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Jagged Alliance 2 ,

LCJr.

Erudite
Joined
Jan 16, 2003
Messages
2,469
First thing I'd suggest is reading the manual. http://www.replacementdocs.com/download.php?view.6615
At least go over the keys and some of the combat stuff.

If you're playing patched JA2 Gold it should be v1.12. Dvornik has some extra bug fixes and a chance to hit indicator add on. Can't remember is the CtH is his or Digicrab's or both.
Anyway get it here http://members.lycos.co.uk/dvornik/

Unbandaged wounds and breathe loss do affect the players skills. Wouldn't be surprised if it's simplified for the AI but there does seem to be an effect.

Regardless of how good you think your cover is if you're getting hit hard change positions. Run and hide behind a building and hope the AI is dumb enough to follow. Early game you'll usually be outranged by the enemies so you have to find ways to close the range(or get them to close) without getting shot to pieces.

The Gold version added the LOS and cover indicators from UB. Holding down "Delete" should show the best cover and "End" shows your line of sight. Green=good, red=bad.
 

Serious_Business

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Aug 21, 2007
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The first thing to do when you play this game is be sure that you are a gun nut. It is very important to know about guns to play this game. You must know the difference between a MAC-183874 and a AK-10928 with all the different bullets, it is imperative. Personally I think guns are like penises which is why I think they're awesome. Once you are a proper gun ho then you may play this game.

After dis, you must pick Ivan and kill everybody. No this was the first game, sorry. Here's a good guide to play : pick Iron Man. Play. Don't die. You're not a pussy, remember, you like guns, which totally makes you powerful and manly by default. Remember that. Kill everything, etc. Here's how you play this game. Hope this was useful.
 

The_scorpion

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 10, 2006
Messages
1,056
Serious_Business said:
The first thing to do when you play this game is be sure that you are a gun nut. It is very important to know about guns to play this game. You must know the difference between a MAC-183874 and a AK-10928 with all the different bullets, it is imperative. .

being able to read and comprehend text beyond the level of an ADHS-kid actually solves this problem.
And for all that are too challenged by this, there are icons and pictograms for pretty much everything.
 

Zhuangzi

Scholar
Joined
Sep 11, 2008
Messages
307
Okay, I am playing an 'Expert' game with 'Tons of Guns' on JA2 1.13

Things were going fine until after I took Drassen mine. The AI WAS somewhat better, but I managed to take Drassen only losing Ira in the process (can't stand her anyway).

Then I encountered a little problem...

The computer invaded Drassen mine with EIGHTY men! WTF!! :o

80? That's ridiculous. I had to turn it onto 'dead enemies drop everything' just so that I could get a couple of rifles. Then I holed up in the Mining Commission office and started shooting everything that put its head through the door.

Even so there have been SEVERAL reloads. 80 v 4? That's absurd. Is this normal behaviour for 1.13?
 

Ryuken

Liturgist
Joined
Feb 28, 2005
Messages
606
Location
Belgium
Had the same issue with v1.13, too many counterattacks on Drassen at first before you are even able to get recruits there. You can tweak some of the settings though but it's not so clear what's best for this, I'd just want it back to JA2 levels.

Don't have many other complaints about 1.13 though, except for some occasional CTD.
 

Gwendo

Augur
Joined
Aug 22, 2004
Messages
989
I'm thinking about buying JA2: Unfinished Business in www.gog.com (just 6$, Vista compatible), but I've heard about it being insanely difficult.

What do you know about this stand alone expansion?
 

The_scorpion

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 10, 2006
Messages
1,056
that counterattack is a specific scripted event. you can disable it in ja2options.ini

or you can attack the different sectors where their forces gather before attacking, or you can retreat and take the sector back as attacker, which is easier (e.g. at night)

with the usual exe's, only 32 enemies can be in the sector at a time. so of those 80, you can only fight 32 at a time. One dies, another one replaces him

1.13 isn't really balanced. I doubt you can get back to normal ja2 settings easily. Reducing initial garrisons and queen's pool and these things may help.

or play RR which is easier in the beginning.
 

The_scorpion

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 10, 2006
Messages
1,056
Unfinished business --> nomen est omen


it is very short compared to ja2, and lacks almost all of the strategic layer, making it easier/ faster to play, but the difficulty starts out faster too.


just some days ago i have finished an UB Mod called MFM tracona. I must say i had great fun playing it, even though fighting monsters in outside levels is rather difficult in the beginning.

so UB alone is a rather short and intense thing, but loading up a mod or campaign can be a lot of fun.

little warning if you're used to 1.13 or ja2005: UB doesn't have higher resolution versions, you're stuck with 40x480 :-/
 

Zhuangzi

Scholar
Joined
Sep 11, 2008
Messages
307
Thanks for that info, scorpion. I finally killed the 80 mercs (took a couple of hours at least) and then things started to become a little easier. The enemy had retaken the other two Drassen squares but were holding them with 6-8 mercs each. The problem I had was that Buns, Barry and Steroid had already leveled up to 3 or 4, and thus I couldn't afford to pay for them. :shock: I managed to pay for Barry and Steroid but I had to offer Buns a one day contact with two hours to go, and she said she had a better offer. :oops:

So I had to get Grizzly instead - you can feel the man love between him and Steroid. :lol:

@ Ryuken - yeah, I've been getting a few CTDs as well, but I've been saving so often I haven't lost much gameplay. Probably two CTDs today, which is manageable.

