newbie AI and scripting

OK, i been playing SoA for about 3 hours now, and i am still in the prison and all that .... now from what i read from all you guys who have been playing for bloody ages is that you guys have some serious strategies down pat. what i'd love to know is does everyone here use scripting and AI work to fine tune their performance (so to speak)??? Reason i ask is because most times i play the game, even running into crappy goblins (who one day will pray to bathe in my sweaty jockstrap when i get enough levels in my characters), seem to do me serious harm before i can retaliate. I like RPG's and all but the last one i played was a year ago and was Might + Magic 7 or 8 ( i forgot which one), so maybe i'm just used to that style of play. anyway, if all youze do use scripting, any prefered combinations based on script / character class / alignment..???

big ask i know guys, but hey, i spose i got to start somewhere....

[Hojou]

Hey i'm kinda new too, i played lots of hours, but i never played the first BG and i'm still way behind the other guys, but since i didn't seem to have had any problems with battles so far (playing normal difficulty) i thought perhaps i could give you a few hints

First off, you got someone to heal in the party i take it? (The druid girl you free) - I don't know if anything happens if you spend too many days sleeping down there, but sleep to replenish your spells.

Second sometimes it's a good idea not to just run through the dungeon but send a spy head, someone who can sneak around the corner and report back to the group. You could send your thief When you spottet some enemies ahead, you could switch to missile attack weapons, sneak close before they see you, send the melee guys up in a run while the missile guys deal out arrows etc. Also i found a spell of cloud kill, fireball etc. usefull when you find a room filled with nasty little goblins and the like

Don't be afraid to use your spells, fire away! When you run out of spells... just rest and you're ready to go again