I'm giving MM1 another try. I played a certain amount of it back around 2002 on a Mac emulator in black and white, but the maps and everything are lost, and for whatever reason I've decided to play the PC version this time.

I know the game is supposed to feel like a struggle getting started, but the moment I'm wishing I had a clearer idea how to make some money. Fighting does bring in some money but it's awfully slow, and barely covers food & training. Fixing my cleric's alignment would be nice.

Lots of things are pretty mysterious.

I found and used a fountain, and I didn't know what it did. Later, it wasn't there anymore. A second fountain I managed to figure out but only by screenshotting my player stats beforehand. Does the game expect I've memorized my stats? Are there hints I'll find at some point that help explain some of this stuff?

In Erliquin there are a lot of secret doors that seem to lead to entirely nothing. Is that just part of the game design? I mean, if there was any single thing of value behind any of them, I'd understand better, but so far, nope.

In the starter map zone, I found a gypsy who gives me my signs. I have no idea what this means, but I wrote them down and plan to come back later to see if they've changed.

Overall, I'm just sort of lacking in confidence that this approach is going to get me to a point where I know what's going on. Am I doing this right?

MM1 is a very vague game, with not much hints about what you are supposed to do.
So my advice would be to just try to clear out each area, and since the game is area scaled, you may want to retreat to a different area if the current one is too tough.

Also, things will open up more quest wise when you find the Merchant Pass. AFAIK there's no hint about it; you just stumble across it, and with it gain access to the castles and their quest giving lords.

Have a look at http://www.gog.com/forum/might_and_magic_series/obtaining_gold_in_mm1

I found there was a certain amount of repeating some of the encounters in the area under the first town just to pick up some items and then sell them. Or be brave and try another town (but not the dungeons!). Probably won't take too long though before your characters will have more money than they need for anything they may want to buy. Though a large amount of money is useful later on ....

Incidentally, I discovered that the cost of alignment fixing is NOT similar from place to place. That helped a lot.

Just map everything and take notes, then you'll be close to the end.

Gold is tight at the beginning, but as you start to be able to explore and take on better enemies it ceases to be an issue. Beyond the first few levels gold is only used for leveling up and the minor amounts you spend at the temple/food store.

Yeah, that was my expectation, but at level 5 it was still tight and i was starting to become a little frustrated. Things are moving along better now.

As a followup: Is there any way to increase the convenience of recasting protection spells? It's getting a little old.

There is NOTHING convenient about MM1 ;)

I think there's a higher level spell that is essentially all the protection spells at once. But you still have to cast it after each rest.

I see that one. The manual suggests it's only some of them. I'll find out when I'm allowed to cast it, I guess.

In pursuit of not creating a million threads, and this one seems good info for new players.

A message such as

"blah blah GRANTS +4 <STATISTIC> TO THOSE WHO ARE WORTHY!"

seems to NOT in fact be informational, but is really telling you "The blah blah is here in front of you, and has just granted you +2 <STATISTIC> because you're not yet worthy, but if you become worthy and come back here, we'll give you the second +2."

It actually gives you +4... ONCE... then you regardless of what the prompt says you get nothing until you complete a quest that makes you 'worthy' again.

Also keep in mind that, like many things in MM1, you may have to rest first before you will see the stat increase.

Okay, but the main thing is the message is written to sound like it's telling you about something you can search for instead of telling you that something is present in the location where you are.