JA3

[melkathi]

On 7/20/2023 at 3:54 AM, Gorgon said:

soooo.. this or baldurs gate 3 ?

Is it essentially an xcom type thing. 

 

You have to ask?

Obviously Mordheim.

[Keyrock]

I'm getting ready to assault the refugee camp and Dr. Q wants me to kill every enemy in the sector with shots to the schlong. You know what, doc, just for you I'm going to make it happen.

Edited July 22, 2023 by Keyrock

[Hurlshort]

Oh man, things went sideways fast for me. I think I'm going to survive, but don't get too comfortable, folks.

Also, I'm a bit bummed you can only recruit 16 mercs. I thought the cap would be 3 squads, but it's a bit short of that. Might be time to cut some contracts short (Omryn is already gone) and pick up some of the gold mercs.

[Keyrock]

This refugee camp assault was the most smooth battle I've pulled off so far. I took zero damage.

I had Blood sneak up on a goon and kill him with a thrown knife to the schlong. Another goon noticed the dead body but not before Blood got into hiding, so the enemies were alerted but didn't know where any of my mercs were. They all funneled toward the dead body where one by one they all got shot in the family jewels, largely by Dethwish from up high, but everybody got in on the junk destruction. 

This guy has his priorities straight.

[Hurlshort]

I noticed some reviews were complaining about the humor, but I'm getting a kick out of. The Beast is my favorite character so far.

[Lexx]

I started playing a little bit yesterday. Sadly I don't have much time, so I didn't even left the starting zone. But one thing I noticed... why are there so few character portraits for my custom character?! This is a real terribly small selection.

[Hurlshort]

Quests are a bit buggy. I'm not too surprised, since some are super complex, but I've had a couple issues with completing stuff.

[Keyrock]

No issues with quests so far, as far as I can tell, but I'm pretty certain I'm nowhere near as far into the game as @Hurlshortthus I haven't completed nearly as many.

I had a 2 for 1 special where in one sector I both rescued Claudette and intercepted a diamond shipment. Some good money that diamond shipment, I wouldn't mind intercepting another one. If nothing else, I'm more than set for the next time my mercs' pay comes due, which is still a few days away. I'm slowly making my way toward the diamond mine in the northwest corner. Hopefully I'll be strong enough to take it when I get there.

Edited July 24, 2023 by Keyrock

[Keyrock]

1 minute ago, Keyrock said:

 

Delete pls. I meant to edit my post, not quote it. 

Edited July 24, 2023 by Keyrock

[Lexx]

I still didn't had much time to play But there is another thing that keeps bugging me.... am I stupid or is there no way to quickselect a single merc? Can I only ever select all and blob them around the map?

Also, sorry, but I hate the claustrophobic camera zoom.

[Azdeus]

You're correct, you can tab through them though

[Keyrock]

I liberated Pantagruel and met with Definitely Not Che Guevara. Right now I'm playing ball with him because something something an enemy of my enemy, but if it comes down to it I'll put the commies in the dirt, same as the legion. For now, though, we're "allies".

@LexxThere might be a mod to increase maximum zoom.

Edited July 25, 2023 by Keyrock

[Gorth]

15 hours ago, Keyrock said:

Delete pls. I meant to edit my post, not quote it. 

[Keyrock]

I am cutting a swath through the northern part of the map on my way toward the diamond mine in the northwest corner. As a bonus, there's another diamond shipment I can intercept on the way. On maps where I can set up a really good defensive position I employ the ol' let the enemy come to me and introduce it to the concept of overwatch strategy. Now that I got my hands on a Dragunov and a RPK, this is only going to get worse for the legion. I left Fosse Noire be for now, I'm not hard up for money and attacking it would piss off Definitely Not Che Guevara. I'm not looking to break an alliance just yet. I may do a scorched earth run in the future with Meltdown and Nails and any other psychopaths I can hire, with the aim being to piss off everybody and to leave Grand Chien a smoking ruin. With my current group, though, I'm going to play nice, for the time being, at least.

[Hurlshort]

I don't want to spoil anything, but play nice with Che for now. It is worth it. 

I'm 50 hours in. I have real world stuff going on, so that's pretty amazing. It's simply the perfect sequel to JA2 and JA2 1.13. I'm super happy. I go to sleep thinking about missions and wake up ready to implement strategies. I'm close to the end now. Technically I really only have 2 areas I need to take to win the game, but I'm procrastinating so I can just explore the areas. I have 3 good squads rolling and they are all pretty unique.  

