My party was created from scratch. Used the 6 old default classes, plus 2 hirelings of the new classes (Barb and Ninja.).
The hires were not that expensive, and since they didn't need spell points I only needed to pay them when I needed to rest in a wild area outside of a city, or inside a dungeon... otherwise I dismiss them to the inn. Healing them in temple is free.
The hirelings level far slower than regular characters. My regular were Lv75, but they finished the game at Lv59.
They cap their fee at 50000 gold, and once you're really powerful, 50K is pocket change.

I first tentatively "completed" the Square Lake dungeon at level 50,but since I thought I needed to defeat the 66 devil kings, I fought them and had to escape. So, I grinded up to Lev 75. Grinding to lv75 was actually quite fast (ancient dragon and Cat from Hell work best), it was enchanting all my equipment to level 28 that was a bore.
- To beat the (optional!) 66 devil kings, I used 1 max HP potion for each char, and 1 skill potion for each char (2 for my hirelings)

Once in battle, Power Shield, multiple castings of Heroism, and Holy bonus (200+).
My characters all had good AC so they traded places a lot , so once they all lowered to very low HP, and about half the devils were killed, my cleric cast Divine Intervention. Only works once per fight.
My Sorcerer was useless after he cast Power Shield, devil kings resisted all my offensive spells, so he ended up in the front row many times.
I barely made it through, I was out of MP and all chars were very low HP at the end of the fight. WHEW!
Power Shield = best spell in the game. Reduces ALL DAMAGE, of any kind, by half.

--------My random observations-----

- That one Jester character that gives you HP according to your endurance was done ASAP, ... yes you need 1 million on each character, but he didn't actually take the money. Didn't work on hirelings since they don't carry gold.
- That one time 1000HP from Dragon Dominion was a must, of course. The Ancient Dragon was a complete pushover with the help of Power Shield and my enchanted silver armor/helms/shields. My sorcerer was lucky to have found an Energy Whip for energy protection.
- Don't waste your time with the meager HP bonuses of the various castles that exclude races... use the one in Dragon Dominion that gives 25HP one time per dungeon visit instead, no restrictions on moon phases/races! The only required fight is one lone armored dragon and he ain't that tough.
- Unless you wanna beat the game on year 1, don't waste too much time with the hard to reach +10 stat boosts of the various dungeons that limit to 59... wait instead for day 140 to abuse the Circus, since it goes up to 100, no fights whatsoever, only need teleport and lloyd's beacon (that you place right at the well). Fly to B2, Fly to D3, 2 teleports to old man, lloyd beacon to E3's well, rinse and repeat.
Then, the next year, the way to go about it smartly is to use stat trades wells (+3 / -5) in castles repeatedly RIGHT BEFORE day 140, then use the circus again to quickly raise those lowered stats back to 100. Easy, effective.
Speaking of castle stat trades wells: they can be used as many times as you want per visit, no need to even leave the castle. Don't be greedy though, end game equipment can already boost many stats by 50+ points.

- Archers seem to have an innate, undocumented, hidden damage bonus with bows. She always outdamaged my Knight (when he was in the back row) and they both had Ancient Bows, even though the knight gets more attacks per round!
- Ninja's special attack, "critical", seems to works identically to the thief's "backstab", except it's 4x damage instead of 2x. It does not "assassinate" ie instant death. It works more than one time per fight, not necessarily at the first attack like the manual says. Still, 2000 dmg on a devil king was nice.
- Around level 30, there ceased to be any exp requirement difference between the Knight/Cleric/Thief and Paladin/Archer/Sorcerer. The real level gap developing was between my 6 chars and the hirelings.

Thanks for reading. I had fun!

Onwards to MM3. I wanted to recreate the same chars but the Archer will get switched out for a Ranger,

There is one major advantage to using hirelings who can cast spells: They automatically know every spell of that type, even if their level isn't high enough. This means that you can recruit a spellcasting mercenary, raise their spell level temporarily, and then have them cast powerful spells well before you're at a high enough level. This, for example, makes it possible to recruit Mr. Wizard early. You can actually enchant these items to increase their bonus, and recharge them as well. A Max HP Potion +5 gives the target 7 * 256 = 1792 max HP per use.

Then again, another strategy to win difficult combats, which is arguably a glich, is to cast Frenzy on a party member, then use Finger of Death or Disintegrate, which are now guaranteed to work. Works well against a certain high XP monster, but against the devil kings you'll still need 22 casts. You can also permanently boost a stat by equipping an item that boosts the stat when equipped, then using it until it breaks. Only works for items that can be used outside of battle and equipped, but can boost stats you can't boost otherwise, like AC or Thievery. Can't boost Endurance this way, however.

