Jagged Alliance 3 from Haemimont Games

[udm]

Rato's Balance is exactly the mod I've been looking for to tip me over the edge to buy JA3 (though I'll still play vanilla first). Thanks!

 

[Atlet]

Fine, im down for another playthrough. Needs to check out the new things they implemented in the game, anyway.

Oh, and are there any recent game that approaches the winning combination of tacticoolness/turn-based combat + char progression/leveling + squad management/strategy, much as JA3 did?

 

[raeven]

Fine, im down for another playthrough. Needs to check out the new things they implemented in the game, anyway.

Oh, and are there any recent game that approaches the winning combination of tacticoolness/turn-based combat + char progression/leveling + squad management/strategy, much as JA3 did?

Some people say troubleshooter, I tried it out and it wasn't at all to my taste though. I've heard wartales and battle brothers scratch the itch, but haven't played either. I believe both are procedurally generated and don't have much in the way of story, but I may be wrong about that.

Other than that... I'd suggest JA2 with stracciatella mod.

 

[raeven]

BB and wartales are medieval setting, so might not be the flavor of tacticool you're going for.

 

[spectre]

Oh, and are there any recent game that approaches the winning combination of tacticoolness/turn-based combat + char progression/leveling + squad management/strategy, much as JA3 did?

It's as it's always been - a beggars can't be choosers type of genre. Especially if you want a modern setting, and even more so if you filter out blatant excum clones.
There are a few upcoming titles that look promising, but could still turn out shit (Urban Strife, maybe End State, but it's still vaporware until proven otherwise, Heatwave, Ascent of Ashes, Menace and Project Haven)

Out of the stuff that's actually released, people swear by Door Kickers, but I keep bouncing off of it. King Arthur I've tried and was okay, but that's fantasy (also, I had this feeling that the missions drag on a bit).
I've managed to get a decent tactical (not tacticool) experience out of Last Spell and Fights in Tight Spaces, if you can stomach the roguelite formula, it has pretty damn solid turn based action that's also fairly recent.
Wartales I've tried, I don't think it's randomly generated (but I've only played the demo and it was some time ago). The system looks akin to the Expeditions series if you happen to swing that way.
Decent, but felt a bit watered down and perhaps a bit too class-focused.
BB is of course excellent and should count as reasonably new (though it feels like ages since I last played it). If there's anything to add, don't be fooled by the graphics.
The devs did an excellent job making the combat very tactile and meaty and you'll quickly forget about the bobblehead characters.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Fine, im down for another playthrough. Needs to check out the new things they implemented in the game, anyway.

Oh, and are there any recent game that approaches the winning combination of tacticoolness/turn-based combat + char progression/leveling + squad management/strategy, much as JA3 did?

It's rare for tactics game to have the kind of squad management and strategic component found in Jagged Alliance 3. Ignoring that, good tactics games from the last few years:

• Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children (2020)
• Dungeon of Naheulbeuk (2020, Tactical RPG)
• Wasteland 3 (2020, Tactical RPG and Codex GotY)
• Urtuk (2021)
• Solasta (2021, Tactical RPG) and another two campaigns with the same engine
• King Arthur: Knight's Tale (2022)

 

[Atlet]

Fine, im down for another playthrough. Needs to check out the new things they implemented in the game, anyway.

Oh, and are there any recent game that approaches the winning combination of tacticoolness/turn-based combat + char progression/leveling + squad management/strategy, much as JA3 did?

Some people say troubleshooter, I tried it out and it wasn't at all to my taste though. I've heard wartales and battle brothers scratch the itch, but haven't played either. I believe both are procedurally generated and don't have much in the way of story, but I may be wrong about that.

Other than that... I'd suggest JA2 with stracciatella mod.

Already played w stracciatella lots of times. Just this year, I finished JA2 2 times with it. Troubleshooter might be incredibly deep, but its cringe anime, so its a pass.

 

[Papill0n]

Rato's Rebalance is a good mod. It adds a directional stance to weapons where firing at the same/close by targets requires less action points than shooting at targets outside the merc's view, a recoil system where strong characters have an easier time keeping their aim on target, full damage to autofire but increased critical hit chance for single shots, a short-range malus to scoped-up long distance rifles, bigger awareness cones around enemies to discourage overpowered melee kills, and plenty of other stuff. I would only recommend it after reaching the halfway point of normal JA3 first.