Spoiler

I found Elliot, and it was easily the most satisfying gaming moment I've had since I first played JA2 23 years ago. That was a great payoff. Well done, Ian Currie. 

Also the Presidente is dead. I tried to save him, but it was tricky. I think if I mortared the tent he was near earlier, I could have done it, but I'm saving that for another play through. 

 

[ShadySands]

On 7/22/2023 at 5:18 PM, Hurlshort said:

Also, I'm a bit bummed you can only recruit 16 mercs. I thought the cap would be 3 squads, but it's a bit short of that. Might be time to cut some contracts short (Omryn is already gone) and pick up some of the gold mercs.

Does this include the free/extra mercs that you pick up along the way? I've got like 3 of those so far, could have had a 4th but I went another route.

Spoiler

1. Larry
2. Flay
3. Pierre
4. Smiley - I didn't try to keep him because his cause didn't seem worth fighting for

 

Edited July 27, 2023 by ShadySands

[Azdeus]

56 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

Does this include the free/extra mercs that you pick up along the way? I've got like 3 of those so far, could have had a 4th but I went another route.

  Reveal hidden contents

1. Larry
2. Flay
3. Pierre
4. Smiley - I didn't try to keep him because his cause didn't seem worth fighting for

 

No, you're limited in AIM mercs, but not the extra ones.

Or rather, you can have 15 AIM mercs, plus one imp, and then extras.

Edited July 27, 2023 by Azdeus

[Hurlshort]

It looks like the free mercs don't count towards the cap. I only have 2 (plus my AIM guy.) 

[Hurlshort]

I finished the game. I'm already pretty excited about another playthrough, but I'll wait a bit. Game was very much worth it.

[Hurlshort]

I think I need to expand on my final review of the game with some backstory. I bought Jagged Alliance when I was in high school somewhat randomly. My mom had dragged me to the Great Mall for something, which was a bit of a drive. I convinced her that my patience for shopping deserved something, so we went into a Walden Bookstore. This was back when bookstores sold video games, and I came across this title from Sir-Tech that looked interesting. I bugged my mom to let me get the game instead of a book and she relented. It was a diamond in the rough, for sure. 

A couple years go by and I'm almost out of High School, and I find Jagged Alliance: Deadly Games at Fry's Electronics. I buy it. It isn't a traditional campaign like the other one, and it is supposed to let you play against other people online. Unfortunately I had limited internet and never got to play against others, but I was able to download maps. There was some really good ones. I played the Alamo dozens of times. 

Next we find me in college, working a boring office job making copies and moving furniture. A demo comes across the somewhat new internet for JA2. I download it and take it home, since I had no internet in my college frat house. I played the heck out of it, but the game itself was delayed...and delayed...and delayed some more. Finally it released, and it almost seemed like Sir-Tech closed their doors the next day. But the game, despite a ton of bugs, was perfect. It was strategic and humorous and unlike anything else. It had some of the magic of Xcom, but it was also its own thing entirely. I played it for years, and then fans overhauled it, and I played 1.13 for more years.

I also played Wildfire, which was not so charming but at least had some of the strategy to it. I avoided most of the bad attempts at rebooting it. I kickstarted one that turned out pretty bad. Then I heard JA3 was being worked on, but they had the original developer, Ian Currie. That sparked my interest. Unsurprisingly, Ian Currie found a new home quickly after Sir-Tech went under. He joined an MMO company called Turbine and ended up being a lead on my other favorite game ever, Lord of the Rings Online. There is definitely some magic in his work. He was at Turbine for close to 2 decades, but had retired. So I was excited he had a hand in it, but worried that he was just a retired advisor with a limited role. My worries were unfounded.

Jagged Alliance 3 is definitely the sequel I was waiting for for 23 years. I'd go so far as to say it was worth the wait. I'm very content with the idea I got to return to the world of AIM, and I believe this iteration will tide me over for a good while.   

Edited July 28, 2023 by Hurlshort

[ShadySands]

I'm in some major messes lately and I haven't posted about it because I don't want to spoil anything for anyone

 

Edited July 28, 2023 by ShadySands

[Keyrock]

I captured the Diamond Mine in A2. I got through the battle without taking a single point of damage by employing the defend a fortified position, use overwatch, and let my snipers (one with a Dragunov the other with a FAL) explode heads from a distance strategy. A wildly effective strategy. After that it only left

Graaf for me to deal with. I snuck up on him and, well, 5 on 1 isn't exactly a fair fight. I wound up executing him and taking his gaudy but nevertheless super powerful gun:

In my scorched earth playthrough I plan to do in the future I'll likely let him live and have him crack the whip on the slaves for me to make me more money. I had too much of a conscience to let him live in this playthrough.

