Jagged Alliance 2 ,

[Bluegrazz]

Well, I have finally gotten a chance to play around with this game (thanks to the help and recommendations I have gotten through these forums) and I must say that I am amazed. This game stands out as an exceptional example of what modern games should strive to be.
I have only begun to scratch the surface (and have restarted several times based on "learning" things about the game system) and the depth and strategy are just amazing....
Anyhow, I can see that I am going to be spending ALOT of time with my new Mercs, and was hoping for a few pointers as I plan on doing a new and final "restart" today so I can find that evil Dictator Bitch and deal with her once and for all.
First off, I am using the latest patch (1.13 I think) that gives me higher resolution, more options and weapons and the ability to actually craft my initial Merc on the I.M.P. screen (as oppopsed to taking the "personality test" to craft my Merc.) I generally have 0 skill in Mechanics, Medical, and Explosives, but have Max skill (85) In Strength, Agility, Dex and Marksmanship..... Is this a good idea? How would you suggest crafting a Merc? I also choose Sniper and Camouflage as my two skills.
I then hit the A.I.M. screen on my Laptop and higher 3 decent Mercs for a week. I use Steroid (he is good at mechanics or explosives, cannot remember which), Fox for my doctor (she hates steroid, I know, but I am dying to see some tension happen between my people to see how the game handles it) and one other random Merc who is good at mechanics or explosives (whichever skill Steroid lacks)
Thye only confusion I am having comes once the Gun shop (big bubbas or whatever, lol) opens up online and I outfit my Mercs with new weaponry. I outfit my Mercs and then seem to have trouble figuring out what ammo goes to what gun (with the patch there are over 300 gun types and apparently just as many ammo types) and there dosent seem to be a clear cut way to determine which clips fit which gun (not that I can find)
Example: An M-16 or AR-15 uses .223 ammo. Luckily I know this, so no problem there BUT each weapon uses diffrent caliber ammo and I cannot find where it tells you what uses what. Do I need to back order some "Soldier of Fortune" Magazines and Army Training Manuel's to figure it out?
Also, any tips (not cheats or spoilers) would be greatly appreciated. Tell me how you would set up your squads, what are some of your strategy's, skill sets etc.... Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks again for helping me find this game.... I have been waiting for this for years

 

[Ashery]

Not sure about your ammo issue...Haven't played it for several months and I don't remember it being hard to figure out.

My general start is probably one of the cheapest as well. Night Ops on a few of the mercs in your main group and a rifle + sniper rifle on every char in that group. Fighting primarily at night gives you huge advantages if done properly and has minimal risks. As long as you kill them before they get you into their line of sight, you can avoid having a dozen or more enemies firing on your position thanks to the assisted targeting. Oh, and flash supressors are you best friend. Noise just tells them what direction you're in, flashes let them pull off an interupt after the shot (iirc).

I started with a similar merc setup...Think I had Fox, Steroid, and Hitman initially...Fox actually ended up staying in my main squad throughout the entire game.

As for the created merc, the only skills I'd consider important to cap would be Marksmanship and HP. The others depend on your playstyle. I'd also avoid completely removing Medical/Explosives/Mechanical and just leave one or two at 35. I think you only get 15 points for the final drop from 35->0 and if the skill is at 0, you can never learn it. Mechanical is probably the least important of the three as it's never useful in combat. Medical might save your ass if your medic goes down and you're bleeding and explosives is tied in with grenades iirc. Leadership depends on your play style as well...Helps a lot in training milita. Ira ended up with 70-80 Leadership in my last game due to being on pure milita duty, heh.

As far as the chosen skills go, I'd pick out of these three personally: Camo, Night Ops, Stealth. The Sniper trait is just Rooftop Sniper iirc, which, while useful at times, isn't worth giving up one of the earlier three (I used it on my merc). You can also drop Camo if you don't mind constantly restocking your camo kits or just use them sparingly.

My main squad layout looked like this: Myself, Raider, Raider's wife, Fox, forget who but had Night Ops and the background of his picture was bluish and I think he was wearing a suit...Stephen?, and Trevor (That son of a bitch gets expensive as he levels up). Never attacked unless it was during the night. I'd inch ahead, drawing my weapon and scanning what's in front of me every twenty feet or so while the other five members were a little ways back placed in a circular with their weapons drawn so that they'd be facing every direction (No flanks ftw). After a kill or two, it usually ended up being a waiting game where I just picked people off as they came close to where I was camped out. Cheap as hell, but it avoids a lot of the situations later on that can become deadly real quick...Although the formation I used during the night missions occasionally backfired when one of the enemies got close enough and lived long enough to spot for the other units...

