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[Blaze]

So I've started playing Jagged Alliance 2, with the 1.13 mod. So far the game has taken to repeatedly applying its implacable foot on my rather delicate derriere. It absolutely refuses to be gentle with me even though it's my first time.

Settings are:
Novice (Certainly doesn't feel like it)
New Skill Traits
IMP 6
Sci-Fi
All Terrorists/Weapon Caches
Tons of Guns
Enemies drop all Items
Progress speed of item choices: Very Slow
Bobby Ray's Selection: Awesome
Iron Man (Eh.)


My characters so far are:

My avatar (Stealth + minmaxed for combat)
Flo (Used only for training militia; her leadership has SKYROCKETED)
Ira (Scouting, binocs and that MP5K I got for killing Doreen)
Dimitri (Sniping with a salvaged SVD + grenades)
Gasket (For fixing all the equipment that drops)
Steroid (Currently stuck being bandaged)
Buns (Sniping with another SVD)

I took Drassan, but immediately had to retreat due to being zerg rushed right after. Instead rerouted to take Chitzena and managed to hold it. Found one of the caches and got a bunch of SVDs and a bunch of grenades (MFW smoke/stun/gas grenades don't fit in grenade pockets.). Managed to take back Drassan airport but Steroid got shot up due to it. Right now I've been running hit and runs attacks to pick off troops and steal equipment.

My main character has a Steyr AUG (SMG) to make use of all those glaser/match/AP/HP 9mm rounds that keep dropping. It's fully kitted out with attachments, other than that there's no real stellar equipment on my mercs.

It's day 7, I have $11000 with a $900 income. I'm pretty much deadlocked at this point; especially if enemy troops get tougher over time as I expect. What can I do now?

[sneakey pete]

Rifles, scopes and tactics. That extra damage smg ammo you have is actually worse than a nice 5.56mm round most of the time. Particularly if you can't hit anyone because you are woefully out of range. Possibly Gamey tactics if you're okay with it (eg, take drassen mine and airport, not the middle sector, build up militia/supplies/equipment, then take last sector)

[Delta Foxtrot]

Not going to help your current predicament, but if you ever start over you should consider turning off the Drassen counterattack. It wasn't in the original game and it's hard to defend against if you know what you're doing. You don't. So it's even harder.
There's seriously no shame in turning it off. Once you have Drassen you actually have an income base of sorts and can start doing stuff. Then the game starts getting fun. Having Drassen also enables you to finally order equipment for your mercs.

[chaoticag]

Yeah, I have no idea what they were thinking, having the Drassen counterattack on as default. Also, armor is good, since well, I remember Ira causing upwards of 200 damage on soldiers using glasser safety rounds on the torso, which are pretty much hollowpoints, but worse. Take a look at this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It pretty much is putting all that shot and making sure it doesn't get out the other end of a person by going all over the place in their body. Armor is very good at stopping that though.

[HARD]

you know some other good mods for Jagged Alliance 2 beside 1.13 mod?

or maby theres some mods for the new Jagged Alliance?

[Fikes]

The Drassen counter attack is bullshit. I am fairly decent at the game and ended up loading it so many times I finally got annoyed.

Check out my old (and failed) Let's Play if you want an idea of how I moved through the game.

As someone else said, as soon as possible start putting scopes on weapons.

Finally, always get Steroid.

[BlindKitty]

My most important advice (which got me from second to third difficulty level) - don't buy mercs for two weeks. Buy them for 24 hours, or for a week, and get your hands on non-standard income (I mean, go to San Mona and do ring fighting - you will need Blood to win all without savescumming - do the quest with leather shop (I won't tell anything more about at, as it would be spoilerish, but you can easily find walkthroughs for that), and kill Kingpin and steal his monies (that would probably need to wait for a moment)). This way you will be able to pay for above-standard mercs at the beginning, so you will be able to get Chitzena, fortify there, and get Drassen. As for the counterattack (it could be switched off? Never even noticed that ^^") - don't defend against it. It is futile. As soon as you get the mine, fall back to the airport, wait for the counterattack to come, and then counter-counterattack it. It's much easier that way.
Always keep your mercs behind cover. Never rush. Be patient. Be patient (I know, I'm repeating myself, it's that important). All the scopes on all the weapons (x4 scope is best all-rounder, x10 on the sniper rifles). Anything firing rifle bullet is better than everything firing pistol one (there are exceptions, but you won't notice them anytime soon, probably).
As for the mercs, I'm not saying I have a good setup, but I always get Barry Unger (he is cheap and repairs well at the start, and he learns extremely fast), and at least two high-marksmanship people (Buns is good for that, as she can patch some wound and is cheap, for example). I only used Steroid once, never went back to him, actually. Also, try to avoid getting conflicted mercs. It leads to problems.

[Zangi]

Also, try to avoid getting conflicted mercs. It leads to problems.

You actually can if you call em in at the same time... and have 2 separate teams that work away from each other.  Never merge the teams.

