IceWind Dale Gameplay Help

I have just gotten IceWind Dale and I never played this type of RPG before. Never played Baldur's Gate so, I kinda find it like REALLY tough to control all 6 characters in battle. They all get slaughtered cause they run in like morons, is there anybody who could offer advice on this? Is there turnbased combat option in this game? Get tired of getting slaughtered because I can't control my guys. =( Please help, thanks.

Press the space bar anytime during the game. It will pause the game. Very usefull in combat where you can change weapon, give target to your fighters, choose the next spell to cast and give direction to your party. Once you unpause the game, all commands you gave during the pause are executed. Very usefull, it improves your tactic and add fun to the fights.

Try to adjust the A.I on your characters from aggresive to something else, that way they should stay together more.

I wouldn't suggest changing the AI of the characters... I'd suggest turning off AI altogether. Then, use the spacebar to pause your game. When you see a fight coming, IMMEDIATELY pause your game, and decide who is going to do what. You should also pause the game, at least until you're more used to it, any time you want to give any character an order, then unpause to have him execute said order.

In the options section of the game, you can also add auto-pauses, which will pause the game whenever one of the pre-set parameters is met... such as running out of ammo, at the end of every round, etc.

Mainly, though, it's really a matter of practice. If you're not used to the way combat works, and your guys are getting slaughtered, save at the bridge of Easthaven, and keep replaying that first fight with the goblins. Try different tactics, and get a good feel for how pausing the game allows you to give orders, and also how knowing when to pause the game to change tactics can really save your characters' behinds. Trust me, once you're used to the pause function, the game becomes a whole lot easier.

Good tactics involve using ranged weapons. Much as you might think you're supposed to beat up on the enemy with all these nice swords you have, it's really the ranged weapons, especially bows and crossbows, that work well.

Do not charge at a foe to take him on with your melee weapons. Doing that just reveals even more foes to fight and gets you involved in a much bigger battle. Instead be patient. Let foes come to you if they will, and use ranged weapons if they won't. Even if they do come to you, soften them up with ranged weapons while they're moving in. The idea is to minimize the number of swings they get at your fighters. Fewer swings mean less damage.

I use one melee fighter (dwarf with axe skill) who stands out front and tries to attract all the attackers. Everyone else in the party specializes in ranged weapons. Even the dwarf fighter uses a ranged weapon pretty often.

There are certainly circumstances where this method doesn't work, but it's a good general strategy.