What are your strategic approach in Jagged Alliance 2?

[Zerth]

Motivated by all the praise JA2 has. I decided to acquire it at GOG.com and installed in my notebook since my win10 desktop PC's compatibility sucks. Currently enjoying so far, never played a rpg tactics game with so many freedom and possibilities, plus details like some Merc funny dialogues and Deionarra slapping her subordinate are hilarious.

Anyway, got some insight reading the manual and wiki. And started in Experienced difficulty with a I.M.P Merc focused in leadership and mechanic skills, Igor and Blood. At first, my strategy was mostly one shotting enemies with stealthy throwable knives. But after I managed to afford more mercs and find some Ruger Mini 14, changed my strategy to a more straightforward and less exciting campingfest long range assault, aligning every merc to achieve interrupts more often and advancing slowly.
I thinking in switch back to my stealth approach but I can't find camo and night vision, then when I lay down in order to improve my mercs by training or train militia I receive annoying messages from Enrico scolding me for my lack of iniciative.

So, Which kind of Strategy do you use to vanquish JA 2? Is melee practical in some way? How do you cope with those Open areas with only trees, bushes, road and enemy troops with long range weaponry?..

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[spectre]

It's been some time since I played vanilla, if your problem is in lack of specific items (NV, silencers, etc.), the solution is to check the shop in San Mona and Bobby Ray's "used items" tab. Sometimes they have rare stuff, but it's better still
to go for Grumm which often has nice stuff in the crates. SAM sites are also good, and there are also weapon caches hidden in the wild, but generally progressing with the liberation will open up new items for you.

Training by "training" is pretty much a waste of time unless you get a guy with "teaching" and good stats. Even then, it should be considered a side activity for bringing cheap mercs up to usable levels.

JA2 is quite sandboxy, so just play it the way you want. Long range shooting and mortaring stuff is the safe bet approach, but I understand that it gets kinda boring after a time. Night fighting and silent kills are pretty exciting as you probably know already.
Remember though, NVG and camo is not the be all and end all of night fighting. Use sound and flares to lure enemies into killzones, it's fun too.
Melee is pretty much viable at night and in cities for taking out isolated targets, though you will need to gang up. You'll deal massive damage with proper skills.

Unarmed is also fun, cause it lets you "steal" items. It's quite unintuitive and poorly documented in the game, but the idea is to knock the guy unconscious with karate chops,
then you can ctrl+click to steal the poor chap's items (much better results than what you get on a kill). It's a bit risky and you need to gang up on lone guys, but it's another way to have fun.

All in all, yeah, just have fun with the game and, strategically speaking, focus on liberating the capital. It's easy to get lost in the game grinding stuff that's not really important.

 

[Zerth]

It's been some time since I played vanilla, if your problem is in lack of specific items (NV, silencers, etc.), the solution is to check the shop in San Mona and Bobby Ray's "used items" tab. Sometimes they have rare stuff, but it's better still
to go for Grumm which often has nice stuff in the crates. SAM sites are also good, and there are also weapon caches hidden in the wild, but generally progressing with the liberation will open up new items for you.

Alright I'll go after grumm after taking out all Cambria.

Training by "training" is pretty much a waste of time unless you get a guy with "teaching" and good stats. Even then, it should be considered a side activity for bringing cheap mercs up to usable levels.

No wonder why It takes me so long to improve mercs. At least Ira is a good dex teacher. What a time sink.

JA2 is quite sandboxy, so just play it the way you want. Long range shooting and mortaring stuff is the safe bet approach, but I understand that it gets kinda boring after a time. Night fighting and silent kills are pretty exciting as you probably know already.
Remember though, NVG and camo is not the be all and end all of night fighting. Use sound and flares to lure enemies into killzones, it's fun too.
Melee is pretty much viable at night and in cities for taking out isolated targets, though you will need to gang up. You'll deal massive damage with proper skills.
Unarmed is also fun, cause it lets you "steal" items. It's quite unintuitive and poorly documented in the game, but the idea is to knock the guy unconscious with karate chops,
then you can ctrl+click to steal the poor chap's items (much better results than what you get on a kill). It's a bit risky and you need to gang up on lone guys, but it's another way to have fun.

