Maybe a moderator can make this a "sticky" topic. Wizardry 8 is a great game, but without one small addition, the combat can be very slow. There is a program called "wizfast" that you can download to fix the combat speed issues.
Basically you download a .zip file; unzip it (you can extract it anywhere, I usually place it on the desktop). You'll then have a file there called "wizfast" which is a .exe. Just double-click on that file to run it. It's very simple, you just set a slider to how much faster you want combat speed to be, and it changes the game settings accordingly. I suggest just maxing it to the fastest setting. The next time you run Wizardry you'll notice combat is quite a bit less tedious.
The file is available for download here, and called the "combat speed enhancer":
http://www.geocities.com/shau185/downloads.html