I've been playing my first might and magic game and it is really hard. It seems like every stage of the game I am under leveled and need to use cheap tactics to progress. I am constantly reloading when I meet enemies or I will land a nice blow and save during battle or just kite enemies like crazy. This happens every single dungeon. The first dungeon Goblinwatch I got overwhelmed by blood suckers, the second dungeon the abandoned temple I got destroyed the second I walked in by bats.

I've been crawling through this game and I am now at lvl 26 and am basically getting stuck. At lvl 25 I beat the Dragoon Keep but the veterans in there really tore up my party. I cleared the enemies from the overland of mire of the damned, I had to use cheap tactics to do it. Right now I am trying t o do castle darkmoor but the ogre packs are too strong. I've been slowly clearing it but I got to a room with dozens of eyes and ogres and I get destroyed in two seconds.

I'm not sure why this game is so difficult. Enemies attack at like triple the speed of my characters. I am lost to as to where I can quest or where I can find a place to at least gain some levels.

Hm, tell us a bit about your party, what classes do you play, and which class challenges do you have finished?

IMO, the game has some hard dungeons but they are all managable. Some of the harder monsters require careful handling, like luring them one by one or killing them from afar with arrows and spells.
Also, do you use the turn based modus in combat? It makes most of the harder battles easier.

Use various fountains to boosts stats.
Use Lloyd's Beacon and Town Portal to move swiftly between fountains and dungeons, and to secape hard fights.

Castle darkmoor is too hard to beat for the moment. I think you should look for an easier dungeon. The eyes are very annoying. I used to go to the castle when nearly no quest was left, because the enemies annoyed me so much...

Do you know the NWC Dungeon? You can boost your stats +20 there, but is a bit of cheating imo.

Darkmoor monsters are way too strong for a level 26. I had problem beating it even late in the game.

Try the a different dungeon at this stage.

Still, if you find losts of dungeons too difficult, give us your party composition and stats.

Going to Castle Darkmoor early is a common mistake, which I made myself. This is because there's a quest in the Darkmoor town that sends you to Castle Darkmoor. As others have said, Castle Darkmoor is way to tough for your party; it's one of the hardest places in the game. Much, much later in the game you will get another quest to go to Castle Darkmoor. Once you have that quest, you can go there and complete both quests at the same time. And it will still be hard.

As others said, more info about your party is good. A lot of the difficulty in the game comes form trying to tackle difficult areas instead of going to easier areas first. For example, I didn't go to the Misty Islands when I should have, instead exploring places like Darkmoor and Free Haven, and then when I went to the Misty Islands later I found they were really easy for my party. So if you're having lots of trouble, try going somewhere else first to see if you have an easier time.

Also, as others mentioned, it's very important to do your character class promotion quests and some of the main storyline quests, as these offer huge XP rewards and help you level up your party. I made the mistake of trying to do too many sidequests first before tackilng some of these, but it just made things harder than they needed to be.

Just hire the mystic + spell master henchmen combo. Unless your party is 100% composed of non-casters (which it really shouldn't be), that should help a lot. Or, if you have more melee approach, hire a couple of healers - their "heal 100%" once a day helps a lot.

I've also made a huge tutorial video, explaining all the hidden mechanics of the game and so forth, so if you have the patience to bear with me, it may help a lot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2JrvbleZt0&list=UUGSnd6gOXMgFuKvNXXFXZsw

Ahhh... MM6 is my favourite time waster, and I have played it again and again.

Search inside this forum for my tips and tricks. Without much info I can't help you. But I always fight in turn based mode.

MM6 is an adventure game, the word is if you stuck, adventure more. I'm not playing the game at the moment, but if you think a dungeon is hard, that means its not for your level.

Also not all magic are created equal. Always go for master in water first. lyod beacon + town portal + new scorpigal church (10 gold to full heal) can made most dungeon easy - provided you have at the right level.

Also go for master in merchant + merchant NPC (but there also a bug(?) I think. Combining the same type won't work, but combining same category works ( eg: merchant + merchant won't work but merchant + other selling type works). The same rule apply for travelling NPC I think.

Did you do the pilgrimage?

Anyway, search the forum for my tips and tricks. It will make the game easy without cheating (other than to play the rules).

Sounds like he is.