 

[RK47]

If you put your mouse over an ammo type i think it'll show how many guns uses this ammo (i think)

I have no solutions for your ammo problem since I avoid those crazy patches in general too much information is a bad thing when you just want to play.

As for merc builds, max str is a waste unless you plan on hitting things or lugging heavy weapons. The heavy weapons don't come till late game so you can always skimp on STR, around 70ish for a decent carrying capacity.

Hatred between mercs only make one leaves if the Morale bar (Green) drops too low. Hiring mercs that like each other is actually a good decision since if one gets a kill and gains morale, the other will gain as well, ensuring a very high morale throughout engagements (but if one of them dies,the reverse happens you get the idea). Morale affects performance (shooting,lockpicking etc)somewhat and whether they will renew contracts or not.

Steroid is a good cheap merc, but you can actually ignore markmanship and go for the inexperienced cheap mercs with 70+ marksmanship like Igor (Stealthy) and Barry (Mechanic & Lockpick) as well as Grunty (All rounder). Fox (Medic) is a good purchase as well. Grizzly is a tank. He can take a lot of damage and carry a crapload. He also specialize in heavy weapons, making him the obvious choice when you gain access to mortar save up those precious shells for large scale engagements, nothing like knocking 5 soldiers out in one hit. For the leader, you can hire Stephen (quit expensive) or Hitman (Old but goodie) the leader shd be the ones talking to civilians and try to negotiate.

The game really opens up once you gain access to rifles and grenades. So make sure you take over Drassen and place orders on Bobby Ray's asap. Do not forget to set the airport to Drassen else the cargo will never reach you. Bribe the cargo handler, Pablo with $10-50 to ensure none of the shipments goes missing.

Once you take over a town and the loyalty is high enough, train militia to safeguard it against enemy attacks and boost the city loyalty. Higher loyalty = more income = more firepower.

Don't hesitate to hire good Leadership mercenaries for a day or two to train militia rapidly while your 'assault team' recovers. Doctors as well can perform 1-2 days contract just make sure you have a spare medikit around. MD is perfect for the doctor assignments while hiring full time mechanics should not be done until late game.

You don't need a really high Mechanic anyway to fix things, 70-80 and 70-80 DEX will allow them to fix most things easily in a day or two. They fix everyone's gears in the same zone. But not the ones on the 'ground'. So pick up the items you deem important to fix first since toolkits can run out.

And be creative, just because there's a door in front doesn't mean you have to lockpick and risk getting attacked once you open it. Set a dynamite or launch a rocket to open it. Becareful of injuring civilians tho, some mercs hate killing civilians and the towns will lose loyalty if you keep killing the innocents. Though it is a good way to gain skills in the wilderness: Knifing cows and farmers outside town does not affect loyalty but increases agility etc. However, some mercs still lose morale and might leave if you don't watch it.

 

[MaskedMartyr]

Actually you should be knifing/punching crows instead.

Also you think you got it complicated? I'm using the dbbmod addon for 1.13, the number of weapons quadruples and theres probably about 120 different chambers, not counting advanced variants of rounds (like glaser, etc).

Try right clicking the weapon to view advanced info, above right of the description box will be the round designation and weapon type.

Night ops is pretty much the best skill in the game that you can use, get some good NVG and you can start to own everything at night-time.

85 str is a waste, put alot of points into health though.

The formula I think for APs is 25 percent health 75 percent agility. Ive cheated around a bit, mostly messing around to find all the weapon formulas in DBB, and if you max health and agility you get a wopping 25 APs. Find a good reflex sight and you can start getting weapons firing for about 2 AP, which equals to 12 "snap shots" a round.

 

[deuxhero]

Just note that right clicking will improve your aim (at the cost of extra AP per shot) it took e FOREVER to notice that.

Also, send flowers to Meduna as soon as you get the chance

 

[Korgan]

Get the 1.13 mod. It's beautiful - somewhat intelligent enemies, loads and loads of tactical options, etc. Also, 800+ guns IIRC. I'm amazed at how acsessible and realistic it manages to be at the same time.
EDIT: Ah, you have it. Redding iz inded teh hard. Enjoy then.

