Yup, I guess I reached the point of this game where I quit.

I made it to the tent of the bandit camp and restarted after trying to beat the enemy party. It was ridiculously and abnormally hard and no matter what I did the enemy mage and or archers would kill one of my party members. These games are imbalanced and the real time combat is broken. I have restarted 13 times and would like to say this-Do yourself a favor and don't play these games.

And for all of you that do, good luck you masochists.

So you couldn't beat them? It's not too big a deal if a party member or two dies. . . as long as you can make it to a temple and just resurrect.

And the difficulty slider in the options menu exists for a reason.

EDIT: And I like that Baldur's Gate isn't easy or has the kind of level scaling going on that Oblivion did. It's not the end of the world if you fail at something, just come back when you have gained a bit more experience.

Nah, its not that. Real time combat just doesn't work. That and the fact that this game is ancient. This is an example of why old doesn't make a game good. In fact it makes the game more problematic. There is only 1 way of getting past battles in this game, interrupt the spell caster. There are no tactics, no strategy. After you do what your supposed to, you just hope for the best. That is how fuckin random these games are.

Its a good thing that the sales for enhanced edition didn't go well.

What.

I'll admit that due to the way AD&D is set up, there is a large amount of randomness in combat at very low levels. By the time you get to level 3 or 4, which you should be for the bandit camp, battles should depend much more on tactics than on any random dice roll.
If you want to interrupt a spellcaster, just use 2 or 3 archers and/or a mage. That will work 99% of the time.

As for the "real time doesn't work" (which doesn't make any sense considering there are far more games that use real time than turn-based these days), you are aware that you can pause the game, right? You even have options to let the game pause automatically under certain circumstances.

Also, what does the age of the game have to do with its quality (apart from graphics obviously)? There are games older than BG that are better, others that are much worse, and the same goes for newer games.

The game is only real time if you let it be. Try the various auto-pause options and use the spacebar for manually pausing the game.
The combat system takes some time to master, but when one does master it, many players install mods like Sword Coast Stratagems to make the combat more....interesting.

I'm somewhat confused. I've always used that area for additional random loot and experience by resting after fighting each group of archers.

Insofar as the boss's tent (as others have said), it's either your tactics or your fixation on rts that's causing the problem. For example, I always buff before a boss fight, as well as having the game set to pause when an enemy is sighted.

These games are not RTS; you do not run willy nilly into the fray, swinging your battleaxe at the nearest monster. The programmers thought about the type of monsters and where to place them in the scene.

If you don't like taking out the most dangerous monster first, fine...but realize that means you're going to take a hit. Use your buffs, your ranged firepower, your mages...your tanks won't win by themselves.

As others have suggested, use the pause feature. The real-time action is there to add flavor and intensity to the combat, but the high-end battles are intended to be more like chess. Who do I need to attack first? Where can I position my characters to make them most effective while limiting their exposure to harm? What buffs does the enemy have and do I need to remove them? Are there any potions I should take to buff my characters against their attacks? And so on.

Somebody above me made the point that games like Baldur's Gate strongly favor knowing what's ahead and how to prepare, and that is definitely true. It's why players can play solo challenges, no reload challenges, solo-no reload challenges, minimum xp challenges, etc. Still, everyone of them had to beat the game the first time ...

In any case, the tent battle is usually hard for everyone the first time (it's like failing to make 'the jump' the first time in the Matrix). Pause the game and spread your characters out when the opportunity arises to protect them from the mage. Consider everything you have available, including crowd control (even a simple "Command" or "Sleep" can still work here), wands, and charm spells (including those from items like capes). It's okay to use your buffing potions here as well (arguably this is the type of fight they're made for). As far as enemies go, spellcasters and archers are particularly dangerous in the BG games and should almost always be dealt with first (this applies even in the fight with the game's most dangerous melee enemy later on IMO).

No, it's new games that are too easy and younger gamers who crave instant gratification when hitting the Awesome Button.
If Baldur's Gate is "antiquated" then what the hell would you call games from the DOS and Amiga era? :-)

Antediluvian? That's always been a favorite of mine.
Primeval is probably more appropriate though.

You have something in common with HP Lovecraft, then.

I prefer "vintage" myself.

You got to the bandit camp without using pause? Didn't know the game was that easy......

We can't blame kids for being the product of their environment. Nowadays most games cater for casual players who simply follow quest markers and can't be bothered with reading dialogues... I understand that even to serious gamers who are not used to games like this one, BG can be rather unforgiving but it's part of the charm of playing these old games.

It's true that forewarned is forearmed and sometimes your party will be defeated and you'll have to reload and there is nothing wrong with that.

IMO level scaling and linearity are very bad things.

There are so many reasons why an old game like BG is so much better than DAO (which is probably the closest thing to BG in recent years). Challenge is part of these reasons.

I really, really hope this post was a troll. Everything demonknight1728 (which ironically is a high level BG1 boss) seems to be saying seems to be exactly different the choir he is preaching to:

"Old doesn't make a game good."
"There are no tactics, no strategy."

Now that is fine and all that he has his own opinions. And I definitely won't try to stop him from broadcasting them, however uninformed they may be.

Why did I make this comment?

;)

I play the game in BGT, I alway enable the auto pause function which triggers upon encountering any enemy (or traps) on the screen.

Helps for stategy or tactics at that instant. Like casting sleep on the enemy group, making archers target mages, etc..
Note: The option is -> auto pause when enemy is sighted <-, enable that. It does wonders..

There is also another option, which auto pauses when your weapon breaks (or arrows are depleted). <- helps a lot too.