Damn. I wasted so many chances to steal when Blood does those cool capoeira kick and knock down wounded enemies. It's a little complicated though since I have to put Blood hidden and near enough to perform his kick while I spot and weaken the enemy with other merc.

I'll probably stick with night fighting and lure. Since daylight fightings are very risky right now when enemy troops armed with rifles discover you position and gang up . I have to waste many days healing my mercs after an assault like that.

i'll take that in account thanks.

 

[laclongquan]

One strategic approach is to keep San Mona and the upper left town/mine. Sweep the northern areas clean of low level patrols. Sell loots there, and buy/repair second handed stuffs. After having enough equipments, start a medium campaign: Capture San Mona. Capture the 1st SAM site. Rescue the heli pilot. Capture the upper left SAM site. This campaign should allow you free range of heli movement in the upper north with access to SAN Mona shop for easy income and airport for expensive online orders.

 

[Burning Bridges]

A good approach is to attack at night and use two mercs with night speciality.

I usually try to take Cambria first because it gives access to better gear. From Chitzena it's possible to go to Estoni to get gasoline, and to take on the Hillbilies which is not too hard and usually pays off well in equipment.

I usually leave Drassen aside at the start because I dont miss much. In the long run you will need Cambria, Chitzena and Drassen for income.

I also try to have at least one guy with a rifle early on. This is possible by hiring Lynx or this annoying British broad for 1 day and then keep their stuff. It is a big advantage to have long range capabilities at the beginning but you need a good marksman. In the hands of Biff or Ira rifles are pretty useless, and even mediocre marksmen will miss too many shots. If you have long range weapons is important that you also hit.

 

[Zerth]

So far I have control over Chitzena, Cambria, Drassen and 3 SAM sites. Reaper's sniping skills comes in handy. I'll try to take over Grumm but first I always attempt to wipe out patrols nearby, because no sooner I capture a town or mine, always some part of a town is retaked by nearby troops. This neverending flow of Deionarra's army attacks are really giving me a headache. So annoying.

And I can't fight elite troops at night right now. They are very difficult to spot before they spot you.

I'm thinking in contract 6 more mercs for a second squad.

One strategic approach is to keep San Mona and the upper left town/mine. Sweep the northern areas clean of low level patrols. Sell loots there, and buy/repair second handed stuffs. After having enough equipments, start a medium campaign: Capture San Mona. Capture the 1st SAM site. Rescue the heli pilot. Capture the upper left SAM site. This campaign should allow you free range of heli movement in the upper north with access to SAN Mona shop for easy income and airport for expensive online orders.

That's what I did except for San Mona. How do you capture San Mona? Killing the Kingpin?

A good approach is to attack at night and use two mercs with night speciality.

I usually try to take Cambria first because it gives access to better gear. From Chitzena it's possible to go to Estoni to get gasoline, and to take on the Hillbilies which is not too hard and usually pays off well in equipment.

I usually leave Drassen aside at the start because I dont miss much. In the long run you will need Cambria, Chitzena and Drassen for income.

I also try to have at least one guy with a rifle early on. This is possible by hiring Lynx or this annoying British broad for 1 day and then keep their stuff. It is a big advantage to have long range capabilities at the beginning but you need a good marksman. In the hands of Biff or Ira rifles are pretty useless, and even mediocre marksmen will miss too many shots. If you have long range weapons is important that you also hit.

Indeed I'm sticking to night fights since every trooper has a rifle and they don't miss in daylight. Gasoline in Estoni? Hillbillies in Arulco? lol I will check that town later.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Those are all spoilers, it should be enough if you know there is a lot of shit like that all over the map. That's what makes the game so great.

Also look out for a certain icecream truck driven by a guy called Hamous ...