[sluissa]

IMP, Hitman, Buns and Steroid were my basic setup for a long time. I still almost always grab Buns but Hitman and Steroid find themselves switched out for others more and more. Still haven't found a great setup that works for everything, but never be afraid of grabbing too many medics. Most of them can fight well enough and you'll likely need the extra med kits they bring along with them until you get the airport up and running.

Add one more vote for turning off the drassen counter attack. They just seriously messed the game up there. Some of the veterans really enjoy it, but more often than not, they even game that system by putting off the battle until they're incredibly well equipped near the end game and can do silly things like line the entire edge of the map with mines and set up mortar positions. It could have worked okay as a plot point if they hadn't made it so huge. If it were just one or two standard patrols, it would be possible to do it, even for a beginner, but there's a reason it was taken out of the base game.

Chitzena isn't all that hard to take, even from the beginning, getting there is the problem as you have no real clean path to get there at the beginning, even if you have alternate forms of transport. It's always my second grab after Drassen.

Cambria is a good alternative lots of nice stuff there that makes it worth while to hold it. I personally never mess with Kingpin. Money isn't a huge problem for me once I have a couple of towns and Kingpin, while not necessarily all that hard, is just one more extra risk to take. San Mona has a lot of nice stuff in it to play around with though, just try not to do things to piss people off if you're unwilling to face the consequences. Finally, this isn't a JRPG, while it is a war torn battlefield, and some amount of scavenging is expected, if you find a stash of something that seems too good to be true, it's likely it is and there will probably be some consequences if you were to touch said stash. Happens several times throughout the game.

[hikarikami]

Jagged Alliance 2 is one of my favourite games, and I agree that it can be extremely difficult at times. One little mistake can end up with half your mercs dead, and the rest limping away in defeat. All part of it's charm I guess.

Some of the things I found useful were getting familiar with the "View cover" and "View line of sight" buttons. I can't remember exactly which button is which, but I think it was the home and end keys. Use these to make sure you have safe cover from all sides, and eliminate as many blind spots as possible. Then slowly edge in on enemy locations. Some maps are much easier fighting at night, as it can lead to soldiers grouping up in tighter areas and gives you more control over exactly who you want to fight.

I agree with the Dressen counter attack. Very difficult to defend against. There are a whole bunch of options you can tweak in the 1.13 .ini file that will let you tailor the game. If you want more of a vanilla flavoured game, that reduces some of the difficulty and/or amount of macro management, I would suggest turning things off like the option that allows the enemy to call in reinforcements and ambush's from attached zones.

As for other mods, there are a whole bunch of them, but not all of them play well with 1.13. They can also be a real pain to setup, and many of them are a little rough around the edges or lack of English translation. Some of the better ones I've tried that were mostly finished include Urban Chaos, Diedrianna lives and Renegade Republic. The bear pit has a lot of information and resources, but the structure of the forums is quite messy and it's hard to find what you you're looking for. Have a browse through http://www.bears-pit.com/board/ubbthreads.php/forums/20/1/JA2_Full_Mods_Sequels.html for more.

[Sonlirain]

The Drassen counterattack is BS and i have no idea why they made it happen even in low diff levels.

Also if you want a different take on the game then maybe try Livefire?
Its a official "sequel" (more like a large mod tho).

In other news...
Gumpy can turn into a GOD due to his inherent high inteligence... if you are willing to spend the time and money on him.
Steroid can be a great and cheap merc if you bump his dex... it might take a while because of his lowish int tho.
I think you could trade a female merc to some rednecks for a stash of weapons.

[LoSboccacc]

uhm I never had problem on the counter attack, only it was annoying because of all the guy I have to kill it was taking forever.

the important thing for that is to select mercs by their equipement and make sure you make use of spotter/shooter tactics while making a fighting retreat

enemy usually run around all the place when they don't see you so it is transform in a turkey shooting.. the only thing is that you get the counterattack before having a chance of securing enough ammo for everyone so you need to make every shot count.

[Stworca]

Couldn't you take 6 IMP's in 1.13? It is somewhat gamey, but thats a reliable group of mercs in that case. Don't be ashamed if you play on the lowest setting, JA has a rather steep curve, and even "novice" (was it?) has its challenges. While the Drassen attack is doable even with a some M.E.R.C. trash the likes of Flo and Biff, i recommend avoiding it in initial playthroughs.

uhm I never had problem on the counter attack, only it was annoying because of all the guy I have to kill it was taking forever.

[Sensei]

I just got JA2 recently and checked in this thread for the first time. While disabling the counterattack, reinforcements and the like seems like a good idea, I went into the JA2_Options.ini and found they were already disabled by default. If they're on by default, is that because didn't get the mini-update?

[Moogie]

I should really get back into this. I didn't play it very much, but I enjoyed it for a while-- the only problem was, I hated the sheer amount of equipment and variety of guns/ammo types. It just seemed overkill for a game. I'm sure there was a setting I could disable to make that aspect of it similar, but it's been a while now since I looked.

(Ho-hum, posting replies in many threads to help get the bandodger's thread off the first page...)