The monsters don't act smarter with Tutu, you can still pick them one after another. It's Sword Coast Stratagems which adds this and much other stuff, driving you even further away from the original balance to make you use even more metagaming.

Well, you need TuTu or BGT for SCS. I don't think being able to "activate" monsters one by one makes the "original balance" such a positive thing. SCS reduces the player's possibilities of exploiting the game mechanics and bad AI.

And what kind of metagaming and problems with balance are you talking about?
Sure, some of the BG 2 kits are unbalanced for BG1, but it's not hard to avoid them unless you have the willpower of a Spemin.

Played it vanilla back in the day, replaying it now with only the widescreen mod.

I'm not a big modder in general.

I'm back to Vanilla from Tutu, and I honestly don't understand what is "wrong" with the Vanilla version. It still is highly detailed and easy on the eyes. I distinctly remember when I first bought BG2 and I was upset that the characters were smaller, further away looking, due to being high res, and I changed it to the lower setting. Aren't I a weird one? I think that it's this way for the people that first played this game in 1998. I was so blown away at the time that every little flaw, limitation, and so on, is completely forgiven.

I sometimes long to play vanilla, but the only time I played BG1 vanilla I got bored as I became very overpowered by the time I had reached the city. I leaned on walkthroughs too much on my first playthrough (previously I often got frustrated by games by not being able to make it through, so using a walkthrough was a safeguard for failing to finish for the game being too hard). With a walkthrough I new how to find all the good items already in my first walkthrough, and I restarted using Tutu, SCS and Hard Times (cuts a lot of early magic items out of the game).

As I said in my first sentence, I'd long to play vanilla for a change, but without SCS and Hard Times it would get too easy again. Moral of the story: don't spoil yourself with a walkthrough too much (after some years of Tutu I started playing Shadows of Amn last year and only open a walkthrough if I get stuck).

Yeah...welcome to 1998. Don't get me wrong, I agree that the game is better with Tutu(as I said in my previous) and I also hate the stupid 'real-time w/pause' nonsense(though I will concede that if the developers' choices were to either include a real-time option or not make the game, then the system they went with was a pretty decent compromise...horrid pathfinding issues notwithstanding). But when I first played the game I was not overly aware of the exploits. I think I might have come upon the 'being able to shoot guys without agro-ing other creatures' thing one time and I probably figured it to be a rare bug with the one fight.
I've never been one to pay much attention to or seek out exploits so I undoubtedly missed out on a LOT in my 20+ years of PC gaming. I don't have any interest in mods that enhance the difficulty(Sword Cost Strategems etc.) because I don't need them. I do not think there is a turn-based game that I cannot beat but when difficulty is increased to such levels that the experience becomes more like work than a game...I lose interest.

It is very rare that a game is SO easy that I might wish someone had modded it to be less so.

If "vanilla" means playing in the original engine, then I'm vanilla.

When BGT-WeiDU went into public beta testing I jumped in with both feet. Since then... Yes, there are some nice things about the TUTU and BGT conversions, but I prefer vanilla. In many ways it adds to the feel of being new to the life of an "adventurer." Importing such characters into BG2 gives the feel of a battle hardened veteran entering into a new phase of life. My own opinion.

If, however, "vanilla" means totally unmodded, I don't make the cut. Add in plainab's BG1 fixpack (still in development), the Xan or Ajantis NPC mods, BG1 UB, BG Quests and Encounters and some BG1 Tweaks components and I'm ready to go. There are few mods out there for vanilla BG1, and I may play them later if for no other reason than to check compatibility with BG1 Tweaks (some here will understand), but generally what I stated above is what I use.

I like playing BG I with the old engine. I tried Tutu, but was frustrated when the behavior of random encounters was unlike the original game, and I finally decided I liked playing it the way it was.

I do like convenience mods though. Inventory management is no fun, so I install things that allow unlimited item stacking and such. And I install the happy npc mod, because I like trying out the various npcs and not worrying about reputation.

I don't generally install mods that add new content. When I have, I didn't feel the new content meshed well with the old game. Unfinished business is an exception to that rule however.

I might even play BG 1 without tales of the sword coast, if Gog allowed an installation that didn't include it.

Click the grey Options button in the GOG installer and you can deselect TOTSC.

Thank you!

Recently I posted a problem regarding the fog of war flickering (using the widescreen mod) and also lagging mouse movement (when enabling 3d acceleration), and then opted to just run without widescreen or 3d acceleration using EasyTutu.

But.....
now instead of playing the game, I've found myself reading the hundreds of posts regarding the merits of playing vanilla over EasyTutu or BGT. And I now feel that I want to play vanilla (and it's my favourite flavoured icecream afterall! :-)).

So....keeping in mind that I want to play the game as was originally intended.... is this the selection of mods that I would install (and in this order)?

1) Baldur's Gate Fixpatch from here and NOT the Baldurdash fix (though should I still install the Baldurdash text update?)

2) Unfinished Business (I guess if this mod is just putting stuff back in that was left out by developers (quests etc), then the core feel of the original game still is left unchanged, right?).

3) The BG1 Tweak pack...which I would probably go with:

Force All Dialog to Pause, Unlimited Ammo/Jewelry/Gem/Potions/Scrolls stack
and possibly (though I'm not sure what impact this will have if I transfer my character into BG2) change experience point cap.

No widescreen mods or gui mods, or EasyTutu or BGT.

The only thing I will probably miss from EasyTutu is the TAB key for highlighting areas that I can interact with. Unless there is a standalone mod for this. :-(

So I guess my questions are: Do I need to install the Baldurdash text update if I'm installing the Baldur's Gate fixpatch? Is Unfinished Business okay to use to still retain the vanilla experience? And is removing the level cap for BG1 important and does have any impact on transferring my character into BG2?

Thanks again to this awesome BG community on GOG.

Yes, I think Baldurdash text update is still required to correct some item descriptions (such as Ashideena +1 electrical damage instead of +1 cold damage). I would go for the entire Baldurdash fix pack and not use the BG fixpack since the additional fixes are so insignificant you will probably never notice in a normal playthrough.

UB is ok for a vanilla experience IMO.

Removing level cap would not offer you a big advantage, you can complete BG+TotSC with level cap on just as easy and the advantage when importing in BG2 is insignificant (your XP will be trimmed to the "legal" cap anyway so you will retain only the bonuses given by the additional levels such as HP or special abilities - therefor you will have a very small advantage at the very beginning of BG2). The bonuses provided to stats by the tomes you find in BG1 have a far bigger impact than the additional one or two level you can gain without the level cap (and you can gain those levels very fast at the start of BG2 because of the large XP gains compared to BG1)

No, you do not need, nor should you install the Baldurdash text update with the GOG version of BG1 -- the Ashidena (as already mentioned) and others are already fixed. But more importantly than that, don't install any other Baldurdash fixes, else you will actually be introducing more bugs than you fix!

Unfinished business will add nothing of value in a vanilla game.

Removing the level cap is not a good idea, since it's open to XP farming, enabling your characters to become way overpowered -- that is not the vanilla experience you appear to be looking for. As for transferring your character, it will have no effect unless you abuse it as above.

Because most guides were written years ago, when Baldurdash was relevant -- with the GOG version it is not -- or by people copying information from guides written years ago.