Does order of party members matter in Might and Magic series?

Question

I've seen some walkthroughs/faqs/character-creation guides and some claim that the front character gets hit the most (I suppose "front character" means the left-most?). But in my experience, I can hardly say that's true. Also, official manual doesn't mention it. In MM7, it also seems that the party member order matters for bowmen - as the arrow flies from the left, middle or right, depending on the position. But that's about all I noticed.

So, could you please tell me more about the order of party members, particularly in MM6, MM7 and MM8?

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MM8: How, for @#$@#%'s sake, do you change the character party order?
In this thread, people said that party order has no effect in MM6, MM7 and MM8, but many online guides claim otherwise. :-(

Party Order and Switching
Here, people claim it affects XP gaining and geometry of ranged attacts

Might and Magic 7 focused fire issue
Here, they claim that starting in MM6, first and last positions are slightly more targeted by monsters.

Answer 1

So I asked at GOG forums and I finally got nice answers. Here is the best, by the user MalcolmMasher:

In Might and Magic 1-2, party order is very important, because some of the party will be in range to use melee weapons against the monsters, but typically not all of it.

In Might and Magic 3-5, the two party members furthest to the left are relevant to the Bash command, but I do not think party order matters in any other way. So put the characters with the best Might on the left side.

In Might and Magic 6-9, party order does not matter at all (except that, yes, when the leftmost character uses an arrow/spell it will start from the left area of the screen, and so on.)

Answer 2

Actually, in MM 3, and probably 4-5 and Swords of Xeen too, since they're all similar, party order also affects AC (Armor Class), according to the game manual. Characters to the right get increasing AC bonuses.

This is also mentioned here: http://www.gamefaqs.com/pc/564551-might-and-magic-iii-isles-of-terra/faqs/36599

PARTY ORDER The manual mentions this, but it bears repeating: characters farther to the right in the marching order get a bonus to armor class. You should therefore arrange your party in ascending order of squishiness from left to right.

I'm actually playing the game right now, but I can't confirm that party order alters AC in any way. I tried changing the order in my party and their AC numbers didn't change at all, so I guess either it doesn't actually happen or their character records don't function as well as they should.

In MM6 onward, I can't tell if order matters much, except for this: it seems that in MM7 there's a strange bug that causes dwarf clerics in a specific position (either 2nd or 3rd, can't recall exactly) to almost always be attacked first, leading to them dying very early in every battle. This bug is not confirmed anywhere but I've seen many people complaining about this happening to them.

Also note that in MM 7 (and therefore probably in 6 and 8 too) enemies have preferred targets according to their strategies and prejudices, so some will more often attack characters of a specific class, race, gender etc.