 

[spectre]

I see you're taking things slow. Are you by any chance slowed down by militia training? Ira is great at it once she gains some leadership, but you may want to get another trainer just to speed things up a little.
Overall, a high leadership merc (try Len for good money, might get Raider since you already have his wife, just keep him away from Hitman) is also quite useful when talking to people, might open up a few quests for you.
It is also possible to recruit an oddbal merc or two this way.

Loking at your balance, it indeed looks like the right moment to get a second team.
You have plenty of money, so remember, liking a guy's voice actor is a perfectly legitimate reason for hiring.
Shadow might be a guy you're looking for if you want to go in stealthy, Stephen is also trained in Night Ops and overall good value for the money (high wisdom means he'll improve a bit faster, decent at training).
Top off with Fox and Wolf, and you should have an efficient and self-reliant team with all the bases covered. You can also use Dimitri there, he's good with throwing knives for nighttime fun, so he'll fit in with the rest.

Looks like you're trying to make a rock cry blood by training Flo and Biff, they have their uses, mostly as pack mule duty (Flo gets slightly better deals when buying and selling guns in san mona, it's hinted at, but not explicitly - sometimes every line of that bio matters),
but I'd recommend to turn your attention towards Razor and maybe Gasket (he'll bitch about working with ruskies, iirc, so only if you need a spare repairman). Razor doesn't look like much, but he has excellent physical stats, so you basically only
need to raise his marksmanship to decent levels to get a nice bang for your buck. He is also psychotic, which gives a hidden chance to hit bonus - it should be a bit easier than it looks. A real fixer upper, that guy, though he would serve you better earlier.
Yeah, he looks like a dedicated knifeman character, but that's not the end of it.

That's what I did except for San Mona. How do you capture San Mona? Killing the Kingpin?

I think he meant "control" instead of capture. You can't actually capture san mona but there's a bit of stuff to do there, quest wise - save a girl, do some ring fighting, but the town will stay neutral. it's main practical use remains paying visits to Tony.
I havent' done this in a while, but iirc in vanilla killing the kingpin only turns the whole town hostile.

All in all, the second team should serve you well to explore the map a little bit and maybe gain some territories. There are interesting locations to be found besides the main towns - if you see a group of enemies standing in the wilderness away from the main roads,
it might be a weapon cache (they're randomly generated).

Strategically speaking, Grumm is your next logical target. It's a rough fight, but you should find lots of good stuff. You might want to move your militia training team there to help and dig in.

 

[C.H.A.R.L.I.E]

Night ops is pretty much popamole and boring in vanilla if you ask me. With a merc like Shadow or a custom night ops merc you can easily headshot/oneshot everyone with a silenced SMG and they will never notice you.

I prefer daytime fights with a nice assault team. The best IMP merc in vanilla is an autoweapons expert with psychotic personality. Hire Gus for a day to get his armor and G41. On 1.13 i allways pick throwing on my autoweapon mercs but with the simplified mechanics of vanilla you can safely equip your AR with a talon without much detrimental effects.

If you want a strong start you can arm/disarm explosives until your wisdom, agility and dexterity are at 90. This will usually get you level 3-5 right out of Omerta!

As for mercs, Grunty and Buns are probably the best 2 starting mercs - Grunty is a rifleman and Buns is a sniper/medic. Then its your choice between Barry and Stereoid although i recommend Barry. Other good mercs are Buzz and Sidney, but they are a bit pricey. You also need to hire one hand-to-hand merc for a day. I recommend Bull.

Once you're finished in Omerta send Bull to San Mona and your assault team to Drassen. Capture the airport. By now Bull should be arrived in San Mona. Go to the bar with the boxing ring and bet the maximum amount (5000) each fight. After you won the 3 fights, go to the old mine and steal Kingpings secret money. You can also sell whatever equipment you didn't need from Omerta.

With the airport captured and kingpins money, equip all your mecs with the best stuff from Bobby Rays, then proceed to steamroll through Arulco. Once your'e finished with that, install 1.13 and play the real game!

