Try to record my BGII IA journey here.
I am a long time old player of BG series with SCS mod installed and a newbie for IA.

Setup
Group
After rumbling through the forum, my group consists of as below:
 Minsc. He is an old acquaintance of mine. I don’t like his character much, but he is a powerful melee NPC in IA.
 Valygar. He is highly recommend by IA.
 Rassad. I have never tried a monk before.
 Anomen. I have never had this one with me before. I even never did his personal task.
 Necromancer. He is my main character, with 18 in all stats.
 Neera. I like sorceress for her versatility.

Mods
I have Anthology Tweak, EEUIT, IA, RevealHiddenGameOption installed.
I had Anthology Tweak remove all traps and set all locks which require no keys to have a difficulty of 1.
The EEUIT proved to cause CTD when recruiting new NPC. I believe it is the Center Dialogue component or the Journal Fix component. It should be the bug of mod itself. Nevertheless, this set up has no other problems so far and I really like the UI improvement which the EEUIT brought, so I will keep playing on.


First Chapter
There is no much to say. It seems IA didn’t improve the Irenicus' Dungeon. The sword of chaos and Armor of Death is a good suit for Minsc. The only surprise in the dungeon is the two lesser spirit spiders, which died easily from Magic Missile but proved problematic for melee characters due to its very low AC.

Some thought:
Horror proved to be a good AOE CC and allies friendly too.

Second Chapter
Finish the Circus, donated 4500 gold to the temple for 3 pts of reputation, recruited Anomen from CC, recruited Neera.
I found no good level 4 scrolls in Promenade, so my Necromancer could only memorize 2 Sunburst in level 4 slots.

Umar Hills.
I recruited Valygar, gave him Shield of the Lost +2. Ilbratha +1 seems useless for now.
The monster in the cave caused me several reload. Minsc’s rage and Anomen’s Holy Smite dealt with them.

Trademeet
I recruited Rassad.

Druid Grove
First round of Anomen’s Holy Smite, Neera’s Emotion, and Necromancer’s Horror proved quite effective against a group of enemy.
Emotion seems more useful than Horror. From my observation, frightened monsters might still attack.
Horror from my Necromancer has 1 more point of DC than Emotion though.

The Noble Trolls at the Troll Mound’s entrance are too powerful. He is a lv 17 warrior with 4 apr, very low AC and attack and many resistance. After several reload I gave up. Save this fight for another time.

The duel is quite easy though. Horror followed by 2 Sunburst killed the boss.

Sleep in the grove to get the first stronghold quest and a club of +1/+3, which seems useless since only two of my companions have 1 star in club proficiency and they all have +2 weapon. +3 weapon and 1.5 apr is not better than +2 weapon and 2 apr.

Druid Grove
The first quest of druid stronghold is easy enough, but the Ihtafeer proved to be impossible to kill at this time. They are immune against my spells and extremely deadly in melee. With the occasional Absolute Immunity, I have no ways of defeating them.

Windspear Hills
I started Firkraag’s quest and failed to clear the first level of dungeon…..

Watcher's Keep
The main hall has a bunch of noble trolls. I retreated.

Bridge District
The skinner murders is beatable. This also applied to the Mercenary of Ritavin. Again, first round of Neera’s Emotion, and Necromancer’s Chaos proved successfully.

Graveyard
I opened all tombs and retreated from the cryptic king.
I defeated Suna Seni when returning back to CC.

Thought
First round of Anomen’s Greater Command, Neera’s Emotion and Necromancer’s Chaos is the only solution. The fight is doable but at a 50/50 percentage, depending on how the first round’s saving dices roll.
My mages’ stoneskins got dispelled before the start of the area though.

Slums
I defeated the beast master with prepared short duration buffs, such as haste and protection from evil.

Thought
First round of Anomen’s Greater Command, Neera’s Emotion and Necromancer’s Chaos is the bane of beast master.
I feel it is strange that the leopard is not killable before the death of beast master. This kind of design is questionable.

Government District
The sewer has a Rakshasa and a team of lv 17 or so mercenaries. I retreated for now.