I prefer magic-heavy parties, but not pure magic ones, so my default parties in MM6 are APCS or ACSS, but occasionally DCSS.

APCS is the party which has the best "fit" to the artifacts, relics and other goodies available in the game. You can acquire two copies each of Morgan, Igraine, and Guinevere, so the Archer gets a Morgan, the Paladin gets one Igraine, the Cleric gets the other Igraine and one Guinevere, and the Sorcerer gets the remaininder, Guinevere and Morgan. Nothing wasted. The Paladin gets Hades, and the Archer, who cannot use a shield, gets Poseidon. This party is pretty well self-contained, and doesn't normally need to make much use of the Temples' healing capabilities, even when utilising the wells etc, which kill, stone, or eradicate the characters.

ACSS is capable of doing much more damage, especially if you use the v1.0 exploit which allows the druid (and the Archer if you feel like it) to use Dark Magic, and there is another exploit which allows the druid, sorcerer, etc. to use heavy weapons and heavy armour. However, I don't normally utilise these. Although it is much more lethal, this party needs to make rather more use of curative scrolls or the Temples. It also cannot make full use of the lovely armour and weapons that are found. When using two sorcerers, I concentrate on building up the Water Magic skills for one, and the Air Magic skills for the other.

I normally use two NPCs, a scholar so that I don't require the identify skill, and an instructor, to boost XP.

I routinely Mephisto the cadavers of high-level monsters to get the rings I want, but I rely on the natural occurrence of boots, helms, gauntlets, etc. to provide the other boosters to improve resistances and regenerate hit points and mana. My most-used combat spells in this game are Shrapmetal at contact range, and Ring of Fire. I tend to use ranged combat whenever possible, espcially when fighting monsters which age or drain the party.

I tend to use the teleporter to Dragonsand fairly early – usually when my party is at level 12–16 or thereabouts – but I don't usually zoom all over the map to collect horseshoes early. I have done so on occasions, though, and when I've done this, I've hired a gatemaster and visited all the reachable fountains so that Town Portal works fully as soon as I get it.

As I say, it depends entirely how I feel when I start. The disadvantage of running too powerful a party is that the game becomes boring, so I tend to avoid parties like CSSS.