@ Gwendo - I got Unfinished Business as part of the Strategy First Strategy 6 pack (highly recommended, by the way) and I can cautiously recommend it. It IS very hard, and linear, but it's a fun way to spend 15-20 hours. You can't go wrong for $6. Plenty of different weapons too if you're a gun nut.

I'm decidedly NOT a gun nut, btw. The amount of guns in 1.13 is bewildering. There's so many lying around already that if one jams I just pick up something else and start shooting. There's a little gun called the Skorpion which is good fun early on...
 

The_scorpion

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 10, 2006
Messages
1,056
yeah, 1.13 has taken a turn into the gun nuts division because it was easy to please them (implementing guns in 1.13 is the easiest part of modding i guess)

they've added anything including the kitchen sink and his dog. So if you're not into the gun pr0n stuff, it is advised to clean out the selection of guns and ammo in the external files and reduce it to a sensible amount and variety

also, disabling drop-all and using low drop percentages may also help keeping you from being flooded with items

the drassen counterattack, in my opinion, happens too early in the game. Everything after that seems less of a challenge. However, if you don't want to disable it, another idea is to conquer and hold other cities like chitzena first and make money through quests. Once you feel ready for fighting 80 guys, conquer drassen (only drassen gets this scripted event)
 

Khor1255

Arcane
Joined
Sep 8, 2008
Messages
58,470
There is also a feature in the 1.13 that may help to solve both your weapons lying around problem and your lack of cash problem.

If you hold the alt button down and click your left mouse button the item on the ground that you click on will be sold (presumably to some civilian in the sector). While you do not get as much money as when you sell it elsewhere it is a quick and esy way to make some pesos.

The Drassen Counter Attack can be easily switched off in the Ja2Options.ini file. You can open this file in note pad (just double click on it) and edit a lot of things. This way you can make the game easier, harder or introduce other elements sometimes not available in vanilla Ja2.
I agree the counter attack is a little much for so early in the game and does sort of make the rest of the game a little anti climactic. It would be cool if you could assign this counter attack to another sector (I'm thinking the training center at Alma would be perfect or even the central SAM) but if you are just starting playing the game I would suggest you disable that event.
 
Joined
May 29, 2006
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Astrology
I always get to a certain point in the game and then lose, when the black-clad special-ops troops start attacking I lose vitial mercs and map square and its downhill from there
 

LCJr.

Erudite
Joined
Jan 16, 2003
Messages
2,469
I'm probably considered a gun nut and I don't care for it. I'd rather see a more realistic approach that gives the impression of a real countries arsenal. Take a look at this 1995-6 Jane's listing to see what I mean. http://www.fas.org/asmp/campaigns/smallarms/lainven.html With a smaller set of weapons you can some have real differences between them.

As for stock UB it's not my favorite. They managed to remove most of what I liked in JA2. As a mod base though it's had quite a few good ones made for it.

Who was the coder that put the Drassen attack back in? I can't remember their name but I remember they were opposed to even making it optional.
 

Khor1255

Arcane
Joined
Sep 8, 2008
Messages
58,470
Well Ja2 is much more a strategy game than an outright shootemup. Part of strategy is to know when to not engage or even retreat. It is a sour and unrewarding taste but when - in the long run - you finally win the whole game it makes it that much more enjoyable.

If you are playing the 1.13 without ever having played the vanilla game I would suggest you make another install of Ja2 and this time do not install the 1.13. The balance in the vanilla game has actually been thought out. Since the 1.13 is an ongoing project this was hardly possible.


I don't know who put the counter attack back in. Opposed to making it optional? See, this is the kind of twaddle we've had to deal with for the last year or so. Even the suggestion that something that departs from the regular game in such a profound way not be made optional is absolute tripe.

As for the gun porn, I really don't mind it so much but the fact that it and something as stupid as the inventory system are all that has really been developed lately (at the expense of a few good editors) and the fact that even editing the xmls manually has become convoluted (thanks to a half way functional xml editor) makes it more aggravation than anything like enjoyable from a modders perspective.
This is really a shame especially since at the onset this project had so much promise.
 

The_scorpion

Liturgist
Joined
Dec 10, 2006
Messages
1,056
LCJr.

