Steam Sale, JA2 Questions

[Beastro]

Mostly given up on buying games on steam, but still keep an eye on when my wishlist has things drop to around $5 or less and the Wizardry pack and JA2 Gold did among a few other little things that stood out.

First question is: Wtf is the difference between JA2 Gold and Wildfire? A quick peek around only brought up how buggy Wildfire is and to stick with Gold but no explanation about what the exact differences between the two are.

Second question comes from searching for the above: I caught some comments that mods won't work with Steam JA2 Gold due to the protection they put on the files, but from posts from over 10 years ago: Is this still the way things work?

Third question is about JA1 Gold and if there is anything similar to the issues from the above questions effecting it as well?

Forth: Any good mods for JA1 Gold I should look into that are good like JA2 1.13?

Fifth: Should I play though either first going through them vanilla to appreciate them and what the mods improve upon or go straight into em with the mods installed? My habit, thanks to Bethesda and Paradox, is to resist vanilla playing and look for mods for anything I know might offer them.

 

[Lilura]

I would not bother with Jagged Alliance; just go straight to JA2 which is better in every way. The best starting point for vanilla JA2 is my recent write-up, ongoing. I don't recommend 1.13 for a first run.

 

[Althorion]

You can go with 1.13 with your first playthrough, but you need to change its difficulty settings to non-ridiculous—by default it can make enemy forces up to twenty times larger, possibly even more. You need to know the game well to be able to take that and it forces the trial-and-error, save-and-reload approach I hate. For your first playthrough I would also recommend sticking to original ballistic mechanics.

 

[Antigoon]

2. I've played 1.13 using a non-Steam version of JA2 Gold and it worked without a hitch, there shouldn't be any problems for the Steam version, although someone who actually has it on Steam will probably give you a definitive answer.

Yeah works just fine...

 

[Beastro]

Thanks for the posts all. My laptops mobo died soon after I posted this while still installing the new games and my PCs keyboard died a few days before that so I was without a means of replying until I got a new laptop on sale (yes, I don't have a mobile phone and I plan on going as long without one of those digital ball and chains as I can manage).