Jagged Alliance 2 ,

[The_scorpion]

see the improved scripting hasn't made it into any publicly available version i'm afraid. It's just in my own little hybrid where quests are more streamlined. Irina, Galya, Ilja, everything a lot more streamlined. this means less player input needed to get the story across, but also less choices to make, so what you have right now has some more choices and offers more freedom.

i've read about the error with exe 2322, pity that is, but i'm done debugging their exe's so... luckily 2124 works

 

[Burning Bridges]

What do you think of a "specialist" approach:

Teacher (Expert)

Max out the following: Dexterity, Tech, Med, Leadership

this should save you from having a medic, mechanic, teacher. Is this a good idea?

What exactly is dexterity? I have looked at several walkthroughs, but could not find what exactly it controls.

 

[The_scorpion]

Dexterity is benefitial for a load of things. If you want an effective mechanic, then having a reasonable dex is certainly advised

Mech and LDR improve fast, so maxing out especially the latter of them makes little sense. High Wisdom would be helpful though (especially in the long run... i guess you want to keep that char for a certain time... ja2 allows too many choices to give an answer that fits all purposes)


then, personally, i tend to use RPC's for training miltia, so the teacher trait for an IMP is kinda wasted because he doesn't get the RPC bonus for training miltia... and that's where teacher skill and high LDR come into play the most

 

[LCJr.]

I've never seen exactly what dexterity is either. The only thing it visibly affects is your chance to hit in melee combat. I'm sure you've noticed doing repairs raises dex so it must factor into repairs somehow. Other than that I think it's a modifier to other skills.

It's your game so play it how you like I personally think that's not such a good idea. There's going to be a lot of times when you need a doctor, mechanic and trainer all at the same time.

I'd just go for mechanical since all the mechanic mercs spend half the day asleep. For traits consider lockpicking and electronics. If you do that you can skimp on dex since doing repairs will raise it. Wisdom is the stat to max since it affects your learning rate. As long as Wisdom is maxed you can get all the other stats and skills up pretty fast.

 

[Khor1255]

Dexterity is actually very helpful when using any weapon or item. It help with shooting (especially at long range it seems), medical, mechanical, lock picking, you name it. It is a very good skill to invest in because while it does increase during the course of the game it doesn't go up nearly as fast as skills like marksmanship, leadership, and any specialty like medical, mechanical or explosives.

I like to give my IMP high Wisdom, health, dexterity, and strength because these are the skills that seem to increase the slowest. I also like him to have a little leadership because I play as if he is assigned as the leader even though I use someone like Len to do the actual leading until the IMP gains at least a few levels. But that's just a personal preference thing and certainly not good advice.

The skills I like in vanilla Ja2 are throwing and rooftops. In the 1.13 because of the lethality of auto weapons I make my IMP have throwing and auto weapons. I use throwing because I like to get my first couple of kills before anyone notices and throwing is a great way to do this.

 

[GeneralSamov]

 

[Dmitron]

Just started a new game with 1.13 (as I do every few months), but in a bind after taking the first mine. Forgot to hire a decent medic, and the airport is overrun, no shipments.

 

[Skankster]

Original or Wildfire? I have played the crap out of the Original, but never played Wildfire, how is it?

Also, Steroid rules.

 

[Burning Bridges]

It turned out I did not like my "specialist". It was no fun if my character is useless in combat.

I think I will go now with a Doctor that is also an expert sniper. Nothing against Fox, but the last time I played she turned out to be a liability if I used her as a combat character. Maybe I have that thing with protecting females, but I did not like her getting killed or hurt.

Very similar to my Arcanum char, Dr.Hotchkiss, which was a herbology / firearms specialist, and inspired by Doc Holliday.

HEALTH: 75
DEX: 72
AGIL: 85
STR: 65
WIS: 73
LEAD: 0
MARKS: 85
EXPLOS: 0
MEDI: 85
TECHN: 0

Abilities: Night fighter, Camouflage

Team: Blood, Igor, Grunty

This way I will save the money for a medic, and only need to get some cheap mechanic. Ira can do the training, if she survives long enough, otherwise there is Hitman.