 

[Mareus]

I actually played a bit differently then the guys above. I made a character exactly like you did, with 0 to explosives, 0 medic and 0 mechanic, and 85 to marksman, strength,.. etc, but I think my health was 70. There is a nice side quest in one of the cities where you can fight in the ring for money. If you have high strength it helps you win easier in those fights. Being able to carry more is very useful since you have so many weapons and ammo. Also using hand to hand combat can increase your agility which can give you more AP. So I would suggest to use hand to hand combat on easy enemies just to raise your agility and strength.
I always had a medic behind and close enough to come heal me if I get wounded, while few more AP and a bit more carry weight saved me quite often. Later in the game you will have to carry laws and heavy armor with mortars and some heavy weapons for a quick kill. If you have low strength, you will probably have to leave some things behind which could mean the death of you. The only thing I would think about is having explosives atleast 35, since it gives bonuses when using grenades and such. Since you have to sacrifice some things I would lower health, because if you get too badly wounded you will probably load anyway, so health is not so important.

Also note that the mines you capture don't provide the money forever and having strong militia is very important for later in the game. That is why I would suggest you upgrade the militia to veterans. They are undefeatable and you don't need to worry after that.

When you gather some money, buy some more expensive mercs and don't let them die. It will make the game a lot easier. Also note that you can have more than one team on the map, so make use of it.

 

[Azael]

I usually max Wisdom and Health since those are the hardest to raise in game, IMO, and since Wis governs the pace all other skills increas. I always give high scores to the other physical skills as well, especially Agility. Marksmanship I keep in the 70s since it goes up fast as soon as you get a decent gun, never finished a game with an IMP merc with a lower score than 96. The traits that I go for are Night-Ops (always) combined with either Stealth, Camo or Auto-weapons or Night-Ops (Expert) which you get by only clicking Night-Ops and nothing else (works with most other traits as well), since it gives you a pretty huge advantage in night combat. Night-Ops/Auto is also a real killer with a silenced SMG, devastating the enemies with headbursts.

Trevor is too expensive, go for Barry instead. With his high Wis he'll soon be as good in most areas for a lot less cash, just remember to keep him out of deep water. Igor is another favorite, too bad that he doesn't work with Steroid, but it means that you can get the Russian I-Team for the endgame, which is awesomesauce. Fox is pretty good, pistols are improved with 1.13 so the Ambidextrous trait is pretty damn good, especially in night-ops. Grizzly is another favorite. I usually hire Bull for a while just to win the fight in San Mona. There are a couple of guys from MERC that are useful if you enable all of them from the start. Stoogie is a cooler choice than Gus if you want a top dollar mayor of mayhem and Gaston is a real arrogant but useful frog, a better version of Reaper, but with a less cool personality.

When it comes to guns, as soon as you can afford it, get your hands on a VSS Vintorez. Used in conjunction with a spotter (Igor) and a competent shooter, night maneuvers become real fun. There are other sniper rifles that can be fitted with silencers, but the Vintorez is built for the task from the start. I like the Valmet best among the assault rifles, but it's a matter of taste. Grenades and explosives are a lifesaver in the later areas (early too, if the assault on Drassen is enabled...).

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

Grizzly is another favorite

Mom woulda been proud.

 

[RK47]

When two teaming, avoid having too many shooters in team 2. You'd basically have enough uber mercs in team 1 that you just need specialists in team 2 (Sniper/Mortars)

Team 2 extra slots can be used for ammo carriers, since those mortar shells are VERY heavy and can't be stacked. Bull is perfect for this and he's the cheapest and has high HP to take some dmg. Basically have 2-3 ammo guys to carry extra nades and mortars to keep team 1 pushing with no risk to themselves. Team 2 lay down the hurt with Mortars & sniper cover as needed. With this play, I managed to take out those heavily defended areas with no sweat since mortar bypass most obstacles and take out a lot of their stamina (blue bar). Stun grenades to keep them down is a winner as well, if you're lucky they might just drop their gun while being knocked around. Harmless.

 

[JoKa]

i usually go for 85 in health, wis, str, agi and dex, set my explosives and med to 0 and the rest to 35 (yes, marksmanship as well!)...the last points i use on tech, that my weapons won't jam as often - which they would, considering i take auto-weapons and night-ops as skills. marksmanship is the ability that improves fastest, so almost no harm done...especially considering the sheer amount of baddies you encounter in 1.13.

and i like my Trevor, even though he's a greedy fuck
Thor and Buns are also favourites, but that may well be because of the very good voice-overs in German...

 

[someone else]

My suggestion? Play ironman, not the game option but self-imposed.