Even supposedly optional features are not always "optional". If a new data is required to even start up ja2 regardless of whether you would chose the single option for which the data is needed, it ain't optional at all.

we've had to invest too much time to make things at least as tweakable and optional as they are, but in pretty much every case i'm unhappy because of the potiential that has been given away. For example the drassen counter attack. They could just have dropped the trigger that activates it and the sector on which it was performed into an external file. More wouldn't have been needed.

as for the gun porn, if you're into ja2 as long as we are, we don't mind, but putting in tons of different stuff is prohibitive towards new players that are less interested in micromanagement and more interested into ja2's tactical combat (i doubt many people dig the story or the interaction all that much... but even that could be the case)

But if we remove the huge number of guns in our mods, many of the more gun nutty players will switch to DBB and stuff like that, so either way we lose potential players. I guess we ought to have taken the "normal guns" vs. "tons of guns" things serious, but as far as i remember, 1.13 has just ignored these settings in its development, and we didn't care to fix that oversight.

nevertheless, if you play renegade republic, you'll see a selection of weapons and equip which relates to the country and settings we're (RR, not vanilla ja2) in rather closely.

so that can be done easily.


it's weird how some people sing high praises on the new inventory system while i think it adds absolutely nothing to the game except for logic holes and micromanagement annoyance (like having to put each single minigrenade into one specific slot or such... that's just dumb)

but tastes are different obviously

UB has an advantage as far as modmaking is concerned because so much stuff ifrom ja2 is there but not used, so you can basicly just activate it, you have countless slots that you can use without breaking quests or functions... the simplicity makes it easier to build things up on UB rather than ja2.

But the again, the strategical layer, the financial layer, all of this is lacking, very few quests of which one is a fed-ex quest, few maps.

However some stuff is absoluetly great. John Kulba for example might be there in UB (i think if you import a savegame from ja2 only)
And then he tells how his wife mary was shot during a burglary incidence and that he got the life inusrance and flew here something along those lines

now the dialogue is quite clearly hinting that it wasn't the burglar who shot mary :)
so the dark humour and the fun made of that prototypical character John Kulba is really a piece of art, but you'll only encounter it in parts of your UB games. So that's definitly a gem there.


as to the black shirt elites, it is important to catch them in a good position. If your mercs are weak and you didn't have enoug time to build up strong miltia forces, go catch them somewhere in the countrside. Enemies in countryside maps are often weaker and may be underequipped even if they're elites. This of course reduces the quality of the loot though because black shirt counterattacks are usually the best source for good loot in early game ja2 (unmodified)
 

LCJr.

Erudite
Joined
Jan 16, 2003
Messages
2,469
Like I said I'm probably a gun nut and I've been playing JA2 since 2001. The huge numbers of guns just doesn't appeal to me and I do know what the majority of them are when I see them.

As for having a small set of weapons have you tried it or are you just guessing people wouldn't like it? I'd be willing to bet people that get easily hyped over a few hundred nearly identical weapons could be manipulated into thinking a small set was best thing since sliced bread. Use things like that link I posted and hype it as being ultra-realistic and only for truly hardcore players, etc. and they'd probably eat it up. Appealing to the lowest common denominator is just matter of putting the right spin on things.
 

Gwendo

Augur
Joined
Aug 22, 2004
Messages
989
@The_scorpion: Could you point me where can I find those mods and campaigns for UB, please?


@Zhuangzi: What I've been told is that in UB, there is always a ratio of 4 to 1, and that the enemy is always much better equipped than me. Is that true? I like a tactical challenge, but if the dificulty is because of unfair-almost-cheating advantage for the computer, that might make me think twice before buying the game.
 

Zhuangzi

Scholar
Joined
Sep 11, 2008
Messages
307
Gwendo, what I recall from UB is that early on it is very taxing. You have to clear out EVERY sector along the path to the first town or checkpoint, and every battle has 10+ enemies. So yeah it is quite hard. I can't recall exactly how well equipped those early enemies are, but there's no way I could get through it on Iron Man, put it that way. :lol:

@Khor, thanks for the advice re: selling stuff. I was wondering how I'd ever make it to the gun dealer to sell everything. In fact I think I encountered a bug in my mission against 80 mercs. There was so much on the ground in a couple of squares that I don't think I could pick stuff up. The 'pick up all' and 'select' buttons were clear, i.e. missing over those squares. :o

I got through the 80 merc battle, but really, this is ridiculous and quite tedious to do. And I might not have had rifles for all my mercs if I hadn't turned 'drop everything' on.

