Exactly as the subject states, which area do you dislike the most? I am going back and replaying this game, and I have now come to the conclusion that I hate the Firewine ruins the most, by a long stretch. My reasons:

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• The passages are too small: The pathfinding in this game is archaic as it is, but with the passages being so small it causes your party to wander off in all directions, often by themselves into an ambush. To stop this, you literally have to micromanage your party's every movement. This gets tedious after about 20 seconds, and unbearable after about an hour.</font>
• Unlimited and too rapid respawning: The kobold commandos respawn way too fast in the dungeon, often respawning right in plain sight of your party. It just makes no sense whatsoever. Add to the fact that every single one of them is using enchanted fire arrows and it is just ridiculous. I guess the ogre mage can mass produce a million fire arrows a second, and the mage has cloning tanks hidden in the walls that are producing kobold commandos at about one a second.</font>

Even the GameBanshee walkthrough states to go in via the secret door by the ogre mage, kill him and the wizard, loot them, and just leave. They state that it is just too much of a pain in the butt to go get the armor and give it to the spirits, due to the constant kobold commandos. And after spending this afternoon practically throwing my computer across the room in disgust, I agree with them. I would rather do Durlag's Tower at 1st level than go through that garbage again.

Anyway, enough of my rant. What area/areas did you just dislike?

I don't like the Basilisk area: it's a great place for XP, but it's boring since there are no quests here.

I also don't like the Nashkel Mines: I've done them many many times and it feels like a waste of time.

Firewine isn't actually as bad as all that--sure, if you try to take your entire party, things go all to hell, but when you stop to think that you really only need two of them--your Tank and your Thief--it's simple Kobold-whackin' and Arow-collectin' from then on.

MY least favorite part of the game is the first approach to the Friendly Arm, and that duel with Tarnesh the Overpowered. His spell selection, hitpoints, loot, placement in the game, and general demeanor peg him as a Level 3 Mage....so why in hell does he fire *FIVE* Magic Missiles at once? He'd have to be Level 9 to pull that off. (Compare this with Thalantyr, who himself only looks to be about Level 7.) And shooting 5 Magic Missiles per shot means that, if Tarnesh gets a spell (ANY spell) off, you lose a party member. And, at that stage, you can't summon a decoy, and you can't cast Mirror Image (thanks for being a Necromancer, Xzar). Oh, the joy. Follow the plot, get killed.

Hehe... I will have to nod in bitter agreement with SixOfSpades. That part of the game is all about luck, not skill. Trying to disrupt him using physical attacks is laughable too, because at that stage, your THAC0 is meaningless.

I didn't find Tarnesh too difficult actually... My 19 Dexterity, longbow armed Elfwith 2 stars in Bows took him just fine... Least favourite area? Has to be the very first hour or so in Candlekeep, just soooo boring -> Go there and feetch me that for 3 gold... HURRAH!

I like all areas ;)

Actually, Tarnesh is my number 2 worst area. I agree he is way overpowered at that point in the game. Maybe switch the dwarf bounty hunter in Beregost with Tarnesh, that way you fight a tough but non-spellcasting opponent right outside the Friendly Arm Inn, then when you have a chance to add more party members you can run into Tarnesh in Beregost.

Actually, I did Firewine the same way you stated (took Minsc and Imoen alone to kill kobolds). However, it is very hard to find a place to stash the rest of the party where they will not run into kobold commandos on their own (I kept fighting on two separate parts of the map, because the damn commandos would respawn wherever I put the rest of the party). Also, every time my two "roving" party members got near the center room, they would get hit by nearly a dozen kobold commandos, then have other ones respawn in plain sight in the hallway they just crossed. It wouldn't bother me if it just made sense. Tarnesh at least makes sense, as he should be competent in being hired as an assassin. Firewine makes no sense whatsoever with kobolds appearing out of nowhere pretty much continuously and all of them having enchanted arrows.

It would have to be one of those (thankfully quite few) no-name wilderness areas that just contain a whole lot of nothing. The rocky area east of the Nashkel Mine (not the one with the 2nd exit from the mine) is pretty dull for instance.

The Firewine ruins aren't too bad though I think. Just as long as you avoid any pointless wandering around and backtrack as little as possible. Just do it as straight and quickly as possible.

1. Get armor
2. Deliver armor
3. Kill Ogre mage and get out

I usually park my "weaker half" in the large room near the Firewine Bridge entrance and leave a bunch of summoned critters, like the skeletons my recent Cleric/Ranger PC had access to, with them to protect them from stray Kobolds. Meanwhile, my fighters carry out step 1 and 2. I then take my entire party to the Ogre mage and the exit.

Having Haste helps alot here, actually it helps alot elsewhere too. I think getting that spell is the turning point in BG1 in fact. You transform from a sluggish bunch of powerless weaklings to an unstoppable whirlwind of insane Tazmanian devils. Haste seems to double the speed of the AI and greatly improve the microscale path-finding as well, so actually getting your entire party around in the narrow corridors of the ruins without getting them clustered up in some corner is much easier, and quicker of course.

I think the Firewine ruins are also No 1 on my list of least favorite areas. It takes a lot of time and gives so little XP.

I am the kind of player, that likes to clean up areas, so you could imagine how long it took to 'complete' the area first time I visited it. Finally I found out that the kobolds were respawning all the time and 'gave up'. And I mean gave up, because that was that feeling I had after I left the ruins :( .

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Insane

I felt the same way upon leaving. You can never truly clean the place out. At that rate, within 5 years, kobolds would completely overrun the Sword Coast.

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Actually, I wonder if you install either BGTutu or BGT if it would let you CLUA a certain shield from BG2 into your inventory. Turnabout may not be fair play in this instance, but it would be satisfying.