De Gods! What a learning curve! Options

[GreyArea]

After playing the mod for about a week and a bit, possibly more, I have come to the conclusion that this mod is the hardest I have ever played and really making me think. This is a very good thing as I enjoy a challenge, but some of the fights I just cannot win (mainly Druid Grove currently but I expect more to come like WH with Fiircragg and others like the Suni party at first when I go back to Ath.

This isn't party compo related for the toughness for me, it's me getting back into the game again after such a long time and not remembering what such and such spell does or the true uses of other spells that i sometimes see as 'poxy' or 'crap' were in reality they may be the best things since sliced bread.

So pretty much I am asking this:

Should I consider playing through on the un-modded game for a little bit to get my head around some tactics and such or just set the difficulty down to normal (I always run on Core Rules as it's the neutral middle ground difficulty IMHO) and see how I go? I really want to get the enjoyment out of this seemingly stable and exciting mod (yes, getting my ass handed to me for the Nth time in a row is fun, I learn from the enemies tactics and my mistakes). I also enjoy the idea of the new critters to bash my head against so that will also be fun to see coin golems and gem golems amongst others.

In the un-modded game I did have some trouble with certain locations, though that may of been due to low level party for the location, and I expect to get bogged down in them when I get to the enhanced versions. I am just going to hope tat i can get to a high enough level to be able to take what they dish out at me and manage to get the gear needed to beat them down.

Ok that got off topic a bit.

This pretty much boils down to thus:

Returning to BG@/ToB after a longish hiatus is it recommended to start up with the normal un-modded game and go from there and get the skills back up? Or possibly a less intense mod to warm up with before plunging into IA?

OR

Dive into IA and learn everything on the fly? (not everything, but advanced tactics for starters and proper party compo/spell usage etc....)

Thanks for your time reading these musing

[rbeverjr]

I wanted to try out some mods that I figured probably were incompatible with IA5; so, I started an IA4.1 game. I was surprised and pleased with the level of difficulty. It's very obvious to me that I'm learning the IA system now. IA4 was the first full game of IA that I ever played, and I remember that I had great difficulty trudging through it. Great difficulty to me means often reloading more than twice to beat an encounter. Reloading even once = failure. Now, I am tromping right along in an IA4.1 game without much trouble.

In IA5, I definitely noticed an increase in difficulty. Having been playing IA4.1, I would say it is a significant increase in difficulty. Still, I am having an easier game with IA5 than my first game of IA. I haven't reloaded that often (but certainly more than Sikret). I have been saving the toughest battles for last - which is appropriate for best chance of no reload.

So, you can certainly progress on the learning curve. IIRC, I played about a half game of IA3, a game and half of IA4+, and now about half a game of IA5. I'm beginning to think that once I have played this game 10 times I will be really good at it. It's readily apparent that I have become a more tactical player. So, I encourage those that may find IA difficult to keep plugging away. It will become easier.