What do you mean by "cheap tactics?" MM6 is a classic example of a game where you want to play Horatius against the Curiatii. i.e., contact the enemy, run away, and shoot them when they pursue. This works just great in all the early dungeons. It's also useful to nibble away at the flanks of the huge outside mobs with arrows -- tight just a few at one time, and run when your damage is too high. If this is what you mean by "cheap tactics," then MM6 isn't the game for you.

Run past enemies you can't fight to get to fountains and portals. You can get to the Might Altar in January with no significant trouble. Your guys are always faster than the other guys, so if a big mob is pursuing you, eventually only a few will still be in range, and you can cut them down with automatic weapons fire.

Want a cheap tactic? Fight next to an Inn, or the door to the dungeon. When the mob comes up on you, fight until you're ready to drop, then duck through the door. If it's an inn, you can sleep over and take on the nasties in the morning refreshed and ready for rock and roll. This works great in the Mire if you don't have the spells to rain death down on the unbelievers. Never let yourself get surrounded anywhere. Ring the gong at Temple Baa, and you have two choices: run to the secret door behind the altar and take on the skellies with arrows from the gallery (that's why it's there, after all), or run around to the other corridors and tease them into following you in smaller packs. Just about every combat situation in the game is like this: you have to divide the huge mobs and fight only a few at a time, or you will be dead before you can say "Help!"

And don't fight in real-time. It was utterly foolish of the designers to include that in the game, but real-time was a huge fad when MM6 came out, and they felt they had to cater to the mob.

Other than that, do the Pilgimages as early as you can. Every stat raise is useful. Mix up the black potions ASAP. You should be able to find all the herbs you need in Sorpigal and Ironfist. Dual-wield as often as possible, and use weapons that add damage whenever you can. Get Enchant Item, and your Water Master can enchant any weapons you have to do additional damage (you may have to spam reloads to get what you want, though). Do all the Promotion quests you can. The Mage and Knight first promotions are simple. You can raise your mage to Wizard by the end of January '65, and that will give you a cool 15,000 X P, which translates into a couple of levels for a low-level party. But since you're 26th level by now, you probably know that.

Don't waste money. Coin is for major spells and GOOD items (and training, of course). You can blow a lot of change getting stuff that you'll be replacing with found goods in a short time. Use found equipment or go without, especially in the early going. I had a Priest in one of my groups who didn't get any armor until June of '65, when he was AC 52 using only found stuff. One reason to use Archers and Paladins is all the free swords lying around. Especially useful since they can dual-wield the things. I usually only buy the top rank of equipment -- Ultimate Gautlets, Angel's Helm, etc -- unless a lower-level piece has a really nice enchantment. And don't forget to utilize the cicus and Abdul's Resort. You CAN fly or Water Walk from the NWC dungeon to the Resort without getting killed, just don't try to fight anything. Plant a Lloyd's Beacon there and start spamming Pyramids at the circus, and you can get some very nice things, cheap.

-- Mal

I'd disagree with this. Yes, there are numerous occasions where you want to fight in turn-based mode, but sometimes it is easier to blow through enemies in real-time while holding down the attack button (especially after you get some ancient weapons).

Also, in real-time you can strafe some enemies (or groups) that would destroy you if you tried turn-based. Remember the huge mage cluster in New Sorpigal? It is do-able MUCH earlier if you can move out of the way of incoming fire while you are shooting.

Bless, Heroism, Stoneskin, Haste - these spells should be on at all times. Plus other buffs such as Shield, Protection from (Element), based on the situation.

Become Expert in all schools of magic as soon as possible, especially those relevant to the buffs listed above: Spirit, Earth, Fire, Air. The Earth Expert is harder to find, but the others should be no problem.

Offensive magic is important. Ring of Fire I remember using a lot in dungeons in close combat. Long range there's Fireball to soften up tough crowds far away. These are the best spells in the early game.

I agree with others: turn-based is usually much easier, especially for long range.

Speaking of which, every character should have a bow.

Invest in weapon and armour skill points and training to increase attack speed, especially armour. More armour skill = more attacks.

Games is open-ended so don't feel you need to struggle in a location where monsters are too high level. Chances are there is an easier location.

I finished MM6 with a party of 2 wizards and 2 druids.

