[1] As other posters have said, Yes, the Enhanced Edition uses the second game's engine, which has multiple enhancements. Bandits are troublesome, especially if you magical buffs have worn off because you inadvertently dawdled in the inventory screen (but that is not a problem for the Enhanced Edition).

[2] As you noted, you have over-levelled as a precaution to your memory of the difficulty of this mission. Try doing the side-quests after the mines. (If you need a roleplay reason, Jahiera will leave the party if you don't hurry.) I've got level three characters, with maybe a potion of healing each, and the monster mobs are lethal if any character is hit more than twice. And there are more than a dozen mobs in each level of the mine, and then a boss fight at the bottom, so resource management is necessary. (Or, you can sleep a lot, and reload if the rest is interrupted.)

Later on, after finishing the bandit camp, the game does become a lot easier. You were fore-armed because your memory forewarned you, so the game is much easier than when you first played it.

I got this game from a friend in 98 and it was the bomb experience. First time ever playing a game like this and I totally got into it. For it's time and considering there were many people like me who weren't that familiar with d&d type games and fantasy rpg's in general, it's a good way to get into it. I remember trading the game for Populous. LOL :D

Oh well. Nowadays I couldn't be bothered to do it (BG1) again, even with the kits added with EE, cause frankly, the game is too long for so much low level D&D play imo. You barely have enough spells as a mage to keep stuff interesting, short on special abilities.. you name it. That's part of why BG2 blew up I think, cause it began at a levelrange in D&D where your chars start getting more cool stuff. Are like all the BG2 kits in BG1? Cause that's a joke. You can break the game with an Elf longbow archer, cause ranged is op in BG1.. or a 1handed style Elf Kensai with a longsword. Get Varscona and you'll be owning opponents left and right, just need to micromanage him more as opposed to the archer obviously. Avenger in Sword Spider form... lol. Sounds fun, but I wouldnt do it :D

BG1's hardship can only come from being low level, where anything with a decent hit can onehit you, or your party.
To stop massively overflowing in exp, at least have full party. And probably avoid some side"quests".

The problem is with BG1 for me is, there's barely any plot. 99% of things just random things, or mobs standing your way unrelated to anything.
There's also the thing that most areas are wild open, so you can back away, and always the strongest tactic was to circle around the enemy pommeling with arrows, and if you know your salt and not a beginner who stands and faces whatever comes front, like people used to when the game was new, the game is truly easy.

To be honest BG1 wasn't even a breaking success. The main game of the franchise was always BG2 with its crowded city streets and fluent narrative. Of course with minmaxed characters, doing all sidequests, and all the options coming from ToB (including the risen exp-cap), BG2 can lack the challenge-value too, but the narrative compensates for it. In BG1 though, there's nothing.

BG1 has the best story I've ever come across in any movie or game. It is deep, so deep that it is almost impossible to comprehend it entirely during the 1st playthrough. This is also because BG1 is the pinnacle of storytelling. Nothing is thrown on your face like other games. The story is hidden inside the books, letters, pieces of notes you find during your adventures. It is so brilliantly spread that it took at least 10 years for the community to realize its true value. And in some cases like yourself, people still couldn't piece it together after 20 long years. That's what makes it unique and so valuable in my eyes. In the age of passive-contribution, what it did was remarkable and one of a kind.

I could piece the story of BG together in 5 minutes. Maybe 5 seconds. Because it is a skeleton-story with barely any events.
But I betyou think Rick&Morty is only for "highly intelligent" people, and u r one of 'em...

Please do it then. Write it down here. If you can piece it together in 5 seconds, then writing it down also shouldn't be a problem.

Aside it being a pretty long game, ye, sure, no problem at all.

So, we start with the opening cinematic, where a dude kills another dude, who says there are others. Armored Dude somehow doesn't care, because he is stupid, most likely. It is obvious we (the protagonist) are amongst those "others". Even from the tutorial part we learn all this is about beings of Spawns of Bhaal, a long dead diety, who prepared its own resurrection (he plans a Battle Royal, which winner will be bodysnatched by him). Because he was the God of Murder (and dying in general), his spawns have a tendency to be involved in bloodshed, most of them even has this tendency in their nature (kinda bloodline thingy), aka. they kill.
The tutorial-part is mostly ok, the problem is, the combat-exercises provide no benefit (no item or even exp), but they are totaly insisting to participate on them. Otherwise the tutorial shows your mundane life in the library-monastery, and prepares things by throwing you two assassins, which points that leaving is a pressing issue, and priests sucks at their job as usual.
Then the tutor is taken out, and an annyoing NPC is forced on you instead. Not thatthe tutor was thatstrong... While the later installments count the possibility you might play solo despite the intention of the developers, BG1 lacks that.
The game also heavily pushes you to play goody-good, else you'll be stomped to the ground by powerful respawning enemy.
The game also has the horrid issue of resting. You'll want to rest when you are out of resources, and after the bigger fights, you WILL be out of resources. But this will happen a lot in the middle of dungeons to start with, so no inn. With very frequent spawn-points (sometimes they are not even circum-navigatable!) and monsters spawning out of thin air interrupting your attempt to sleep, you not gaining back any resources, inn/tavern being nowhere nearby, this leads to frusrating save&reloads.
Here let's mention the random encounters between areas. Sure, you can most of the times just run from them, but there is at least one encounter to screw you over, and force save&reload: the all enemies are archer encounter. Especialy on low level that's instant death. And this game is NOT supposed to be rogue-like!

