there's no strategy or tactics in such games is like saying it doesn't matter when you shoot while trying to snipe in a FPS game.

Off the top of my head I can't think of another game type where strategy is as important, even so called Real Time Strategy games are tactically mundanely simple in comparison normally doing little more than elaborating on the rock paper scissors system.

Putting strategy aside to win the worthwhile battles one could go do side quests and explore becoming more powerful before confronting a hard battle. There's also the difficulty option so prevent permanent death of your characters and lowering damage take making battles much easier. There are also option to have the game auto pause, which shows how critical pausing is and paused time is all about planning strategy and tactics which shows that tactics is in the blood of the game.

Though personally I don't use or like any auto pausing, for me it breaks immersion so I just keep a finger on the pause button most of the time and always during fights.

That's funny, I never had any problem with the camp, it was in fact much too easy every time I played...because my guys were always level 5+, I spent a lot of time just exploring and leveling before going there !

I didn't touch RPGs, because they are often too incomplete to be called that. The world is never as open and complete as it could be and many developers added huge amounts of randomness to simulate additional complexity, which in fact isn't there. That is true for 'old' and 'new' RPGs.

In this thread people argue about it:: http://social.bioware.com/forum/Baldur039s-Gate-1-and-2/Baldur039s-Gate-2-and-Throne-of-Bhaal-Official-Campaigns-Spoilers-Warning/Serious-question-Loaded-dice-or-deliberately-overpowered-enemies-13594951-1.html

It seems to be the case, that BG 1+2 don't have proper pseudo random number generators which wouldn't be surprising to me. To set something like this up would require a lot of know-how, maybe a lot of cash, too. So companies usually won't bother and you'll find many broken PRNGs and cheap work-arounds in the computer and software industry.

You've made it to bandit camp on real time combat? ! ?
I don't even... Whose being masochist here? ?
Baldur's Gate was never supposed to be played in Diablo style. They both roughly came out at the same time but take completely different approach toward the gameplay.
As a matter of fact, the pause-&-play that Baldur's Gate uses has been the DNA of pretty much every Bioware games ever since. Even Mass Effect 3 can be considered somewhat a pause & play game.
It's good that you call it quit if you can't handle it though. By Baldur's Gate 2 I can say it will take more than 50 replay against a Red/Blue Dragon, or Demilich if you try real time.

Can you give us details of the fighting? This battle shouldn't be too tough, but could be hard if you are not well prepared. Drink all the potions and cast some buff spells before entering the temp, after which concerntrate your fire to the mage and have one of your fighters shield the rest of the team from the gnoll (what's his name). After the mage is down, everyone else should be piece of cake. BTW bring some antidote potions. It's OK to get some of your teammates killed, it will happen a lot.

I think the battle with Aec'Letec (the demon) is one of the few in the series that's simply unfair; either you kill all the cultists first, thus giving Shagnasty time to ghoulify your party or rip them in two, or you don't, and you have to fight him off repeatedly. I think it's BS, especially since none of the many demons you fight in BG2 do anything remotely similar to either the respawning or the ghoulifying.

I like to call them not dumbassed games, lol.

Games like Wasteland, Pool of Radiance, the Magic Candle, etc.