 

[Zerth]

I see you're taking things slow. Are you by any chance slowed down by militia training? Ira is great at it once she gains some leadership, but you may want to get another trainer just to speed things up a little.
Overall, a high leadership merc (try Len for good money, might get Raider since you already have his wife, just keep him away from Hitman) is also quite useful when talking to people, might open up a few quests for you.
It is also possible to recruit an oddbal merc or two this way.

Yes, spent quite time training militia with IMP merc, fully healing mercs, and retaking some areas. I sent Ira to the SAM site near drassen to train militia then put Dimitri as her dexterity student. His low wisdom doesn't help much tho. It's so painfully slow.I thought that with an expert in teaching trait she would be a fast trainer. Is because she has low leadership?.

I thought this game was meant to complete it at your own pace. But It seems that the more you delay deidranna's assassination the harder it gets (every time I make progress get a cutscene where She bitchslap Elliot and order him to send more elite troops, can't be anecdotal) and Enrico grows very impacient.

Loking at your balance, it indeed looks like the right moment to get a second team.
You have plenty of money, so remember, liking a guy's voice actor is a perfectly legitimate reason for hiring.
Shadow might be a guy you're looking for if you want to go in stealthy, Stephen is also trained in Night Ops and overall good value for the money (high wisdom means he'll improve a bit faster, decent at training).
Top off with Fox and Wolf, and you should have an efficient and self-reliant team with all the bases covered. You can also use Dimitri there, he's good with throwing knives for nighttime fun, so he'll fit in with the rest.

Shadow is unavailable most times I surf through AIM resumes. Mmm Stephen looks promising, Fidel sounds amusing and the guys with austrian accent too. Quite choices I have now that I can afford It. That "Magic" fellow too, but he seems like a late game god tier merc, too expensive .

Looks like you're trying to make a rock cry blood by training Flo and Biff, they have their uses, mostly as pack mule duty (Flo gets slightly better deals when buying and selling guns in san mona, it's hinted at, but not explicitly - sometimes every line of that bio matters),
but I'd recommend to turn your attention towards Razor and maybe Gasket (he'll bitch about working with ruskies, iirc, so only if you need a spare repairman). Razor doesn't look like much, but he has excellent physical stats, so you basically only
need to raise his marksmanship to decent levels to get a nice bang for your buck. He is also psychotic, which gives a hidden chance to hit bonus - it should be a bit easier than it looks. A real fixer upper, that guy, though he would serve you better earlier.
Yeah, he looks like a dedicated knifeman character, but that's not the end of it.

rock cry blood training Flo and Biff? No god no. I only contracted them as auxiliar militia trainers to keep my militia numbers capped in every controlled town. Right now they are improving leadership. Flo is annoying, when the area where she currently stay is attacked I have to order her retreat to a place nearby since she can't fight. In result, She has a nervous breakdown and lowers her morale.

I used Razor very early for a week. Interesting fellow to have around. I gave him a machete and hacked my way to victory in chitzena and low level patrols at night. Aside of dimitri's throwing knives of course. Eventually I replaced him with blood, but that guy left me after two weeks because he had to attend soon to his vasectomy...

Strategically speaking, Grumm is your next logical target. It's a rough fight, but you should find lots of good stuff. You might want to move your militia training team there to help and dig in.

Will do. I dont want to waste more time so I'm going to put every teacher there and keep exploring.

.........

Popamole? Are not those games like Gear of War ? Anyway. Right now I have not one-shot anyone with rifles, even with reaper, maybe because Reaper is currently using a M24 and that weapon is quite mediocre, but It's the only longest range I have available.


Mmmm Didn't tried much that strategy Mid range auto weapons in daylight. i played like that with Ice, but was quite risky with all those campers armed with ruger mini 14.
How do you cope with daylight fights? In a roadside scenario with no structures and not coverage except trees. I have to go like a paranoid sniper aligning my mercs every tile I advance because get interrupted by riflemen in plain daylight is pretty much stand to watch one of your merc being lowered with 80% less health. Game over, man, Game Over!