Now let's move to the first area. Random monsters problems aside, we have... Though we could mention the only way to reliably lower your reputation while keeping it on a reasonable level is screwing over your romance-option - genious design, not?
So, first real area. Forced party member tick, looting the tutor, tick. There is a pair of potential-party-members, who'd join ... because the plot says so, or something. There's a guy who considers suicide, but despite perfect opprtunity to introduce allignment, anything you do with him, is inconsequential in every way - the character just stole five minutes of your life. There's an easter-egg diamond, as the game tries to be an open world game. Now if you try this exploration-all thingy, your nose will be bashed by an overpowered-compared-to-your-level-and-equipment ogre. Are you having fun yet? Me neither.

Now you arrive to the Friendly Arms Inn, what was your destination. Here you meet your contacts, who wanna investigate some mines. Because reasons. They seem shady because of this. Actualy, your only option for progress in the game IS investigating the mines, despite the game pretending it is not.
If you want, you can go to the mines right now, but you'll be stopped a lot towards there by the pesky area-borders-unlocking system, which is frustrating. Turns out if you just galopp to the mines, your nose will be bashed. Not that you could just go there. Aside the constant interrupting of you enjoyment with artificial barriers, the game goes to the extent of entirely blocking your passage by placing bloody enemies on the road, which was safe route until now. So what are the rules of the game, someone tell me! Give me DIRECTIONS, because the constant reloading for too hard enemies bashing my nose is frustrating.
But ok, I assume the game wants you to do sidequests. Welcome to the world where your playthrough at 90% completion OF THE TRILOGY will be ruined, because you "washed the pantaloons" for 100 exp, and not stealing them. Are you having fun yet? Or you activate the cheat menu?
And you know what? I'd be ok, if people within the Inn would give me the sidequests. But nah, a lady living at a random location gives me one too, because reasons. I also feel confused. One NPC thought by looking at me I'm an adventurer (weapon-and-magic-slinger), while the other thought I'm an elegant servant.
Oh, and let's mention the design-failure assassination attempt, which NPC is not just way overlevelled than you, but also casts stuff like Horror. Are you having fun yet?
Of course if your ENTIRE party could sneaking - but they can not. So I assume the game wants you a thief, and a mage with an invisibility 10 foot radious? Not that the game'd make this possible, but whatever, right?

But ok, let's arrive to Beregost.
You do the aquired quests - then you have no purpose to do anything else here. But you better do some nothing-to-do-with-anything sidequests, or your nose will be bashed in! But oh, please don't do sidequest, the game changed its mind, as you can turn out too powerful, and loose all challenge-value! But whatever.
After visiting 30-40(!) unrelated random areas, where maybe 5 quests has to do stuff with companions (half of which in a playthrough you won't hire), you go to the mines.
Unil now you learnt there is incrised bandit activity, occasional monsters, and that the iron is bad in the area, and most probably not for natural reasons. You also might encounter zounds of world-describing books, which neither has to do anything not just the story of the game, but also neither the areas you can walk in! Are youhaving fun yet? Because I just learnt to not touch books, not read scrolls, skip the dialogues.
There are actualy 2 books that has stuff to do with the game: The Chosen of Mystra tells you, that you play the game. Wow, genious, master-level story-telling. The other tells the backstory of Bhaal, mostly ruining all surprises not knowing what the cult of Bhaal is up for, or if it even exists, but whatever, right?
So you enter the mines, where you learn it is infested by kobolds, which are put there to split some acid on the ore (it works like Btaman's Shark-repellen, ok?). They are placed there by some human organisation, but named organisation has trouble with replenishment and supplies, so something is off, because that's not the local authorities, that's for sure.
You go and check upon the clues, namely bashing noses, and discover it is the black talon, which is the organisation of Zentharim which is a border-country, if I remember correctly, and not simple bandits. But these bandits work for someone, and that someone is in Baldur's Gate: the Iron Throne.
To learn this you have to pass the Cloakwood Forest too, which has one problem: it is empty, it is a forest, and we try to play a game instead. So the quests and events would be all right, but they are too infrequent, far-away from each other. The mine here works properly, producing good iron - but the Iron Throne does not sell it, expecting profit during the coming war, playing twosides.

