Let's Play: Jagged Alliance 2

[Majek]

I'm thinking possibly attack Cambria. Its a long fight but easier than the Drassen counterattack, plus there is lots of good supplies in the city.

 

 

If I go to Drassen first and take only two sectors, I would still have to leave some the mercs as garrison units to help defend the town. I'm reluctant to split the team this early. Of the 16 mercs only 6 are good combat mercs. The rest are mostly support and training.

 

Depends on how you take on the drassen ca. If you wait for them to come all at once in Drassen then you've got a great long battle on your hands. But if you explore the sectors around Drassen and then ambush separate patrols than you can cripple them quite badly. Of course Skyrider and a free sam also play an important role in all of this. And of course you have trainers train militia. That way you can full use Raider and Len and other high Ldr mercs and have some meat shields ready

 

And you could've only attached the file to conserve space instead of posting is all :D

 

First I suggest you change these to 0 to speed up any fights in towns.

MILITIA_TURN_SPEED_UP_FACTOR = 1

CIVILIAN_TURN_SPEED_UP_FACTOR = 1

 

also you could change this to 3. You may find some good weapons and other items early and you could go and steal them

SOLDIER_TOOLTIP_DETAIL_LEVEL = 2

 

 

and you could increase the damage of below from 60-80

EXPLOSIVES_DAMAGE_MULTIPLIER = 0

MELEE_DAMAGE_MULTIPLIER = 0

 

oh unlimited troops and agressive queen. and Mobile militia? you sure about using that?

I don't like that and rather increase

MAX_MILITIA_PER_SECTOR = 20 .. to 30

MAX_TRAINING_SQUAD_SIZE = 10 to 13

as well as

MAX_MILITIA_TRAINERS_PER_SECTOR = 2 to 3

to keep them from running like headless chickens all over the map and dieing more than winning = burning too much cash.

 

None of these setting above require a new game.

 

 

 

I also turn off

ENABLE_CREPITUS = TRUE

so i can play SCI-Fi games and get all that nifty guns.

 

and enable all Weapon caches to get all the weapons and ammo stored there :D

ENABLE_ALL_WEAPON_CACHES = FALSE

 

and i might even turn this on

SLOW_PROGRESS_FOR_ENEMY_ITEMS_CHOICE = FALSE

 

but these are irrelevant now since you're already playing. They require a restart and so far there's not need for that Unles you're already playing SciFi?

Edited June 7, 2009 by Majek

[Slowtrain]

Our expensive mercs probably aren't insured, so we better make them last all two weeks if possible

 

 

No, I haven't insured any yet. If you make too many claims on the insurance the insurance copmapny tends to give you a hard time. I usaully pick one or two mercs to buy up long term, then I only have one or two insurance policies to worry about it.

[Slowtrain]

First I suggest you change these to 0 to speed up any fights in towns. This doesn't require a new game.

MILITIA_TURN_SPEED_UP_FACTOR = 1

CIVILIAN_TURN_SPEED_UP_FACTOR = 1

 

also you could change this to 3. You may find some good weapons and other items early and you could go and steal them

SOLDIER_TOOLTIP_DETAIL_LEVEL = 2

 

 

and you could increase the damage of below from 60-80

EXPLOSIVES_DAMAGE_MULTIPLIER = 0

MELEE_DAMAGE_MULTIPLIER = 0

 

 

I try to stay as close to the original game settings as possible.

 

The only things I usually change in the .ini is give myself more money and increase the imp stats a bit. Then I make a few changes to the expert level norms such as set the queen to agreessive and give her unlimited troops. I can train veteran and roving militias and I keep allow reinforcements on.

 

I don't usually change to much else.

 

I find that the Insane level difficulty is too hard to be really fun, but defult expert is a little too easy, so I try to blend the two difficulty levels togther a bit.

 

I can never decide on whether to leave the Drassen counterattack on. On the one hand, it's fun and challenging. Otoh, it really unbalances the game by changing Drassen from the easiet place to go first to the hardest.

[Majek]

Well there use to be a mod in works to give such attacks on all the cities but it's forgotten somewhere now. ;_;

 

Well

MILITIA_TURN_SPEED_UP_FACTOR = 1

CIVILIAN_TURN_SPEED_UP_FACTOR = 1

 

only speeds them up to conserve time nothing else, so that one is harmless.

[Slowtrain]

Well, I scouted the sectors between Omerta and Cambria just so Icould see what was going on there. But immediatly upon returning to Omerta I was counterattackef on day 2 by a pretty sizeable force.

 

 

We had a strong defensive position and only Ivan took even small damage.

 

 

[Majek]

Don't you go kill off Ivan before we even get somewhere xDD

Edited June 7, 2009 by Majek

[Slowtrain]

Well it seems like the vote is to go to Drassen so we will. Here are the numbers. The mine numebrs are very good for Drassen on expert level. So its worth it, if we can keep it.

 

 

 

 

[Slowtrain]

Don't you go kill off Ivan before we even get somewhere xDD

 

 

"See enemy now."

 

"Good. All dead."

 

 

Ivan is awesome.

[Majek]

Well since you've got 600k left i suppose you could only liberate the upper 2 sectors and leave the mine for a while so you can adequately prepare for the counter attack. Maybe even do the food quest if Father is drinking :D

[Hurlshort]

I've let them retake the airport before, and then went in afterwards. It was easier, I felt.

[Gorth]

Well, I scouted the sectors between Omerta and Cambria just so Icould see what was going on there. But immediatly upon returning to Omerta I was counterattackef on day 2 by a pretty sizeable force.