The +10 stat bonus that's capped at 59 is still useful earlier, or if you get punished for stealing Murray's treasure. (If you want to see what happens, make sure to rest after stealing, but before you check your stats.) When your party has only 3 Speed, battles are a major slog; being able to quickly boost it up to 53 without having to wait until later in the year makes things at least somewhat manageable. Then again, it's probably best not to steal Murray's treasure in the first place. That switch is a good idea, since only Rangers and Druids can learn Walk on Water, and as you might expect from the game's title, there's a lot of water separating islands of land.

Power Shield does not stack with Shield. While both effects will be displayed, damage from attacks affected by both spells will only be displayed once.

If Holy Bonus goes past 255, it will overflow and become small.

Heroism works the same way as Skill Potions, the one major difference being that Heroism is only usable once the battle has started. Even better than skill potions, however, is the gold equipment you can get in the dragon cave.

It's possible for an archer to cast Power Shield; you need to find the place where you can learn all spells for a fee, and then you just need that one item that temporarily boosts Spell Level. (A mercenary archer doesn't need to find that spot.)

By the way, with that particular spell-teaching location, you can actually get non-casters to cast Cleric spells, though (IIRC) only during battle.

I'd say it would be viable, but not ideal, to do this. Thing is, walking on water is rather important given the structure of the world map, and it might be a good idea to have one in your main party so that the spell is always available. (Also, I believe that spell is of the level that, for whatever reason, is hard to find in items. Note that Lloyd's Beacon is also of this level, and is the main thing you'd lose by going Ranger/Druid instead of Archer/Sorcerer.) Also note that it's not as easy to avoid paying hireling fees this time around; you can only dodge them by being in a shop when the next day comes (which also prevents spells and fountain effects from expiring).

In MM3, one advanced strategy is to go without a Robber or Ninja, as there's a place to get thievery. On the other hand, it's not that easy to get if you're not yet familiar with the game.

Or, you could start with a Robber, take the Druid hireling at first, then just replace your main Robber with a Druid once you can get Thievery on someone else.

Yet another option might be to replace the Knight with a Ranger. Thing is, in MM3 through MM5, physical attacks scale well enough that, as long as you can cast Holy Bonus, even Sorcerers do plenty of physical damage. There's also the fact that there's no effective way to tank, as enemy attacks either are completely random, or preferentially target a specific race or class; there's no way for stronger characters to protect weaker characters in these games.

By the way, for future reference:
* In World of Xeen, there are no Druid/Ranger only spells (but Druid/Ranger gets Lloyd's Beacon this time around). Teleport is mandatory to complete Clouds, and only Archer/Sorcerer gets it. This is the one MM game I've played where I actually like the default party (even if Barbarians are likely better than Knights in that game). Thievery is not ever learnable by non-Robber/Ninja characters.
* In Swords of Xeen, Thievery is basically useless, and it can be easily learned by anyone. Therefore, it does not make sense to put a Robber or Ninja in your party here. The default party includes *both* a Robber and a Ninja, and is therefore garbage in this game. Then again, Swords of Xeen has other issues, including some atrocious balance. (I don't recommend playing Swords of Xeen before you've finished World of Xeen.) Thing is, when you can recharge items with a single spell (and that spell, despite what the manual says, seems to have no chance of destroying the item, but watch out for integer overflow in MM2), you don't need to choose between hoarding the items and actually using them; this is especially true if you happen to find an item that casts Recharge Item. (Note that, in World of Xeen, you can't recharge potions, scrolls, or any items that cast Recharge Item; this is a change from MM3, where such items could be recharged, and there's a buyable Power Cure item that can be handy, since that spell is expensive to cast normally.)

(In the game I've been playing, Paladin's Quest, hoarding bottle uses doesn't make sense because they're the primary means of healing and can be refilled cheaply (sometimes even for free) in towns; on the other hand, you actually can't get rid of them.)

Since you seem to really hate Murray the Miser:
NWC allowed you to exact revenge upon him on the very next game they made the following year (1990), King's Bounty, the precursor to the Heroes of M&M series.

I prefer the Ranger over the Druid in MM3 - better HP, attack rate, and equipment. They don't need to cast that much, so lower SP isn't a problem for them. Having a permanent ranger makes the archer a decent hireling, though that can wait until you have some gold saved up.

Even though you can learn Thievery elsewhere, I find it really nice to just have one of either Robber or Ninja. Not a huge difference between the two so either works.

I don't recommend anyone play Swords of Xeen at all, cause it's so dull. The only reason it was made was because fans of World of Xeen were waiting for a new Might and Magic game to release, and that's the only context where it made sense to play it. Now that we have several followup games to enjoy, Swords of Xeen is a waste of time.

It's not really hating Murray, but rather pointing out that this is one instance where NWC trolled the player in a fashion that's actually worse than an intentional hardlock would be.