Playing like that, being extremely careful crouching and camping enemies from afar like I were playing an Arma 2 campaing becomes very tedious fast. It's the ideal tactic, but night fights with a Night Ops spotter, others throwing knives and melee are by far more enthralling for me. But also more complicated to pull off compared to a straightforward long range ambush.

So that boxing ring is not only for show eh? Didn't know.

Well, my version is GOG 1.12. What is this 1.13 ? A mod?

 

[C.H.A.R.L.I.E]

I call night ops in vanilla popamole because all you do is make some noise then wait for enemies to pop up one by one and then you whack them.

In daylight fights i usually set up a position, spread out all my mercs so they wont get hit by grenades or gas and just wait for the enemy to come. Make sure you have your sniper with the weapon readied, so shes looking through the sniper scope. AI will usually come from multiple points, but those points will be like bottlenecks if you are facing 20 of them. So just use tear gas and mustard gas on those points, use mortars and grenades and use your machinegunner mercs to just shoot full auto on those locations where you know the enemy is. After a few turns battlefield looks like this:


Jagged alliance is a very deep game where you can use many different tactics but my favorite is just to overwhelm the AI with supreme firepower.

1.13 is a fan made mod which is pretty much considered a must have. It adds a lot of new items and stuff but most importantly it changes the perk system, reworks action points and CTH, makes AI much smarter and enhances some features like supressive fire.

 

[Zerth]

I call night ops in vanilla popamole because all you do is make some noise then wait for enemies to pop up one by one and then you whack them.

In daylight fights i usually set up a position, spread out all my mercs so they wont get hit by grenades or gas and just wait for the enemy to come. Make sure you have your sniper with the weapon readied, so shes looking through the sniper scope. AI will usually come from multiple points, but those points will be like bottlenecks if you are facing 20 of them. So just use tear gas and mustard gas on those points, use mortars and grenades and use your machinegunner mercs to just shoot full auto on those locations where you know the enemy is. After a few turns battlefield looks like this:


Jagged alliance is a very deep game where you can use many different tactics but my favorite is just to overwhelm the AI with supreme firepower.

1.13 is a fan made mod which is pretty much considered a must have. It adds a lot of new items and stuff but most importantly it changes the perk system, reworks action points and CTH, makes AI much smarter and enhances some features like supressive fire.

What a Slaughter. Awesome!! Mmm so that's 1.13 UI, Looks definitely better. That's a lot of tweaks. Worth a check

 

[PunchBarkeepInFace]

I've also recently purchased this game from GoG and have been playing it (never played before).

I am on the easiest level. According to the game, one of the ways the lowest level is easier is that there are less opponents in each encounter. This really appealed to me cause I don't have much time to play (besides the fact I suck at the game). I would hate to see how many soldiers you have to mow down on the hardest level. I just had to take out 24 enemies in one sector, which took a good bit of time. Maybe it took so long because I took 17 mercs with me. I am loaded up with all of the cheap mercs.

My IMP merc is a psycho with night ops. He has night vision goggles, which are not damaged, but for some bizarre reason he can't see as far at night as the enemy troops. So I have given up on night ops. I pretty much just bring along 17 mercs to attack towns now. Ira I use as a mule and to repair stuff in Cambria (at the repair shop there).

I am right about where you are in that screenshot, almost the same day. I am on day 60 and am about to attack Alma. I have captured the same 3 towns and SAM sites that you have. I just got my second email from Enrico telling me to hurry the hell up, and I noticed this caused my civilian morale to drop in all 3 towns. Instead of being 100/100/100 the towns are now like 98/96/94.

I have also cleared out the hillbillies and San Mona though. You don't really liberate San Mona. If you piss off Kingpin, he announces he is going to come after you. You can go to San Mona and clean it out of his goons. And kill Kingpin of course. But you can't put militia in the town and Enrico doesn't seem to give a fuck.