On the sidenote, a certain Irenicus left a certain spider-lady in the Cloakwood Forest...

Whatever, so we reach Baldur's Gate. Here you again do mindless amount of sidequests, which wouldn't be THAT bad, if they'd be kicked off the right way, like that thief going to you, instead waiting to be talked to, or the posion-brothers wouldn't spawn at such bad places. Because you might not even encounter them to be honest, and man, they could be a nuisance in chapter 7-or-what! Of course if you just try to investigate the Iron Throne, your nose will be bashed in...
Also, could we only have NPCs with unique names which actualy have a purpose? To encourage people to discover the game for themselves, instead of opening a walkthrough? No? Are you having fun yet? No?
So after an unrelated main quest (investigate missing citizens) we enter the Iron Throne building, where we learn they not just having the same difficulties as the rivaling country, but that theyare slowly replaced by body-snatcher. What is a B-movie-dumb plot twist, but whatever.
A third party's existance is obvious, just like that that Sharewok-fellah will be the head honcho of whatever is happening here, not the so-called leader, who is his (step)father by the way. Who cares, will die off-screen.

*CONTINUED*

So, we learn the Third Party wanna assasinate the ambassadors in Candlekeep. What a concidence I assume. Let's go there! Nah, too far away, and this game is a total bore (not that we didn't fast-travel zounds of times the game's world already): let's teleport instead!
That was fine, let's go in. Oooh, more doppelgangers, proving religion sucks. At least we can agree upon that.
Inside are more design flaws. Like Sharevok giving us a prot. +1 ring. Who uses those aside total n00bs? There goes his incriminating evidence down the toilet, because thatstuff is not good enough even to climb down,and sell it in the local shop.
There's also the problem that you'll be arrested on lvl 5 (unless you know whatis coming) instead of the top floor...
Turns out that Sharevok-guy realy was that Sharevok-guy, and he is totaly into this Bhaal-whorshipping, and eliminated the ambassadors to create total chaos. A side of his agenda is also to make himself the ruler of Baldur's Gate, to ensure it'll burn. Oh, ye, he was the grounting armored guy from the intro. Who had sidekicks with 20 HP atthe beggining, so I'm not worried.

Oh, so we are arrested, blamed for the ambassadors,and now we escape. ThatSharevok-dude evenhad time to set up delaying dungeon Labyrinth-like, just for us, instead of the rartional thing of a single strong force. Who cares, the plot demands this, and look, a three-headed monkey!

So we rush back, save the government, get pardoned, immediately join the local maffia, and despite all his crewmates/servants telling us his is basicaly a good guy, just had tragic childhood, and that's why he burns puppies,and cities, but otherwise harmless, we murder the guy, who was or god-brother, so must be glad we're not in some greek tragedy.

Did I miss something?

HAHAHHAA!!!

After a brief shock, I laughed so hard after reading that part. You don't even know which game you are talking about. BG1 doesn't have a tutorial. The part you are telling here are from BG2.

And I read the rest of your message with a serious worry in my face. You didn't mention a single part of the story. The deals among regions, the tension on peasant and citizens, the labor and aristocrat forces and intrigues, how the main antagonist rose among a deadly organization and betrayed them in the end, how dukes of Baldur's Gate responded to that, how Amn and Baldur's Gate citizens and rules became conflict with one an other because of that. How Gods themselves were involved in the participant of them. How Bhaal was not the only God one who foresaw the future and planted seeds of "help" for the player. Little NPCs that literally tell you the future. I could write for hours more which you missed.

You only told us what you came across, the gameplay, not the story. So this video is for you.

Person Who skips the story for the gameplay

damn this thread has become rather.... *insert disease name here*

I clearly expressed, Baldur's Gate 1's tutorial area is Candlekeep. BG2 has a tutorial independent from the game.
I 'mentioned' BG1's surface-level backstory is the tension between 2 state-cities: Baldur's Gate, and whatever the bandits worked for.
There's no tension between the "peasants"and the "citizens".
There are no intrigues aside what Sharevokand his organization is doing.
There's no communist&capitalist conflict.
The main antagonist, aka. Sharevok was told by me how he manipulated everyone in the name of Bhaal (ye, maybe didn't mention: he voluntarily want to be consumed by Bhaal). But I told every minute detail whatled to the situation, thank you very much u troll.
I strongly suspect you missed I restricted to BG1, not the later installments. You in your hybris also did not payed attention I went through the story how you discover it, not by the actual timeline. You either got confused by this, or just didn't pay attention.