About the gun nut debate, I don't really mind there being all those guns as long as I have enough money to ignore 90% of them. To me it's a distraction. What I like about JA2 is the actual tactical battles (i.e. the different maps) and the humour. Where is my FN-FAL when I need it? :cool:
 

Zhuangzi

Scholar
Joined
Sep 11, 2008
Messages
307
OK, I sold HUNDREDS of items in the way Khor described, and now I've got $11,000. :cool:

This actually solves the problem for me. I can sell anything I don't want, mostly just to get rid of the clutter in each sector. I must be selling to some cheap ass peasant though, they seem to give me like $15 for a pistol. :shock:

I don't mind as long as I have options. Next time I can turn off the Drassen attack if I can't be bothered. It had its upside though - it is day 7 and most of my mercs are level 4 already. :twisted:
 

Khor1255

Arcane
Joined
Sep 8, 2008
Messages
58,470
Yeah the townies are cheap bastards. But it kind of makes sense. If you are near starvation you don't often have extra money for even something as potentially helpful as a firearm. I remember the way surplus store used to be here in the US.

Man, the things you could buy for $20.

I think 'drop all' is one of the coolest features in the 1.13. I understand the game balancing reason for not having it but it was always very annoying when you went through a whole battle getting sniped by someone with an obviously better weapon than anything you had only to find that once you killed him the weapon just vanished.

Some people don't like the drop all.

The beauty of the 1.13 was that all of these things were optional. The current developers could stand to learn quite a bit from the way it was handled in the beginning.

And yeah, the tactical aspects, complexity and humor are what keeps me comming back year after year. It's really a masterpiece any way you look at it.
 

Zhuangzi

Scholar
Joined
Sep 11, 2008
Messages
307
I was just thinking Khor that the only thing I don't like about JA2 is the logistical aspect of having to lug equipment from sector to sector in order to sell it. Being a bit of a obsessive compulsive I hated all the clutter of crap lying around in sectors, so I always had to cart it to the arms dealer. Now I can sell it in the sector - problem solved! And I'm glad I get some but not much money - it would be a shame if this 'broke' the finances in the game.

In fact, I think I will turn 'drop everything' back on and sell to the peasants this way. It's more realistic. I always hated that business about the disappearing items, even though I understood it from a game balance aspect.

Liking 1.13 more and more now. :D
 

PorkaMorka

Arcane
Joined
Feb 19, 2008
Messages
5,090
The_scorpion said:
LCJr.
it's weird how some people sing high praises on the new inventory system while i think it adds absolutely nothing to the game except for logic holes and micromanagement annoyance (like having to put each single minigrenade into one specific slot or such... that's just dumb)

but tastes are different obviously

Yeah I never understood this aspect being so popular.

My biggest problem with JA2 was always how much micromanagement I had to do with inventory, collecting everything into sectors and lugging it to sell. So one aspect that's nice is the cars having a ton of inventory space now.

While I don't have a major problem with the rest of new inventory, it just doesn't seem to do anything useful and introduces slightly more micromanagement, while not really letting you carry all that much more or changing/improving gameplay.

And it has some really weird issues involving stuff like first aid kits having to go in a large slot on most setups.

And having to remember to take off your backpack every battle is annoying.

It just seems like a bit pointless to when in the end the inventory functions the same and we've just moved from "quite abstracted" to "somewhat abstracted".
 

Khor1255

Arcane
Joined
Sep 8, 2008
Messages
58,470
Right.

It was essentially a good idea that opened the door to a few other good ideas but the implementation is...sad.
 

Khor1255

Arcane
Joined
Sep 8, 2008
Messages
58,470
I'm sorry to say that it's spinning wheels. I guess I'm about 1/4 of the way finished but having an infant son and a house that needs a lot of repair keeps me pretty busy.

I have also become thoroughly put off by developments in the 1.13 which I was basing my mod from. I know I could always make a vanilla version but it is a set back all the same. I don't know - at this point - if I will ever finish. This is the first time I ever felt like this but also the first time I have lost almost complete confidence on the platform it was being built atop.

It was cool to see you at the stractiacilla (or however the hell you spell that) part of the forum since I think this guy's approach may be the most promising yet. He has a very thin skin and takes criticizm very badly. I have backed off on trying to offer critique until at least I can figure out how to spoonfeed it to him without stepping on his toes.

I still plunk around with the mod though. I have a few enemies made that I am very happy with and have been developing other characters as well as maps. The new mapping xmls have also given me the possibility to move a lot of the towns around in an attempt to provide a truly novel storyline for those who are familliar with Ja2s storyline and map layout. I've also changed a few quests with varied results and of course I still have the foundation of the items mod I am planning on finalising once I get anywhere near a beta release. In the mean time, so many things change with the items especially that it would be constant revision to try to update them with every new change. I played that game before and it was counter productive to the overall development. So for now I have left most of the t's uncrossed and most of the i's undotted in the weapon mod. Occasionally I add a new weapon of item but these are so easy to do it has not been given any priority.

I hope to finish it someday but I feel at this rate by the time I do there won't be anyone playing Ja2 anymore.

Don't think that that is going to stop me though.
 

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