I tried giving my best guys the long range sniper weapons I have available (M-24s and Dragonuvs) but those shoot too slow (take too many APs) and it's hard to spot the enemy at extreme ranges anyway. They are nice for headshots though. I still carry some around. It seems it is better to use weapons like M-14s and of course the more powerful assault weapons that come along later. I just got one from Kingpin that has a range of like 50 and a high rate of fire. I doubt I have ever engaged a soldier beyond that range anyway, so this seems way better than the sniper rifles.

One thing I just figured out is that you can improve your weapons and armor with crude crafting or add ons. Like adding ceramic plates or hardening gel to kevlar/guardian vests or making barrel extenders for your guns. Sniper scopes are obviously a must.

Right now I have a ton of equipment I don't use. Grenade launchers, all kinds of grenades, gas masks, etc. I read that grenade launchers are not that good but I have no idea. For now I have my good throwers armed with grenades but barely use them. Eventually I will equip someone with a grenade launcher but the ammo for those makes it seem like you won't be able to carry much else. The problem is that the inventory in this game is a pain in the ass. If I carried half the stuff I had, I wouldn't have a single slot available to pick stuff up.

Like you I have a lot of money that I am not using. Or saving up for later. My most expensive mercs are only like 7500 a week at this point. Buns is my only merc that died where I didn't reload. I don't care if mercs die as long as it doesn't totally collapse my company morale, but in the past the guys who died were a result of me being a noob and not understanding the mechanics of the game or that a dumpster was not in fact flush with the brick wall, etc. Buns getting mowed down was just a regular screw up. It was night and she crawled near a cow pen and she got lit up by two guys with AK variants who were hiding among the cows.

Which brings me to a question. I have tried camping and it hasn't worked for me. It's only been partially successful. I set up my guys and then I fire into the ground and wait for a few fools to come walking towards me. I mow down those guys, but like 20-40% of the other enemies refuse to come towards me no matter how many rounds I pop off, so I have to go searching for them. Despite leap frogging and trying to use concealment and cover, they invariably see me first and open fire on me. I don't get how enemy soldiers even see further than my guys who have night ops skill + night vision goggles. Am I using concealment wrong? I always crouch or crawl so I don't think it is that. Is it because I use some low level mercs?

There was one time it was daytime and an enemy solider was laying in what looked like wide open short grass and he was grey to my targeting but he could see me and shoot at me even though I was prone behind cover. That was the most puzzling encounter. I had no choice but to run towards him, flop prone, run towards him, flop prone until the targeting became red. It was not a question of weapon range. I could not get a red target for some reason. Was he in concealment or was he using camo paint? I have no idea what was going on. The guy was like invisible even though I could see him on the screen and he was in the open.
In these situations I have suffered a bunch of wounded. I go looking for the enemy and they are waiting in well placed ambush points. For example, where the gap in cover is largest. They just camp there. Using my own tactics against me! But of course they can stay in same spot all day, where as I eventually have to go looking for them.

All of the wounded are probably why I am behind schedule. I take my time bringing guys to the hospital and repairing equipment at that shop. Maybe I could do it quicker having some of the mercs also repairing equipment but that just seems too tedious.

 

[PunchBarkeepInFace]

I am really enjoying the game by the way.

There are a couple of things I don't like.

1. the inventory system. I spend a lot of time equipping guys, repairing stuff, picking up shipments, etc. Remember, I have 18 mercs.

2. one time an NPC goon (one of the named guys) who works for Kingpin was camping prone inside a building so I threw a stun grenade on top of him. It worked like a charm, except the asshole bartender (one of those quintuplet guys) also took -1 damage and turned hostile. He was not attacking me. He was running around back and forth behind the bar covering his head with his arms. But the only way I was going to clear that sector was going to be to kill him. I searched the net to see if this was going to screw me over. It seems I probably could have killed him with no much repercussions, but there was some chance that all of the civilians in the sector would go hostile and I would have to mow them down too. So I reloaded and killed that goon by charging into room with 4 guys (he could not be seen from doorway) and shooting him with rifles. So now I am afraid to use explosive do to this terri-bad mechanic where even tiny damage from a flash bang grenade will turn an unarmed civilian "hostile". Again, they don't even attack you, they just run around and cower but you have to kill them if you want to clear the sector. Terrible game mechanic. I have read the mods have fixed this problem. What the fuck am I supposed to do playing the vanilla version? Just reload if I use an explosive and some stupid civ take damage?