Smart Overwatch is useful. It stops your soldiers wasting their overwatch shots on impossible attempts at the target's torso and instead aiming for visible body parts. You can also manually set shot types and targets for overwatch.

I think the... uhh... Exit Wounds(?) option when starting a new game incorporates similar bleeding penalties as the defunct Bleeding Mod. It was introduced in 1.4 or 1.5.

Pinned Down is a good addition too. It causes your mercs and enemies both start losing action points from just getting shot at. Not sure if the Nexusmods version is still compatible, the one in Steam Workshop is more recent.

As for just QoL stuff, I like Interface Tweaks that adds all sorts of sensible ideas to the UI, mainly in the inventory. There were also SAY THE LINES -mods which cause all applicable merc banters to fire when there's a trigger for it in the conversation so you'll have multiple dudes interjecting when they have something to say. That one probably doesn't work in the current game, unfortunately.

Some of that stuff sounds very reasonable. Do you know if this all works with 1.5?

I just started using the mod editor and I'm obvously stuck with very basic stuff. I guess the first mod I make is one that gives more tactical options. Unlocking mobile shot and run and gun with more weapons instead of just smgs and pistols. There must be another way to balance the latter better than to give them a unique action that makes little sense being unique for them (if the animations at least looked like it could only be done with small, compact guns, fine, but the shots look exactly the same as normal shots, properly aimed from the shoulder, not like some crazy GTA sideways akimbo Uzi rush or whatever). I'd go for lower Action Points but there is not much room to manouver because someone decided that we should not have 20-25 action points per turn (such as Ja2) but only, say 10-15 usually. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Availability and other tweaks may bring them into balance, though, we'll see.

Oh and do poeple like the autofire mechanic or would a long burst (such as MGs have) be more fun for automatic weapons in general? Looks like I can only have one or the other on the same gun.

 

[3 others]

Tested the mods briefly. Everything works in current game except for "say the lines". Even Pinned Down works despite not being updated since 2023.

Agreed on the "firing while running" animations. Blood's knife throws and the light gun specialties look idiotic, and for a long time I had a problem understanding what the enemy soldiers were doing and how they could cover so much ground and still get a few shots off (because I'm a retard who was playing this like JA2). I really wish they'd have put more resources into these animations, if only to speed them up if nothing else.

 

[Papill0n]

same here. It took me a while to get used to some of these functions. Funny enough, the more the game progresses the more I switch back to Ja2-style again. I guess it has to do with late game enemies such as PMCs not just zergrushing you, but many of them hold a good position and if their spotters see you, the ordnance experts further back will shoot 40mm grenades. Also, a bit of overwatch usually doesn't stop some of these walking tanks. I must confess I often end up noob-tubing them during my own turn rather than pumping tons of AP-ammo into their HP-bloat during overwatch. So I feel overwatch becomes less useful in late game because the rushers are not the problems.


I agree that many of the animations are bad. There are some more really effective special attacks that look... very underwhelming. Ice storm, Bullet Hell... they look like nothing, animation wise so that's really a missed chance there.

 

[razvedchiki]

is there a reason not to use sniper rifles for everyone?

 

[Strange Fellow]

is there a reason not to use sniper rifles for everyone?

A sniper rifle can kill one dude per turn, maybe two. Other weapons can kill four or five.

 

[Berekän]

Snipers are good for suppressed kills before the combat starts, but once the enemies have located you a high marksmanship merc with a LMG is 10x as deadlier.

 

[spectre]

Also, you need Fox to cheese it fully, cause she lets you pull off an extra shot before the scramble.

 

[razvedchiki]

im tempted to restart with ratos overhaul, anyone tried it?

 

[Visperas]

I'm about to start my first playthrough of JA3. Any recommendations on difficulty level? Anything else I should know before I start? Is there a mod so good and useful that you would recommend it even for a first run? Hit me!