As is, that char starts with 24 AP and made a LOT of kills in a test run. He received a HK with silencer, and I liked the sound, so I guess I will call him "Silencer".

From the replies I understand I should max out Wisdom too. Which other skill should I reduce in order to get the missing points (12). Maybe they have to come from agility, marksmanship, medicine, because these will improve quickly?

 

[Khor1255]

Since marksmanship and medicine go up very quickly I would shave points from these two. It is true that in doing so you will not have an instant uber merc but early on in the game you seldom need that. I also used to max out marksmanship and while I don't agree with having it lowered all the way to 35 nowadays I use those points for other harder to gain attributes like health and wisdom.

 

[The_scorpion]

zero leadership?

 

[Khor1255]

I noticed that also. I don't think that is possible without using the IMP editor.

 

[Burning Bridges]

I use the 1.13 patch, and everything except power and health can be set to 0. Do I need leadership? What difference does it make if it's 35 or 0, isn't it crap anyway?

The last char I made is more like:

HEALTH: 80
DEX: 70
AGIL: 85
STR: 60
WIS: 85
LEAD: 0
MARKS: 85
EXPLOS: 0
MEDI: 75
TECHN: 0

Gets 24 AP, too.

So you guys suggest I should lower marksmanship in favor of strength / health?

 

[Burning Bridges]

1.13 feels hard. Running out of medpacks again Well I guess I must train Militia right away.

 

[Burning Bridges]

So far I had fun with the 1.13 patch, but I am finding it too hard. It's day 2, I've barely taken the Drassen mine and there were 2 counterattacks already, one almost impossible to stop, and another one pending at the airport. I have no more cash, no tools, Bobby Rays isn't open yet, and I will probably run out of medkits soon. All on "easy", and I had to constantly reload savegames otherwise all would have been over in a minute.

Does anyone know the ini setting that control the counterattacks, and how to adjust them for ppl like me who found vanilla JA2 hard enough?

I just found out STRATEGIC_EVENTS_SEND_TROOPS_TO_DRASSEN is on TRUE and IniEditor says this could be a pain in the butt at the beginning (?)

EDIT: seems this is a issue with the default setting:
http://www.gamingw.net/forums/index.php?topic=74190.0

 

[The_scorpion]

yes, the default setting is that you get some 60-100 something enemies counterattack once you've captured drassen mine

the default settings will make it so that you face all of them after each other, given you can only battle 32 at a time (even that'll be changed at some point)

there's a lot of things you can do to avoid this:

STRATEGIC_EVENTS_SEND_TROOPS_TO_DRASSEN can be set to FALSE

then, reinforcements can be disabled. This means, the enemy troop pool from the three surrounding sectors can't hit at the same time --> fight split up in smaller parts

also, the attack only happens once you have the drassen mine captured. So you can, for example, conquer the two other sectors first, then train an awful lot of miltia in the other sectors (veteran miltia traning can be enabled in .INI)

you can also try to fight some of the approaching enemies before they reach drassen or you can conquer a different town first altogether so you can get some money and supplies first. I usually hit the pool of enemies efore they attack too. They gather in 3 sectors, i disable reinforcements and hit some of these sectors first.

But the easiest way is probably to conquer lots of other stuff first, get sniper rifles and grenade launchers and good mercs etc and have some carnage

an other tactic is to retreat an re-attack at night. Last time i tried that tactic, it was rather easy due to AI. But i don't know if everything is still the same, haven't played an unmodified 1.13 in ages

 

[Burning Bridges]

Thanks.

STRATEGIC_EVENTS_SEND_TROOPS_TO_DRASSEN can be set to FALSE

What exactly happeds if I disable it? Will Deidranna troops just stay in the sectors around Drassen or will she be denied any additional troops for the counterattack event?

then, reinforcements can be disabled. This means, the enemy troop pool from the three surrounding sectors can't hit at the same time --> fight split up in smaller parts

Do you remember how I can do this?

