Incline Jagged Alliance 2 Help

[smaug]

I'm starting JA2 for the first time, I know there are mods for the game.

What difficulty?

What mods, settings, etc. (Ease of use, such as FPS, other qualities)

 

[Strange Fellow]

Stracciatella. Normal difficulty. No aliens. Tons of Guns. That's pretty much it. Take Barry. Have fun.

 

[Shaewaroz]

First play Vanilla with Normal difficulty. After finishing it you will appreciate some of the changes 1.13 mod makes to the game, but I wouldn't recommend trying it on your first playthrough. Maybe grab a resolution mod if needed.

 

[Covenant]

Experienced Difficulty, Vanilla (or Stracciatella, which is just Vanilla with bugfixes AFAIK) for your first playthrough. Sci-fi mode, as you may as well experience the extra content before dismissing it (and it's interesting, even if not the best segment of the game). Tons of Guns shouldn't be too bad for a Vanilla/Stracciatella playthrough, but if/when you migrate to 1.13 you may want to disable it (see below).

After your first playthrough, try 1.13. It adds so much to the game, particularly the new inventory, interrupt and trait systems. It fixes loads of annoying things about the original game, like randomnly getting permanent statloss with no way to recover from it. It's absolutely full of gun porn though, to a ridiculous extent, and IIRC disabling Tons of Guns doesn't even make that much of a dent in it. It's a little overwhelming at first but you'll soon adjust.

A few of the better mercs to hire for a first-timer: Raven, Buzz, Thor, Barry, and Igor. After your first game, you'll probably want to experiment with some of the others. Unfortunately, merc balance is one of the weaker points - there are some that are just plain better, and others that basically amount to a challenge run. Still, they've all got their own personality and a bunch of funny lines, and the VA is great, so you can't really go too far wrong so long as you remember to take a decent medic.

Prepare for the best game you'll ever play in your life. And keep an eye out for a cameo by a certain 'thal codexer.

EDIT: Forgot to talk about the saving options.

For vanilla, don't choose Ironman, because A) it's insufficient and B) The game sometimes crashes or permanently hangs on enemy turns. Stracciatella probably fixes this, I don't know. 1.13 generally does, depending on the version you go for, but it's still worth saving frequently to be safe. If you want to limit yourself, enforce it yourself, and just use the in-combat saves as a guard against crashing.

What I mean by insufficient is that the option just stops you saving and reloading in combat, which is a restriction designed for puny babies. Once you've done a few successful playthroughs and you've earned yourself a pair of real testicles, try a 'real' Ironman run where you never reload to avoid your mistakes or misfortune - at all. You'll have to enforce it yourself, obviously. Not worth attempting until you have enough experience with the game to win difficult combats, but it adds a sense of high-stakes tension that can't be matched anywhere.

 

[smaug]

Will you have the ability to create your own mercs, or is it all recruiting?

 

[Jacob]

Hire Lynx for a day, make your early game less frustrating.

 

[Strange Fellow]

A few of the better mercs to hire for a first-timer: Raven, Buzz, Thor, Barry, and Igor.

This is Buns erasure and I won't stand for it. She's too good. You're also vastly overexaggerating the difference between the best and the less good mercs. AIM has no bad choices and you'll be fine with any outfit that covers all useful skills.

Will you have the ability to create your own mercs, or is it all recruiting?

You create one merc at the beginning, who you don't have to pay and who will never leave you. The rest you'll have to recruit.

 

[Jacob]

Will you have the ability to create your own mercs, or is it all recruiting?

You can create one merc, but to be honest it's not really important. You get more free soldiers later.

 

[smaug]

this better be the greatest game of all time, or I'm coming back for some scalps

 

[Jacob]

Come on, Strange Fellow, you know the pistols couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Come on, Strange Fellow, you know the pistols couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.

That's what makes it fun! Ambidextrous mercs make it even funner. Granted, it's been a while since I played vanilla (and you should know that 1.13 with pistol-specced mercs is a goddamn non-stop supercharged hoot), but you'll never have trouble hitting the next square over, which is where you'll first catch sight of the enemy if you're doing it right.

 

[Jacob]

Come on, Strange Fellow, you know the pistols couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.

That's what makes it fun! Ambidextrous mercs make it even funner. Granted, it's been a while since I played vanilla (and you should know that 1.13 with pistol-specced mercs is a goddamn non-stop supercharged hoot), but you'll never have trouble hitting the next square over, which is where you'll first catch sight of the enemy if you're doing it right.

It can be fun, in close quarters. But even starting from Drassen you'd encounter lots of open fields, where it relies too much on random chance to hit anything. And to me, it's weird seeing guerilla fighters having a pistol fight against local military like some 19th century cowboys.

In close quarters it would be more fun to play stealth anyway.

 

[Shaewaroz]

this better be the greatest game of all time, or I'm coming back for some scalps

It is definitely among the best squad-based tactics games of all time. The real question is whether you're evolved enough to properly appreciate it's greatness.

 

[Popot]

Get a merc with hand to hand capabilities and go to San Mona for easy money.
Get someone from M.E.R.C. like Razor, they'll have some top mercs for the late game.

 

[CaffeineConquistador]

Gummy ain’t bad either, if you take the time to mold him. Buns makes the best trainer for him, hands down.

Spoiler

Hehe, really, don’t even keep them on the same map.

