Hmm, well it was a combination of things. I eventually made it through, but there are other random encounters I have very much difficulty with now (like a huge shitload of wolves). And to be clear, this ambush was the one where you meet Zevran.
For one, again, I'm playing on Xbox. It's really hard to target some of the enemies in the distance (like the annoying mage)! There is no overview camera mode (I believe they cut this, because a preview had it in the console version! Bastards!) I was also almost out of poultrices. To make matters worse, I overwrote my save game and the last autosave was at least 30 minutes back.
So in the end, it took me maybe 15-20 reloads until I got lucky again. There wasn't really any avoiding this encounter, neither, because, hey, I need to travel to some place eventually. Overall, I'm finding it a bit difficult to lay out complex tactics on the Xbox game, especially targeting.
I'm playing on normal. It wasn't really that hard until now. Sure, some encounters took a couple of tries, but I could adjust my plan and win. I probably also need to spend some more time on the tactics slots, possibly equipment, too.
Another thing, my inventory is almost full (70/70) the whole time. Either I'm an obsessive collector or I'm carrying way too many useless things. When do you actually get to use those crafting items? I'm 25 hours in!!