 

[The_scorpion]

using 1.13 based mods, you can have up to 6 (theoretically more, but that's afaik not fully implemented) IMP characters.

so the easiest thing is to create a bunch of them and see if you like them. Also possible to make them less of an allrounder and specialize them more for specific roles, teamleaders, mechanics, fighters, stealth/ snipers etc.

when it comes to ammo, every gun on the lower right side sais what kind of gun it is and what ammo it uses. If buying stuff through bobby ray's online shop, hovering over the ammo will tell you how many weapons you have that use the particular caliber.

my main advice is that ja2 allows for enough replayability of years beause every time you play the game, you can take different approaches and will see different situations. That's not even counting the mods which will bring it to another level with new characters, maps, quests, items, combos, whatever.

 

[LCJr.]

My suggestion would be play through the original game a few times before trying the mods.

 

[Khor1255]

Playing the original unmodded game first might be the best way to go. I doubt that once you have played the 1.13 you could go back though...

Anyway, the ammo issue (as scorpion mentioned) is easily handled by just paying attention to what the weapons you have or are getting use and buy that. Of course there will be fifty kinds of 9mm or whatever so be sure it is the exact calibre to avoid confusion.

As to your starting team I would say your instincts are pretty good here. Steroid is dollar for dollar one of the most valuable mercs in the game. I would also recommend someone with high leadership and or level if you can afford it and would strongly recommend you stick with mercs that have at least some medical score. Zero means they cannot even patch their own wounds (hemophiliac or something) and this translates into an immediate liability in pitched battles.

Most of all I would recommend you 'get out and stretch your legs' in the game meaning enjoy the non linear nature of the gameplay that will allow you to try things you might not even think are possible in a computer game. This game is a masterpiece and I would never want someone to walk me through a masterpiece before I even get the chance myself so I'll leave it at that.

 

[Zhuangzi]

Haven't played for a while, but I always seemed to get the same few mercs in each game:

Steroid
Barry
Grizzly
Buns

These guys seem to kick ass from an early stage.

Goddamn, I think I might just crank it up again now. Night ops is really that good? I've always avoided it - and that's like 5/6 playthroughs we're talking about.

 

[headache]

From a thread about Character Skills

Night-Ops

* Reduces time required for sleep, as well as the speed at which the character loses fatigue. (2)
* Increases vision range at night by 1. (2)
* Increases hearing range by 2 at night, and by 1 at any other conditions. (2)
* Increases chance to get an interrupt during nighttime. (2)

The (2)s mean if you're an expert these effects are doubled. Useful stuff to know.

 

[Khor1255]

Right

But that also means you have to use both skill possibilities on one skill.

I like having two skills.

 

[Zhuangzi]

Thanks for that, headache. :D

This time I picked Sniper and Night Ops for my IMP merc. My team includes the usual suspects: Barry, Buns and Steroid. These three seem well balanced and between them they cover all of the necessary skills.

Loving it again already.

 

[JrK]

and i like my Trevor, even though he's a greedy fuck

While that might be true, by the time you've conquered two mines (Drassen and Chitzena, for example), you'll rake in enough cash to pay for one or two expensive ones.

I usually build my IMP so that he can be the LDR guy. There are few AIM guys with high LDR and those that have it tend to be meh otherwise. I'd like to have some other use than just talking and training for my 'leader' guy. Therefor, I tend to give the IMP a high WIS, AGI and LDR, spend some point in the other physical stats, set MRK to 75ish, keep MED at 35 and put MECH and EXPL at 0 each. This way, we have not only a good leader but also a good backup guy for some first aid and shooting.

As for recommended AIMers:

-Buns, high WIS, reasonable starting MRK and AGI which go up rapidly due to WIS. At exp lvl 4 in my game she's already got a 96 MRK and is snipering dudes in the head from 30 tiles away. Might start off a little on the weak side but she's one hell of a cheap shot.

-Trevor, no other AIMer will repair your stuff that fast and be good at explosives and shooting to boot. He's expensive but worth it I think.

-Fox, not only a good medic but a really good shot after a while. Again high WIS and low cost make for the best mercs!

I also really like steroid since he's strong, can shoot well and has a lot of HP. Problem is he doesn't do well with a lot of other mercs, so he's basically out if you take any of them. People like Ivan, Fox and Danny all hate Steroid and those are really really good mercs so I don't know whether you want to miss out on them. Then again, as long as you keep them in another sector there'll be no problems. For instance, my first team was Buns, Steroid, MD, Dimitri, Ira and IMP, to which I added a team of Razor, Grunty, Danny and Trevor. Since Danny doesn't like Steroid, I kept these teams strictly separated.