I also formed a second squad consisting of Grizzly, Buns, and Kalina that's currently on its way to meet up with my main squad so that I can give it some equipment then I'll split the squads up again. Meanwhile the legion tried to take back the diamond mine I took near Fleatown and their chump ass attack squad got obliterated by the 8 militia I trained and left there. You're going to have to do better than that, Major.

[Gorth]

8 hours ago, Hurlshort said:

<history>

Sometimes you just find a game, that somehow comes to personify an age or a genre for you. For me, there are a handful of games that despite being 30 years old are my "go to" games for different reasons. To this day, I still use a C64 as well as an Amiga emulator to play games that never made it to PC in a for me playable form (Lords of Midnight by MIke Singleton, Ultima IV by "Lord British",  Elite by Bell/Braben, Carriers at War by SSI, Mech Warrior, Defender of the Crown etc.) as well as old PC games that runs on dos emulator like Gygax' War in Russia and Master of Orion 2 by Microprose and yes, also some "newer" games that runs on Windows like the original X-Com trilogy and Jagged Alliance 1+2. To be fair, if I wanted the original Elite experience, I should find an Acorn BBC-B emulator and the original BBC version

 

But like the above history, sometimes, just sometimes you run into something that feels like a worthy successor. I had a similar feeling with Xenonauts after lamenting the inability of games developers to make proper X-Com type games

(as in, I felt like celebrating and played it to death for a while, satisfying this deep seated need for something that felt like X-Com and I hope JA3 will be a similar experience)

 

Edit: Forgot to mention a game like HoMM3, which to some degree got a similar game in Disciples II

[Lexx]

Are you people playing in a higher difficulty setting? I've read of you guys money troubles and how hard it was to capture certain sectors.

So the thing is ... Finally yesterday I had time to actually dig into the game and by the end of the middle of the night, I had both mines, the one in the top, and the one at the bottom of the coast. I have 6 mercs now - me, Ice, Hitman, MD, Igor, and lately I've hired Livewire, because I thought it useful to have an actual mechanic and hacker. I have something around 40k in money. I'm playing on the difficulty setting that is not the super hard one (forgot what it was called). I had been in the one or the other pickle, but all in all I've managed fairly well so far.

The game has some really cool moment, and I love it when the music sets in every once in a while. That whole african flair is just great.

As I had expected before the release, the maps are all pretty small and often feel like just a set combat arena. Still, the maps look great. Just wish there would be a few more opportunities.

Oh, and man, I quickly found out how useful sniper rifles are. Since the very first time I found a fat rifle, I'm kicking ass. And since I have found an M14 with mods from a weapon smuggler, Hitman hits 90% of his shots.. to the head. He is cleaning up the field almost on his own. I gave Igor the golden rifle that was mentioned further above and jeez, that thing hits like an elephant.

Oh² one more thing... In the starting area I got a Famas with mods... but I have never used it so far, since I actually don't have *any* 5.56mm ammunition. And I have absolutely no idea where I can find some. Is there a weapons shop again like in Ja2? The interface is kinda annoying to use, and I couldn't find anything via the web browser. What's the point of giving me a cool rifle if I don't have any ammo for it.

It's crazy how good this game feels. After so many failed attempts to make a new JA game, it feels extremely weird to suddenly have one that ... doesn't suck. It's almost like you expect a new JA game to suck, because "that's just how it is." And when you play this game, it's like it was actually really easy to make a good sequel. Like.. what's the big deal? Here you see exactly how to do it ... why have all those other studios not been able to do this? Is it really actually Ian Currie who is the only one who understood the game and was now able to make another good one? I just don't understand.

Granted, the game also has its fair share of issues, but it's nothing I can't look past for the moment.

Edited July 29, 2023 by Lexx

[Hurlshort]

My money problems cleared up pretty well after I captured that 2nd mine. I was flush by the end of the game (although not as flush as Biff!) Ammo and meds became a bit more of an issue, depending on the squad. You can craft ammo on maps that have the little repair logo. 5.56 ammo is definitely one I craft regularly, as well as the right kind of 7.62 ammo for machine guns.

I wouldn't say the game is hard. There are certain objectives that are very difficult to pull off. There is a lot of room for experimentation, and so if one strategy didn't work, it was easy to find another. There were also some bugs, but that isn't a surprise for a game like this. I'm also curious how quickly the modding community changes stuff up. JA3 1.13 seems like a given at some point.