There was (maybe still is) a Let's Play on youtube where the player was having fun, but after having stolen the treasure off-screen, ended up not having fun anymore. (I wish the treasure stealing had been recorded and included, as it's annoying when something significant happens offscren. Reminds me of a Magic of Scheherezade Let's Play where a character died during an off-screen turn based battle.) Sword of Xeen can be worth looking at as a historical relic. It also did some interesting things, like having the town that gets built up as you complete certain tasks.

Also, if you're the sort of player who likes playing awful games, this can be a good "awful" game to try. You do need to treat it as such, taking measures such as:
* Play on the easier difficulty. As I said, the game has balance issues, and making things a bit easier might help somewhat. World of Xeen feels best on Warrior mode, but for Swords of Xeen you really should be playing Adventurer mode.
* Save early, often, and in multiple slots.
* Don't assume things work the way they expect, or the way they say they do. There's at least one re-usable stat boost, at least one fountain that can be repeatedly re-used until your HP overflows, and a fountain that can underflow your age modifier.
* Strategies that might be considered "exploits" or "cheese" are justified in a game like this.

(Worth noting that the second and third points can be applied to many other games, like the Elder Scrolls series, and probably Might and Magic 9, which I hear is pretty buggy.)

Also, Walk on Water has a low fixed costs (seems to be 7).

You really only need large amounts of SP for the following cases:
* Spells with scaling costs. Thing is, Rangers and Druids don't get that many scaling cost spells (some attack spells and Protection from Elements are about it), unlike in World of Xeen where they get spells like Power Cure and the scaling long-duration spells.
* Spells with high fixed costs. Attack spells aren't that great in MM3 (or MM5, for that matter), and otherwise the only Ranger/Druid spells with high fixed costs are Stone to Flesh and Raise Dead, neither of which you're going to be using constantly. (Note that, in World of Xeen, Rangers and Druids don't get any high cost fixed spells; instead, they get most spells that cost at most 10 SP at level 5, though they unfortunately don't get Teleport (and I really think they should because that spell is mandatory in MM4).)

I did finish Swords of Xeen out of exactly that type of historical curiosity, and afterwards wished that I hadn't. I played on the harder difficulty, which just requires two things: knowing the exploits, and enchanting energy resistance gear for the final area. It wasn't what I would call a rewarding experience.

The biggest hurdle with M&M9 is just getting it to run in the first place. Once it does, it seems quite stable. Not a lot of bugs left with the patch installed, just a lot of incomplete and missing features owing to the game being so rushed. Despite that it's still far more interesting than Swords of Xeen.

The biggest difference between the difficulties is the damage you deal with physical attacks. Hence, playing on Adventurer will make enemies die 3x as fast if you're just using weapons, and the only damaging options that work in the SoX final dungeon are weapons, so you'd probably get through that dungeon 3x faster. There *might* be an accuracy difference, but even then you'll likely have trouble hitting some enemies.

World of Xeen, on the other hand, feels better on Warrior difficulty. Thing is, magic in WoX feels underpowered compared to physical attacks, particularly on the Darkside, and the fact that Adventurer difficulty only boosts physical attacks just makes that imbalance worse.

(There's one time I've found offensive magic (other than Mass Distortion) to be particularly useful in MM5, and that's when going to a certain endgame area early to get early access to the Dragon Tower. It's quite fun doing so, and the rewards for doing so are huge. In fact, I recommend Dragon Tower before that dungeon filled with minotaurs because of this.)

I know what the difference is, but going through a boring game faster doesn't change that it's boring.

Warrior mode "feels" right on WoX because it's the intended difficulty. Adventurer was added for the sake of having an easy mode.

Given that I finished Swords of Xeen on the intended difficulty, and almost all of the high leveled enemies required magic to defeat, I'd say magic is perfectly viable against those same enemies in WoX. A few of those enemies even encourage the same exploits in either game.

It's entirely possible that the reason for the low experience level in Swords was to prevent buff spells from trivializing the game as they do in most M&M installments.

To my understanding, magic doesn't work at all on the enemies in SoX's final dungeon; you need to use certain special weapons to do any damage.

Those same enemies in Darkside of Xeen, on the other hand, are quite vulnerable to spells due to them having low index numbers (I think one is #1 and the other #2). Fighting them at a low level with access to Implosion is a good way to get experience, and to gain access to Dragon Tower (on Clouds, but requires an item from Darkside) early.

Of course, there's the matter of gaining access to the Implosion spell at a low level.

Yes, those final enemies in Swords mandate the use of unique weapons just as Xeen himself did, but that doesn't reflect on the overall balance of magic.

It does, however, reflect on the fact that I recommend Adventurer mode for Swords of Xeen, as that will make that part less tedious and faster.