 

[The_scorpion]

at more than 60 playable characters, i think it is smart to have each one of time hired at some point. I tend to stick with the guys i hire so it takes me a couple of games to see many different characters

A starting squad should IMO consist of a leader (ultimate example is stephen, raider or Hitman and even Thor are useful as well, comes down to being able to bear the voice acting)

some cheaper fighters like Igor, maybe Grizzly, Fidel, Ice

and if you want some doctor or mechanic but you typcially don't need them early game because you got no gear worth repairing
Barry is a good early hire for the mech/ exp role, Wolf, Nails as well
Spider or even MD and Danny are good for medical, but since you get Ira early on, you typcially don't need more medical staff in the starting squad.
Fox of course as well, she's rather popular with many other mercs as a bonus

so, huge pool of choices there ---> preferences

 

[Kaiserin]

This game is terribly frustrating. It seems really awesome, but everything seems to work counterintuitively. I don't understand what I'm doing wrong when a guy laying in the middle of the street kills 3 of my mercs who are sitting in cover after he's been shot twice.

And wtf is up with the weapon range? It's like a colt commando shoots 30 feet...

I try to play things tactically, but it all the bad guys do is drop to the ground and start shooting at me. They must be a lot better shots too, because it generally seems to work for them. The most effective tactic I've developed thus far is to sneak up on the enemy as close as possible when crouched, then drop to prone and shoot until somebody is dead. I've just restarted for the third time...think I'm going to have to do it again.

I've played a lot of X-com, and I'm pretty good at that, but there's something about this that feels stacked against the player artificially. Any tips? I did read the manual...

 

[JarlFrank]

Right clicking on the enemy a few times before shooting increases your aim, and takes a bit more action points to fire.

 

[Khor1255]

When compared to the size of the game avatars the ranges look incredibly choked. This was a necessary design compromise due to map size and the fact that there are no 3d hills or terrain features to stop bullets from flying all over the map if weapon ranges were increased to where they would 'look' right.

When you say the enemy keeps laying down and shooting your mercs I get the feeling you must be playing the 1.13 mod. Is this correct?

In the vanilla game the ai was pretty stupid. It went prone once in a while but not very often. You also have the option to go prone before shooting (costs 4 aps). This gives you both a defensive and offensive advantage due to the fact that your chance to hit probability goes up a little from crouching and sometimes quite a bit from being prone (depending on the type of weapon you use).

What makes it pretty hard in the beginning is the ai knows the best cover and chance to hit while you are just guessing at it. But believe me, after you get very comfortable with the game you will likely wish the ai any advantage it can get even if it seems a little cheaty.

If you do not know, r is the key you need to use in order to run in turn based mode. When I first started playing I put the game down for a few months and when I started playing again forgot this feature and was confounded by the enemies ability to seemingly be anywhere on the map he wanted while I could only inch along.

I hope you stick with it. The non linear nature of the game, excellent character and storyline features and replayability have made this the only game I have been able to come back to year after year and still be entertained. Truly a masterpiece of digital entertainment.

 

[Kaiserin]

Right clicking on the enemy a few times before shooting increases your aim, and takes a bit more action points to fire.

That's my whole problem then I guess.

When you say the enemy keeps laying down and shooting your mercs I get the feeling you must be playing the 1.13 mod. Is this correct?

1.10 from what I can tell. I wouldn't call it good AI really, they just lay down and shoot.

ou also have the option to go prone before shooting (costs 4 aps). This gives you both a defensive and offensive advantage due to the fact that your chance to hit probability goes up a little from crouching and sometimes quite a bit from being prone (depending on the type of weapon you use).

Yeah, I usually go prone and shoot back.

If you do not know, r is the key you need to use in order to run in turn based mode. When I first started playing I put the game down for a few months and when I started playing again forgot this feature and was confounded by the enemies ability to seemingly be anywhere on the map he wanted while I could only inch along.

Yeah, that's probably something else I was doing wrong.

I hope you stick with it. The non linear nature of the game, excellent character and storyline features and replayability have made this the only game I have been able to come back to year after year and still be entertained. Truly a masterpiece of digital entertainment.

Yeah, it does seem pretty awesome. When I first sat down I thought "Wow, somebody actually made a game like this!"