Some people mock MM6 as being "Magic and Magic" because physical damage options are so weak. MM6 has only 3 mastery tiers, which means that a lot of weapons are missing +1 damage per skillpoint options like in MM7. Additionally, MM6 has no Armsmaster skill like in MM7. As a result: if you thought knights were a waste of space in MM7, they are even worse in MM6.

Another common misconception is that the best party in MM6 is 2 wizards and 2 clerics. This works well in MM7 if you take the dark path... but in MM6:
-Light and Dark are incredibly weak for damage. In MM6: there is no Light Bolt, which means that light element only has prismatic light (garbage/waste of SP) and Sunray (if you want to do that much damage instantly you might as well throw a Dragon Breath instead... and Sunray does magic damage which half of the enemies in the game are immune to). If I remember properly, MM6 has no elemental summon either. The only reason to throw any points into light magic are Golden Touch (converts items to gold, making merchant skill obsolete) and a bunch of protections and buffs. Paralyze isn't even worth it - costs 50 SP and uses magic resistance, so you're better off just nuking foes with elemental damage instead.
-Dark element has a lot of useful offensive abilities but they cost way too much to be useful.
-Toxic Cloud costs 20 SP and does +1-10 damage per skillpoint in poison damage. You might as well use Implosion, which has a better element (physical damage!!!) and costs the same.
-Shrapmetal costs 50 SP and does a bit under twice the damage of Fire Blast on average... for over triple the cost. The only redeeming factor about MM6 Shrapmetal is that it does physical damage.
-Dragon Breath and Armageddon cost somewhere around 100 SP. Since there's no grandmaster meditation skill, this means that you will be running out of SP very quickly. Not useful in practice.
-Moon Ray is (ironically) the best healing ability in the game. Otherwise... its damage sucks and it can only be used outdoors at night.
-Clerics have almost no combat viability in MM6. Light/Dark are just plain bad in practice, and their other damaging abilities are also a waste of SP. Oh, and they do magic damage, which almost everything's immune to. Most clerics' debuff abilities also use magic resistance.

The choice is clear - druids absolutely rule MM6. They can heal just as well as any cleric (short of divine intervention, but you could just use Lloyd's Beacon Intervention instead, and if you want divine intervention so badly, that's what your wizard's for). They also get elemental magic (drop meteors on enemies, point-blank poison spray/fireblast/sparks, throw fireballs, and every way to be obnoxious in combat that you can think of). Like I mentioned above, I recommend 2 wizards and 2 druids. Other good variations would be: 1 wizard and 3 druids (3 healers, and everyone in your party can do a lot of elemental damage), or perhaps 2 druids, a wizard, and a paladin (if you want a character to absorb damage).

Druids only have 2 disadvantages in MM6: they are weak in the starting game (all casters in every Might and Magic game are weak in the early game) and they aren't able to use light/dark (which isn't a problem because you really only need one character with light/dark "prismatic" magic. As a general rule: Want to win MM6? Make your party 2 druids, a wizard, and something else (preferably another wizard or druid)

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The other big balance problem in MM6: there is no "protection from conditions", which means that you will find your characters being instantly KO'd, instantly dying, or even being instantly eradicated - no matter how much health they have. Supposedly some instant conditions and effects have their chance decreased with various elemental resistances. but in MM6, there is no guaranteed protection against any condition.

If you are having problems with being eradicated in the Control Center, there is an AI glitch with corners, walls, and ranged AI. If you see one of the robots that can instantly eradicate, you can edge around a corner and get them stuck on a wall. 2 of your characters will be able to see it (and use ranged attacks against it). On the other hand, the robot's ranged attack will consistently discharge into the wall, rendering it completely ineffective. Now enter turn-based mode, have the characters out of the line-of-sight block while the other characters hammer the robot into the scrapyard.
As a general rule, this glitch works on most ranged enemies indoors.

The best way to fight enemies that cause instant KO/death/eradication is to avoid taking any damage from them in the first place. Flight and keeping your distance are the best protection.

Other times, the best defense is a good offense. Get a 2 druid/2 wizard party with "of Fire Magic" and "of Water Magic" items. Raise their fire and water skills to something ridiculous like level 30. Now you can spend the rest of the game charging at enemies and instantly vaporizing them at close range with poison spray and fireblast.

Sounds like you need to make some Black Potions,one of the first things I do.There is a lot of shortcuts,but I don't wish to spoil it too much.Go exploring and you will figure it out..