I guess my next playthrough will be with the 1st San Mona and Chitzena strategy, for now I am fed up with the counterattack. I rushed my way tro Drassen in order to gain time and was not prepared for that kind of thing

 

[The_scorpion]

can't tell exactly. There'll still be patrols and fighting and counterattacks around drassen, just the big one won't happen.


second question:

; Allows militia reinforcements from near sectors
ALLOW_REINFORCEMENTS = FALSE

this should reduce the number of enemies you face in one given map at one given time because nearby enemies can't teleport and just magically pop up in the sector anymore.
However, this makes combat less surprising as well.


if you're used to vanilla ja2, it'll take some time to get used to 1.13. Making one's own personal tweaks and additions usually helps. Different tactics can be applied, new features used.

Me, i made a bunch of locals hireable. They're for free so basicly i could hire them early on and have some more free manpower. however i didn't play that mod all that much outside of playtesting, so, don't know how much of a difference it'll make.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Can these changes be applied to an ongoing game or do I have to start a new one? (I just won the Chitzena mine and have not done anything east of omerta, so I assume there has not not much happened in Drassen.)

 

[The_scorpion]

i never change my options during an ongoing game, so can't tell for sure, but there's gotta be a bunch of threads over the BP or the Basis forum that cover this question.

other than that, it's worth a try

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

I just started playing this the other day, after starting (and aborting) with Unfinished Business and 1.13 last year. Note that I'm pretty terrible at strategy games in general, so I started on Novice - apparently the hardest difficulty because you barely get any drops, or something. Definitely feeling that.

Did the usual newbie stuff, took Drassen, trained militia, hit the SAM site, was royally raped, left the SAM site, came back at night, took the SAM site, trained militia, got the pilot.
Down to a couple of days left on my mercs' (Wolf, Spider, Fidel) week-long contract, and couldn't afford to re-hire them. Had barely found any decent guns either. So I set out for Alma, seeing that there was another mine there and in desperate need of cash. Figured it wouldn't be too hard to take.

Oh god.
Spent four hours just taking the first sector I came to, the NE one with the two large buildings. So now I'm at about 12 hours left on their contracts, everyone's at death's door, I'm not sure if I even have enough medical kits for the whole team, I have no money, very little time left and three military base sectors to take, and I'm sitting on a huge stockpile of weapons and ammo.

Fuck this game is awesome.

 

[someone else]

ARe you playing vanilla now? You should have enough money from the first mine to afford mercs. Mine $% = loyalty% of town. Loyalty goes up when you train militia and win battles.

At the start its better to hire MD and avoid letting hiim fight instead of getting a more expensive medic who can fight and get injured. Gus for the first day just for his rifle also works.

Fight at night at the when enemy guns outranged your own, once you out-range them switch to day combat. This and X-ray vision is how to win ironman without losing a single merc.

Alma may not be the best 2nd town to attack. I prefer the easier town in the center of the map. Plus you get access to a shop & hospital. Remember you can retreat to heal if the going gets too tough.

 

[Burning Bridges]

apparently the hardest difficulty because you barely get any drops, or something. Definitely feeling that.

Can someone confirm this? I just switched to a higher difficulty and got a SMG the first mission. Before that I had played a lot on novice and never found anything useful.

I am not very experienced, but I think it is better to attack Drassen first, then Chitzena, or the vice versa. Also, hiring one of the expensive mercs everything is much easier, but if you're a absolute beginner you probably run out of cash. One advantage is that you can get their equipment early on. But I always hire first the low level mercs: Grizzly, Blood, Hitman, Igor, Grunty, Fox, in no particular order.

 

[someone else]

Higher diff = harder enemies at the start with better equipment = better loot.

I avoid Chizena due to the low $.

 

[Admiral Rimjob POOBUM]

ARe you playing vanilla now? You should have enough money from the first mine to afford mercs. Mine $% = loyalty% of town. Loyalty goes up when you train militia and win battles.

I'm earning about $3600 a day through Drassen mine, but I won't be able to rehire my current mercs, at least not for a week's contract. Though I've now realised I could just rehire them for a day in order to take Alma mine.

Fight at night at the when enemy guns outranged your own, once you out-range them switch to day combat. This and X-ray vision is how to win ironman without losing a single merc.

Yeah, quickly learned that after Drassen's SAM site. Though I have a bunch of good guns now from one Alma section, assault rifles and a powerful sniper (Ira is headshotting people from across the screen), so I might be good.