Ok, let me add some comments to that description.
He doesn't care, because he probably knows who are the others already, a little hint - he finds you. Is it obvious that we are "the others"? The game doesn't tell anything about it yet though.
We don't learn that until basically the end of the game. There are only very vague hints sung by the chanters next to the library. Did you play the sequel before the first game?
This is not a story description, but ok. Combat exercises are meant to teach the player how to control the character and the party, and the NPCs insist on them, so that you know how to control your party in the future and not complain that "this game sucks, it doesn't tell me what should I do" for example. The quests are simple, but you get to know that it might be useful to talk to people (keep that in mind for the future). If you would pay attention, you would notice that even in Candlekeep there are mentioned things related to the plot, for example - Dreppin talks about the iron shortage and one of the guards mentions that at night he saw large groups moving through the trading route in the distance, which was probably a group of bandits.
You can totally play solo, if you want, but remember this is based on a D&D campaign. Those are played with a group of characters and are designed that way, so is BG1. The game simply recommends having a group, but nothing really stops you to do otherwise.
You mean the Flaming Fist? This is also not related to the story, but if you commit crimes then it's no surprise that you'll get local authorities' attention. Playing as evil character is probably one of BG1 shortcomings, it's doable, but keep in mind that when you play as good character, you're doing that despite your nature, as we later learn.
It's ironic that you focus on that in this thread. This is the difficulty of the game, being able to survive when you're not prepared and out of position.
What romance-option? What romance? What? Did you play the sequel before the first game?
You can remove Imoen from the party as soon as she joins. Montaron and Xzar join you, because as we later can learn from their superiors in Baldur's Gate, they are spying on you, at least Xzar is, but they admit your value as an ally. They are also interested in Nashkel mines, because the Zentharim are being accused of the iron crisis etc. I know that this is not obvious, but don't say "the plot says so" if you basically just don't know. The guy who wants to commit suicide is meant to be joke and the alignments are described in the character creation. The diamond and other hidden items have nothing to do with the game being open world or not, you wouldn't know of its existence unless you're using a walkthrough, have already finished the game at least once and looked up in the walkthrough, you're using BG2 engine, or just stumbled upon it on accident. Is the game open world though? More open than any other IE game that's for sure, but there are natural barriers such as the powerful enemies that you mentioned, similar to Gothic, where you progres in exploration, as you progres in your character development. That ogre can be defeated on 1st level with the party that you have (it's tough, but doable), but it's related to a quest in Friendly Arm inn, so you can have Jaheira and Khalid with you as well.
They tell you why they want to investigate the mines - they've been send here to do so, we later can learn that similar to Montaron and Xzar, they have been sent by their Harper superiors. The game doesn't pretend that there's other way of progressing, the iron crisis right now takes the first seat in the story. The 2nd chapter opening even tells you that you don't know in what way you should connect the iron crisis to you, but it might shade some light on your story somehow. Besides, the iron crisis affects everyone in that region, including you. You can notice that when one your weapons break.