I should mention that I haven't even tried using the helicopter yet. It's ready to go and I have cleared 3 SAM sites so it's pretty much just been lazyness. But also it just seems easier to base out of Cambria and walk. I do use the ice cream truck for Ira to drive to Drassen to pick up deliveries. In vanilla you can't load the truck with equipment though. Unless I am doing it wrong.

 

[mondblut]

Make 7 IMPs. Hire 25 other guys to fill up the roster. Spread in 4 directions with 8-man teams. Lie prone and shoot them as they come. Sell stuff to fund the 25 other guys. Repeat.

 

[Zerth]

......

Well indeed. The higher the level mercs have more sneaky become. I suppose so far you are against high level elite soldiers, they are a pain to deal with at night in wide open areas without structures to coverage. It seems that the only way to interrupt them is to ambush them from behind or sides. If they spot you in front prepare to eat some bullets.

From camping is the same the way I figured it. Ever tried melee? You can interrupt an enemy with a spotter, then ambush them in melee range with other merc. Only works well if your merc is hidden behind a wall. When the enemy try to remain prone in a spot aiming towards your position with a certain possibility to interrupt you when you enter its line of sight. The best counter for that is to change position and spot it from behind. Or throw a smoke grenade , tear gas, mustard etc.

And for the bad mechanic you mention. Well One time I throwed a bandage kit to a Merc, was hit for -1 HP and begin bleeding. WTF

Make 7 IMPs. Hire 25 other guys to fill up the roster. Spread in 4 directions with 8-man teams. Lie prone and shoot them as they come. Sell stuff to fund the 25 other guys. Repeat.

7 imps how?

 

[kwanzabot]

i give everyone a sniper rifle and a burst weapon and a grenade launcher

i only use mercs with above 88 mark, anything lower i use as fodder because its funny

if they're far away i use the sniper
if they're close i use burst
if they're behind something i shoot or throw a grenade at them

thats literally it

 

[mondblut]

Make 7 IMPs. Hire 25 other guys to fill up the roster. Spread in 4 directions with 8-man teams. Lie prone and shoot them as they come. Sell stuff to fund the 25 other guys. Repeat.

7 imps how?

In JA2 1.13 ini editor, choose data-1.13\ja2_options.ini. Under "recruitment settings", you can change imp_male_character_count (now even up to 7, so 10 in total) and imp_female_character_count (up to 3 - mysogyny!!!11111). Then, when beginning the game, change MAX IMP CHARACTERS in starting settings to the desired value. Create your imp the usual way, when done, repeat the creation - every time you pay for an imp, another imp is added to your party.

 

[boot]

I usually do:

send someone to rob San Mona (usually Bull kills Angel for deed, wins fight club, and steals the cash) > Drassen> Drassen S.A.M > kill Kingpin take more money from San Mona > Chitzen S.A.M > Grumm.

Grumm nets enough income to fuel the revolution on it's own usually, and from there I may do different things. I use 1 day hires to train militia and try and keep the A-Team constantly fighting. I'll usually establish a B-Team that's whole purpose is to defend Grumm mine, and then some more mercs to defend Tixa once it's converted to a heliport.

 

[Zero Credibility]

What I liked to do is set up a machine gunner to suppress anyone approaching through some chokepoint. In 1.13 you can get and modify a weapon that can put a ludicrous amount of metal in the air. A whole 100 round magazine in one turn ludicrous. Most of it won't hit anything, but nobody near is going to move for shit after that. Then you mortar the fuck out of them when they nicely bunch up in a kill zone and pick off survivors with sniper fire. Normal explosives work too if you have no mortar. In 1.13 you can just leave grenades, mines, TNT and other explosive stuff lying around in a kill zone, detonate it all with one blast when the most enemies are in it, and watch those bodies fly.