 

[The Red Knight]

Ignore merc recommendations (all can be made useful and you can hire more at any time if you will need a specialist later on), pick mercs you like voices (or looks and bios) of as you'll be hearing them a lot.

Read that recon file in your laptop for some details on towns.
Some junk items may be useful.
If you're a storyfag, Ira offers some input on towns if she's present when you visit them for the first time (her joining is not really a spoiler since you can get her right at the beginning).
You can retreat.

Also figure out where to go and what to do next on your own, it's part of the fun.
___
Additional merc creating is possible with mods but existing mercs are more interesting.

 

[Lilura]

Here is my write-up on the 63 recruitables in Jagged Alliance 2. Let me know if you find any errors and I'll credit you.

 

[sser]

Are there any resolution-only mods for JA2? I can get the original game to run flawlessly which is pretty great, but the resolution is horrific. If I install 1.13, I end up getting this bizarre graphical issue:

That or I'm missing something within 1.13, or perhaps installed it wrong or something. Running it from Steam; the GOG version is a nightmare for some reason.


Edit: ended up swapping out of 1.13 entirely and went to Scianutella (sic).

 

[Ol' Willy]

Finally started JA2; this took me a while. 1.12, Straciatella, Easy difficulty for a first time - but reckoning that it's gonna be too easy anyway, I started a gimmick run without hiring any mercs. Created my guy, hired Ira, took Drassen; then hired Dimitry and took Alma. It was hard but well worth it - there I found SVD, G3 and AK74 which set my team well equipped for the further conquests. Later hired Dynamo and Shank in Tixa, and because this guys are awful I sent them back to Alma and hired the only merc - Hitman. His profile says that he wants to became a combat instructor - and hey, buddy, that's what I want to offer you! Set him to train this two goofs while I capture towns with my core team. Hired Hamous, but his marksmanship is lagging.

Well, game quickly devolved into sniper-camping fest. Find position, spot enemies, aggro them, headshot them. My merc has ~95 mrk and SVD, Dimitry 88 and AUG, Ira 87 and M16 knock-off.

Here's the question. After playing it myself and reading some opinions I came to conclusion that the two most effective tactics in JA2 - similarly to it's spiritual successor Silent Storm and partially Fallout Tactics - is either a team of sneaky dudes who crawl by the night and shank enemies or a band of snipers who headshot people all across the map.
The only options for the safe spotting are either stealth or big range. You can't peak around the corners, use mirrors or some devices. Your guy fully steps around the corner, gets interrupt and gets shredded like a Swiss cheese. You can't peek through the keyholes or at least open doors from the side - your guy opens the door while standing right in front of it and gets lead overdose through the interrupt.
This makes house to house fighting completely irrelevant for a player. If you get sucked into such combat, it's better to retreat and start anew. If you see enemies camping in the building and don't have any explosives - retreat as well. Latter wasn't a problem in Silent Storm where you can mow down walls and doors with machineguns.
So, is there a way to make house to house combat possible without heavy casualties? I did a little research and found out that 1.13 has fixed suppressive fire function and it's already closer to what I seek.

 

[Kalin]

lol git gud

 

[luj1]

I love it when people start asking, 'How should I play? What difficulty? Which options? Which build for first time?'

Come on kid, have some balls.

 

[Wizfall]

So, is there a way to make house to house combat possible without heavy casualties? I did a little research and found out that 1.13 has fixed suppressive fire function and it's already closer to what I seek.

While i will absolutely not recommend to install 1.13 (Straciatella is the way to go, almost mandatory even) for a first playthrough, it adds a lot things like moving sideways weapon raised so you take corners facing the right side and avoid being interrupted (most time...).
You can also open doors from one square from the side and not only form the front. Otherwise you can use smoke grenade
Beware 1.13 though not because it's buggy (always been very stable for me) but because it's very unbalanced on many levels.
The good thing is 1.13 is almost totally adjustable but it requires lot of "work" and you must know what you are doing.
Edit : in case it's not clear 1.13 is awesome, i love it and i will never play without now, it's really not noob's friendly, like at all.

 

[The Red Knight]

Have you tried throwing rocks or otherwise applying tactical noise making?

 

[Ol' Willy]

While i will absolutely not recommend to install 1.13 (Straciatella is the way to go, almost mandatory even) for a first playthrough, it adds a lot things like moving sideways weapon raised so you take corners facing the right side and avoid being interrupted (most time...).
You can also open doors from one square from the side and not only form the front. Otherwise you can use smoke grenade

That's exactly what I wanted. Thing is, I come to TRPGs with the wrong expectations most of the time. I want something like turn-based isometric Brothers in Arms: you spot some naughty men, unleash a barrage of suppressive fire on them and while enemies are properly pinned down you move your other guys to flank them; moving your men forward only when the other group is laying down a suppressive fire - you know, standard small squad tactics, four Fs and leapfrogging and stuff like that.

Instead I usually get "find a good position, aggro some people and give headshots with a discount until nobody moves". Gets tiresome after a while.

 

[Ol' Willy]

I love it when people start asking, 'How should I play? What difficulty? Which options? Which build for first time?'

Come on kid, have some balls.

If you're talking to me you're way off and on your own now, I have no problems with the difficulty. I can make a stealthy Imp or hire some stealth dudes and shank enemy soldiers without even getting hit, but I'm not very interested in that kind of gameplay. I can and actually do away with the sniping, headshotting people from far away. The problem is that it is not the kind of gameplay I want from a tactical game.

Not very tactical, eh?