As I mentioned earlier, even in Candlekeep you can learn that the route is not safe, you just are experiencing it now. You want fast travel to the mines, but you also say that you'd get bashed if you go directly there. See, the game is designed so that before you reach the mines you get some equipment, experience, other potential party members. Tough enemies are not artificial barrier, this is natural barrier that you can overcome when you're better fit to do that. Artificial barrier is literary an invisible barrier that you can't go through no matter what. You don't know the rules, because you didn't pay attention/didn't read: the manual, character creation, tutorial area trainings and quests. If you don't care about that then you don't care about the game, so why do you blame the game's design when the game gives you hints and recommendations, but you choose to ignore that? I'm willing to help anyone with BG1, but if you don't care it's really hard to help.
Did you play the sequel before the first game? That easter-egg with pantaloons is not required to do by any means and I prefer that 100 exp. over some joke in the sequel expansion (it's not a trilogy yet). By the way, if you have pantaloons with you in Baldur's Gate there's a thief in Blushing Mermaid inn that will try to steal them from you, it's a funny dialogue.
So, too many side quests? If you don't want to do them, you don't need to, but then again you're complaining that the game is too hard, because of random encounters. Isn't it acutally more interesting that you get side quests in different locations instead of quest givers being clumped in one room? Did you play the sequel before the first game? I don't know what's wrong with people having different impression on you, especially if that person is an ignorant nobleman/woman.
It's not design-failure if it works and from your description it definately did. It's simply a well prepared assassin and is that a failure, because it's difficult? That's debatable. The game doesn't assume that you need a thief or a spell from the sequel (did you play it before the first game?), it's just putting an obstacle in your way and there are many options to solve that. To give a few hints: potion of clarity can be found in Candlekeep, Imoen usually has want of magic missles, Xzar has Larloch's minor drain, or you could simply pass by Tarnesh, enter the inn and face him after you get Jaheira and Khalid etc.
This is just a hyperbole, but as you can see there's quite a few side quests to do and if you complete all of them, you'd get more than enough ready for the mines. Assuming that a player doesn't know where all the side quests are and how to solve them, they'll get decently prepared for the mines, while they still be challenging. Having other potenetial companions means that you have a choice and don't need to stick to the ones that you've met earlier, adds to the replay value in my opinion.
Books add to the lore of the world, makes it more believable, I guess. Not everything has to be related to the player and their story, there are other characters, organizations etc. in the Forgotten Realms. You didn't learn to not touch books, not read scrolls and skip the dialogues - you chose to ignore that, because especially scrolls/letters and dialogues contain a lot of information about the story. No wonder you don't get it, if you choose to ignore it. See, this game is much subtler than the "in-your-face" sequel, here the world is much more fleshed out due to those books, gossips, even item descriptions.
The book about Bhaal doesn't spoil anything, it doesn't mention the time of troubles and Bhaal spawn. Chosen of Mystra tells you more about Eminster, I don't know where you get the "tells you that you play the game" from?

Oh my, no wonder you got so confused, when you choose to ignore the scrolls and the dialogues. Zentharim have nothing to do with Black Talon. Iron Throne managed to hire two mercenary orgniazations, who actually don't like each other: Black Talon and Chill, they are also trying to put blame on the Zentharim for the iron crisis, later Sarevok also tries to put blame on the Shadow Thieves for murdering the Dukes, but we'll get to that later. Mulahey has been sent to Nashkel mines by Tazok, who's keeping both mercenary groups in check. Mulahey convinced the Kobolds to worship him and used them to poison the ore.
Earlier you camplained about too many side quests and now there's too few of them? Yes, there aren't too many quests in the Cloakwood, but keep in mind this is pretty wild and dangerous area and Iron Throne tried to hide the fact the the mine is put back to use.
It is Icarus actually, but got retconned to Irenicus in the sequel (did you play it before... yeah you probably did).
Again, too many side quests in the city? I thought that the game has already given us many hints that you can talk to everyone and some will give you quests, so yes the game does encourage players to discover it for themselves, you just chose to ignore that. I think that at this point the party should be able to handle the Iron Throne, so you can skip the side quests in the city, unless you ignored most of the areas. This is called having options, you can explore the wild areas, Baldur's Gate city and you will be rewarded for that, the game encourages to do that. You don't have to, but the game can get quite hard then.
I have difficulties understaning what you're trying to describe here, but I'll try my best. Dopplegangers were meant to destabilize the trading companies in the city, so that when the iron crisis is in full force, the local authorities will have to rely on the Iron Throne as the only option. The war with Amn was Sarevok's plan, I don't think that Rieltar and others wanted to go to a war.
I don't think that the player knows about Sarevok's betrayal yet, we go to Candlekeep to get evidence for the Iron Throne's plan, we discover Sarevok's plan after it's already in motion.
I don't know how to connect the doppelgangers to the religion, but nevemind. Now, the ring that Koveras gives you - it is just a +1 protection ring yes, but Koveras mentions that Gorion wanted you to have it. You can't sell it without leaving the library, and there are already guards waiting for you on the top and bottom floors, since after talking with Koveras he uses the doppelgangers to kill the Iron Throne leaders and frame you for that. The ring (plus the gold from Amn) is used as the evidence that you've been send by the Shadow Thieves from Amn to destabilize this region.
Sarevok didn't set the labirynth, it was already there and so was the Undercity. You are wanted for murder, so the Flaming Fist are after you, and after you expose Sarevok before the Dukes, there's only his close allies that still remain with him. Tamoko just loves him and cares for him, despite what he is, she at that time truly believes he could be saved. Unfortunately, Sarevok discovers that and she's forced to fight you instead, even though she knows that this won't end well for her. It's more about Tamoko truly caring for him, rather than Sarevok actually being a good guy.

So, yes you missed some major story elements, because it seems that you just didn't care for the game. How can you enjoy game's story, if you don't care?

@Tuthrick,

Thanks for your amazing contribution to the discussion. Reading them was a pleasure indeed.