But that's more a tactical approach. My strategical approach in the last couple of games was to solo it all with one custom made merc.

First I head for San Mona, free the girl and steal the cash, then head to clear the airport (tricky as I have no good gear, but doable with a night attack), order the best armor and weapon (usually a P90 cause it's fast and can take a silencer) I can, a shitload of ammo (in 1.13 P90 has awesome AET ammo - HP and AP in one package), various gear and as much explosives as I can possibly carry. Head back to San Mona, put a bullet in Kingpin, then carefully make my way south avoiding combat as much as I can. Reach the city and take out the queen, Rambo style.

What a game.

 

[Dux]

The thing I generally tend to do is finding cover and hope for the best, preferably armed with some quality rifles. I also like to have a spotter nearby to minimise the risk of any surprises or flanking attacks. I like to know what my enemies are doing at all times. Shoot and move is also an option if the terrain allows it, while making sure that everyone has someone covering them. Night ops is obviously quite useful as well, both out in the open and in towns. Having an entire squad with NV goggles and some with the Night Ops trait is an effective way to clear out zones. It's also quite risky. Sometimes the AI will gain the initiative and considering that it's night everyone will be much closer to each other than normal. That means there's always a chance someone will get riddled with bullets from close range.

Here's a 1.13 question: in the dreaded Drassen counter-attack, what is the general strategy? Is it actually possible to withstand the assault without resorting to gamey tactics, such as camping on rooftops etc.? I realise that with a fully trained militia and multiple geared up squads, the sheer enemy numbers might not seem so overwhelming but it's still a lot to go through in one sitting. Especially with those commandos running around.

 

[spectre]

Here's a 1.13 question: in the dreaded Drassen counter-attack, what is the general strategy? Is it actually possible to withstand the assault without resorting to gamey tactics, such as camping on rooftops etc.? I realise that with a fully trained militia and multiple geared up squads, the sheer enemy numbers might not seem so overwhelming but it's still a lot to go through in one sitting. Especially with those commandos running around.

A long time favorite was to hole up in the bar and shoot everything that comes through the doors with liberal application of stun grenades. But yeah, that's gamey.

Generally, it can be done with minor exploits, but it depends on how you set up reinforcement mechanics. The counter attack is much less scary when they are broken into waves.
It gets easier if you use militia for meatshields (open for debate whether delaying the capture of last section of Drassen to train up is an exploit or no) and take your time to order them around.
It also helps if you cleared Chitzena and its SAM site first for extra gear. A bunch of mines can be very useful.
The counter attack takes some time before an actual attack. You can try to hit and run to off a few buggers in the meantime.

 

[mondblut]

Here's a 1.13 question: in the dreaded Drassen counter-attack, what is the general strategy? Is it actually possible to withstand the assault without resorting to gamey tactics, such as camping on rooftops etc.?

Is heavily mining the perimeter with mines and radio-activated dynamite, and activating it on turn 1 an exploit? Something I always wanted to try before a massive enemy invasion but couldn't bother to do all the micromanagement.

 

[LizardWizard]

T
Here's a 1.13 question: in the dreaded Drassen counter-attack, what is the general strategy?.

Mortars

 

[Wizfall]

Here's a 1.13 question: in the dreaded Drassen counter-attack, what is the general strategy? Is it actually possible to withstand the assault without resorting to gamey tactics, such as camping on rooftops etc.? I realise that with a fully trained militia and multiple geared up squads, the sheer enemy numbers might not seem so overwhelming but it's still a lot to go through in one sitting. Especially with those commandos running around.

With standard options in the .ini and without stupid cheesy gamey tactics (on the roof, in the bar, hit and run again and again) it's impossible.
The answers above imply non standard ini option (it's far too early to have the mortar or enough mines).
The fact the DCA is enable by default is an aberration.