 

 

We had a strong defensive position and only Ivan took even small damage.

It's a bloody massacre!

 

How can you not love this game?

[Slowtrain]

Well, when sweeping around south of Drassen, I ran into my first bad situation. A sniper with a couple buddies was buried deep in a bunch of thick trees. They didn't open fire until my team got close and they started doing serious damage. I was able to flank them with 2 mercs who were advancing ahead of the main group which kept Buzz alive. I seriously thought I was going to lose her. But everything ended well, except the sniper didn't drop his rifle when he died.

 

 

ALso, it appears Grizzlty won't be joing us this time out.

 

 

 

[Slowtrain]

Here's the 12 day map:

 

Looks a little weird since I skipped the middle sector of Drassen, taking the mine and airport only. But even with only 2/3's control the income is better than Chitznea with full control.

 

Also, most of the mercs at end of contract. I'm going to have to cut a few and tighten down the team.

 

 

I guess the NE SAM is the next stop. I'm a little bit afraid to leave the mine unattended though.

 

[Majek]

They won't attack the mine. After you take the Sam the first thing is the response elite team that comes to take it back ( and repair it if you destroy it )

 

As for letting go. Reaper is my first suggestion. You can get him back after Raven gets a few lvls because she demands far more money than Reaper with all her weaker stats.

 

Have you recruited Skyrider yet? There's like 1 last swamp sector where he could be hiding if you haven't gotten him yet.

And you MUST explore the D12 and E12 before taking the middle sector and the Drassen counterattack.

 

edit: BTW why did you hire Magic ( and then let him go)?

Edited June 7, 2009 by Majek

[Gorth]

You could always send Ira out looking for Skyrider. If she runs into enemy patrols... no big loss

 

But agreed, preferably we'll be able to look at all the surrounding squares.

 

We could use a lot a milita in this game. Even on Novice, you need to replenish the militia regularly just to keep status quo. I sometimes use the M.E.R.C. mercs for that kind of rear guard action (and loot hauling).

 

@Majek: What was that about destroying the SAM? Can you actually do that? Is it a 1.13 feature?

 

Edit: Aww... poor Grizzly. The (or rather my) problem with Buzz is her nice round zero medic skills, which means she can't even unwrap a band aid and put it on her knee to save her life.

[Tigranes]

Awesome. Jagged Alliance always looked quite intimidating to me, one of those where I just find it hard to get into. I think with small scale squad tactical games with a lot of variables I don't instinctively grapple with the mechanics, so it's all dizzying. Good to see it in action.

 

I hardly understand what's happening, but will be anticipating some of the more difficult battles and their descriptions.

[~Di]

Whoa... Drassen counter attack is ON? Yikes! Once I read about that puppy, I took it off so fast it left skid marks. I mean, talk about suicide. Besides, there are too many ways to get one's arse kicked in JA2 without going for certain death. I pride myself at being good at this game, but I'll humbly admit I doubt I'm that good.

 

You're brave, my man. *bows in awe*

 

Let us have a moment of silence for the Grizzly one... *sniff*. His mom was proud.

Edited June 8, 2009 by ~Di

[Majek]

@Majek: What was that about destroying the SAM? Can you actually do that? Is it a 1.13 feature?

Well i've been told it's been so since release of Ja2. You destroy the main computer and then even if the enemy recaptures it you're still left with freed airspace. There first enemy squad coming to retake apparently has the ability to repair it but others don't. Of course i myself have never bother to actually do this but over then 10 years i've seen enough people and even screenshots to actually starting to believe it can happen.

[Slowtrain]

Hey guys,

 

Sorry no posts today, but I was in class for 9 straight hours.

 

Any last night I played through a bit, but got a bit lazy with the screenies. Mostly becasue it seemed we had already decided on a course and nothing particularly unusual happened.

 

We took the Drassen SAM without problems, blew up the computers, repelled two enemy counterattacks. At that point I had to make some cuts and Buzz, Len, and Thor were all dismissed.

 

 

I left Reaper, Wolf, Raider, and Ivan as garrison in Drassen to watch over the mine, airport, and SAM site. I took everybody else to San MOna and sold a bunch of guns. Then we went to CHitzena and attacked the soputhern sector at night. It was actually a pretty hairy battle and we took some damage, but made it through OK. Next step wil be to attack the northern sector of Chitzena. AFter that, things should get a lot more interesting and we wil haev to make some tougher decisions.

 

 

I've been getting hosed on the weapon and item drops. Not even a pair gen 1 nvgs or any sort of good rifle. Barely even any usuable ammo. Hopefully thet wil change soon.

 

 

ANyway, I'll post a screenie showing the current situation shortly. After CHitzena is secured we need to decide what to do. A lot of options at that point.

[Slowtrain]

Here we are at Day 20 then. It's actually been pretty tough so far. Only the Drassen SAM was really a cakewalk.

 

[Gorth]

We might want somebody (Ira?) to do a bit of quick scouting on C:12 and D:12, just to see what hostile activity there is around the Drassen mine. South Chitzena always seems harder than north Chitzena for some reason

 

Edit: Never mind ths scouting, I just realised that our path of retreat is bocked by hostiles in central Drassen

[Majek]

Path of retreat? There is no one in c12 and d12 that you'd have to retreat from.

[Majek]

So, have you killed Deidranna yet?

[Slowtrain]

So, have you killed Deidranna yet?

 

 

I started a new game. SO no. Not yet. :/

[Majek]

Oh. Good luck then.