Tactics for fighting in close tight quarters?
Back before I got Enhanced Edition I pretty much always just played BG2 (the improvements were just so far above and beyond) and one nice thing BG2 does is it really widened out the corridors and pathways in dungeons.
Going back and playing BG1 again though I'm reminded how terribly cramped and narrow some of these dungeons are, Ulcaster & Firewine being absolutely awful to try and move through, let alone fight in.
So I'm just asking some of you more seasoned vets what advice you have for getting through this? Any specific party formations? Do you move each member individually? What's the best way to manage your way around in these tiny dungeon hallways?
Going back and playing BG1 again though I'm reminded how terribly cramped and narrow some of these dungeons are, Ulcaster & Firewine being absolutely awful to try and move through, let alone fight in.
So I'm just asking some of you more seasoned vets what advice you have for getting through this? Any specific party formations? Do you move each member individually? What's the best way to manage your way around in these tiny dungeon hallways?
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No real easy method, I always hate those places, especially Firewine.
The party formation that's a bunch of arrows is... okay for dungeons. You usually won't bump into your party members, but you tend to get really spaced out which can be a problem if you run into an enemy. The only other one that I know to recommend is the "diagonal 2x6" one (I seriously have no idea what to call this) where it shifts one of your columns tighter and diagonal to the other. You can usually fit your entire formation into a corridor this way, but the pathfinding still sucks.
Firewine is a bit more tricky - I mostly move my thief around to detect traps, sometimes followed by the most hardy tank to step in when meeting monsters. My impression though is that the respawning in Firewine is much slower/less in the EE version than in the vanilla version, so there are really only a couple of spots where you'll be swarmed by kobolds, and if the group is there (with the tanky characters most in the open and the more squishy ones in a corner or out of the way), it's not so hard. Clearing a path to the Gullywine temple entrance early is also advisable, just in case you need to heal up. When navigating through the corridors, I find it best to move, at most, three characters at a time, preferably leading with a tanky one, and having another tanky one in the rear for surprise spawns.
Generally, in both the EE versions, the AI is kind of crappy and you have to watch (certain) characters like a hawk in case they give up going the way you intend them to go, and try a different, and sometimes disastrous route instead. Have had quite a few "Arrrrgh" moments because of that (it's more often than not your mage/thief/Rasaad character who does this, i.e. someone extra squishy who can't very well survive a surprise attack).
Even in a group, for the tight dungeons, either i skip them or i take 1-2 characters to clear the dungeon.
The pathfinding AI is sometimes bad, but if you keep the distances not too long its no problem I think.
I didn't like those narrow dungeons either when I was playing vanilly BG, but now I see them more of a competition, cause in real life they would also be hard to handle.
Rasaad is worst because of movement speed.
Generally I use the 2x3(offset) ,::' formation, click&hold left-and-right to swivel party into alignment with corridors.
Boost that single party member with potion of haste, strength potion, whatever
Rampage through the dungeon
Both these dungeons are pretty easy, and the only danger comes from traps.
The narrow corridors works against enemies as much as my party, forcing them to come at your through choke points, and 4 bows brings down most foes pretty quickly, and if they closed for melee, Khalid, Charname and Minsc can certainly handle themselves fine in a scrap.