 

[destinae vomitus]

I'm about to start my first playthrough of JA3. Any recommendations on difficulty level? Anything else I should know before I start? Is there a mod so good and useful that you would recommend it even for a first run? Hit me!

Play on medium or better yet hard. Ignore whatever the game might say about the easiest difficulty being "standard", it really is just easymode and labeled that way for the sake of retards/gamejournos to not deal a blow to their ego.

When you make your own merc give them at least 60-70 leadership if not max, the tooltip doesn't say it but it also increases travel speed on the map which is vital. As for mods I'd at least recommend UI Enhancements and Darker Nights.

 

[MrBuzzKill]

I'm really quite loving this game. As someone who played and finished JA1 for the first time a few years back, and also given JA2 a fair shot, IMHO this combines their strengths while also bringing good new things to the table.
The graphics, especially the environments are beautiful as well

 

[Strange Fellow]

I'm about to start my first playthrough of JA3. Any recommendations on difficulty level? Anything else I should know before I start? Is there a mod so good and useful that you would recommend it even for a first run? Hit me!

Combat difficulty goes to max, no question. I did try a couple of mods that I would recommend even on a first playthrough, but that was many months ago and they're probably deprecated by now due to patches. The good news is that the game is good without them. I don't think there are any mods out there that will make you like the game if you'd dislike vanilla or vice versa.

When you make your own merc give them at least 60-70 leadership if not max, the tooltip doesn't say it but it also increases travel speed on the map which is vital.

Nothing in this game is vital. You can get by just fine without any high leadership mercs. You don't even need the IMP at all if you don't want him.

 

[3 others]

Is it possible to download Steam Workshop mods for games that you own elsewhere? I have the GOG version of JA3, and both UI enhancements & Darker Nights mod aren't available in Nexusmods.

 

[spectre]

Is it possible to download Steam Workshop mods for games that you own elsewhere? I have the GOG version of JA3, and both UI enhancements & Darker Nights mod aren't available in Nexusmods.

https://af.gog.com/forum/rimworld/guide_how_to_download_mods_directly_from_steam?as=1649904300
This is most likely outdated, but I just wanted to give you an idea about the hoops to jump. Either this method, or a bunch of sketchy websites.
I hear Gaben actively hunts those down, so sucks donkey balls when you're a paying customer and yet get treated like a pirate.

Though if the mods in question are contained to their respective mod folder, perhaps a kind soul would upload them for you.
Sadly, I don't own Ja3, and I don't think workshop works with the demo and getting the game to download all the mods then immediately refund would be really fucking desperate.

 

[agris]

If you have a Steam account I would try the linked approach with the Steam console first, before downloading SteamCMD.

There’s a chance that on a per-app basis it is required for you to own the app to download the workshop file, but being logged into Steam may be enough. That rimworld how-to indicates that the dev specifically enabled anonymous downloading of workshop mods - ie no Steam account required. At a minimum I expect most games require you to be logged into Steam

 

[Abu Antar]

I would make a throwaway Steam account, just in case.

 

[raeven]

I'm about to start my first playthrough of JA3. Any recommendations on difficulty level? Anything else I should know before I start? Is there a mod so good and useful that you would recommend it even for a first run? Hit me!

Definitely recommend max difficulty unless you've never played a turn based tactics game before.

I think the game is more fun without making an IMP character personally. The IMP is super bland and you can make do with what you're given.

As far as mercs, I recommend Barry, Thor, and Wolf in your starting squad. People recommend livewire over wolf but her combat stats are super weak comparatively. She is the funniest Merc in the game though so YMMV. You get an influx of cash after taking the first town and if you head straight to a mine after tutorial island you should be able to afford them without issue. Only hire for 2 weeks at a time to save money, even at the start.

Other grear starting mercs are Ice and Blood. IMO those two round out the best five person squad you can afford in the early game. You can round it out with an IMP Merc, meltdown, or Ivan once you can afford him.

 

[Papill0n]

In that starting squad, you would have no mechanic (Barry is not good enough from the start). Mechanics are important/useful, even early on. There are many options for starting mercs but without explosive experts and mechanics, you're always missing out on some content or on additional options.