After i brought Maria back to her Brother one of my mercs Got a level up. How does it work?
Is there a set amount of XP for each quest?
Is it distributed among all my mercs or only among the ones in active party that ended the quest?
Is there a random element to it?
Honestly, I have no idea. I suspect quests add a bunch of "advancements" to characters level, but you'd have to code-dive to see how exactly it's distributed.
Since JA2 tends to handle stuff in a logical manner, I'd suspect that mercs present in the sector are affected (see if they're making some banter).
The under the hood advancement math is quite complex (taking into account stuff like WIS etc., etc.), so it might appear random.
You can read up on this here:
http://ja2v113.pbworks.com/w/page/4218325/"How does it work" Part 7a: Levelling Up
After running multiple tests i confirmed that Quest Exp is divided among all mercs that are active in the sector.
1. If i turn in the quest with 12 mercs no one gets promoted.
2. If i turn in with small group only a single, low level merc got promoted
3. If i only used Maria + 2 low level mercs, they both got promoted (from 1 to 2).
So its better to use for Your lowest level dudes (more interrupts).
TL;DR - Nope, it's "the same reward for each merc in the sector", not split/divided among them.
As the linked 7a article says (
Bear's Pit version with some discussion and a tad better formatting), there aren't any fixed-number guaranteed experience gains, but merely chances to gain an experience point towards a particular skill, which are affected by some further math and decrease with proficiency. This makes skills with the lowest values (including the level itself) much easier to raise than the ones with some points in them, and even two identical mercs may differ in skill gains from grinding stats on the same things.
The second part of that article lists that quest's reward as 100 checks for getting an experience point (in 1.13 it seems to have been changed to 400 checks by the time the relevant stuff got externalized), which means in vanilla you need to have some preexisting buildup of experience to see a levelup from it even at level 1 (need 350 xp to advance to level 2), and be much closer to the threshold for any higher level. The wording in 1.13's .ini is a tad clearer copy of what's in 7b (it's X checks being awarded individually to each merc present) but I don't see anything pointing at it being some undocumented addition to 1.13: the article guy says the experience mechanism hasn't been altered, and the
source code ("\Build\Tactical\Campaign.c", "AwardExperienceBonusToActiveSquad" that is called on quest completion) seems to imply that's the intended-ish behavior (that is, it also mentions as "to do" that only the currently active squad should be getting the reward but that bit I haven't experienced in-game).
What I've noticed instead is, merc's squad assignment and their position in it appears to affect which part of the fixed RNG table they'll end up getting for the rolls, and as such how many checks they will succeed at (I could reliably get a specific 4th-level merc that was in range of getting a levelup there to level up from the 'Mona quest no matter whether he was alone or with 20 other mercs in the sector, and at the same time make him only get very close to levelling up and never cross the threshold by putting him in a different squad - add to it about a dozen lvl1s getting an almost-guaranteed levelup as long as they were in the sector and eligibile for it assuming they'd be getting the reward individually, no matter how many or how few of them were present).
Of note is also that if you qualify for a levelup halfway through those checks, the further ones are adjusted for it (i.e. have a bit lower chance of success) so you can't minmax xp gain by waiting for the quest completion till the mercs are a few points away from the levelup (see the articles). Getting experience points for other skills is also likely to count towards the experience level (hence you sometimes may get a skill increase and a levelup simultaneously), and your stats are easy enough to raise naturally during a playthrough that you shouldn't worry about optimizing the gains from the quests.
Tested mostly in 1.13 (both an old 4-something and a more recent one; the setup was much easier than in vanilla, as it gives you access to modifying the levelup threshold value/quest rewards, lots of low-level mercs and seeing experience progress bars for skills in-game), with a bit of comparing with unmodded JA2 and an ancient 2-something 1.13. Nursing enough mercs to near-levelup-but-not-too-close for the test in vanilla without knowing how much xp they have was deemed too time-consuming, and no one has documented where the xp values are in the save files.
1. Does the gameplay change when i get closer to the capital? I liberated the north and so far biggest obstacle were blaskshirt troops throwning granades. Is there anything stronger in the south? Or will i just encouter more blackshirts with better gerar? (I know about the bugs in sf mode already).
2. Is there more Bosses like Mike in western misile site?
3. Does this game have a time limit?
4. IS the queen sending more patrolls or stronger patrolls as the time goes by?
1) There's a surprise or two there but no game changers. Have you completed/discovered the cat quest yet?
2) Mike's location isn't fixed - he can join any enemy group after enough progress has been made (usually it's in some important location but I've seen him with a wilderness patrol, too); there are other named and/or skilled opponents to fight (for funsies, rob Kingpin early in the game and then keep ignoring him), but not really if you're expecting more merc banter about killing former friends. Also make it a habit of visiting bars every now and then when you're in towns (semi-related, there are a few things that aren't guaranteed to occur in a playthrough).
3) Assuming this is the reason you're asking, you can wait out those 5(?) sad emails about inactivity and they'll stop after that (the sooner you do it, the less painful the rep hit will be), with no further repercussions. You could count the bugs as a time-sensitive sidequest as civilians don't enjoy being eaten. At worst you can end up in a stalemate if you lose all mercs and have no money or rep to hire new ones.
4) Enemy strength and equipment depends on the difficulty level selected at the start of the game + how much progress you've made (in 1.13 - and apparently in stracciatella too - you can find the details on what exactly counts as progress in the externalized game files, and one of Headrock's articles describes how enemies choose their guns). Technically, the queen does keep sending soldiers after your towns (sometimes they'll merge with wandering patrols and attack together) and refilling patrols, but in vanilla she has a finite soldier pool and if you empty it (a cutscene informs about it, but it takes a long time to hit it and you probably will need to do some turtling to get there) then she'll get a small boost to it and slowly train more, but in practice it will result in very reduced strategic movement/retake attempts for the remainder of that playthrough.
In 1.13 you can change lots of stuff to make the fights bigger/more challenging/harder as time goes by, but as it's always brought up, you should first play vanilla enough to know what you want changed. A less popular opinion, but I'd recommend enabling the Drassen counterattack in 1.13 once you get around to playing it if you want a challenge (or even using the setting enabling such attacks for more towns/progress thresholds if you're into punishment) but it requires a bit of metagaming so it doesn't end up being a last stand (for a bit more immersive approach to it, I'd suggest grabbing Chitzena first or milking San Mona for a bit while harassing nearby enemy patrols, so you can get some more mercs and better guns before attacking an important target like the airport - that way you don't have to cheese the town capture triggers; bonus points for the gorilla approach of sneaking into Drassen to talk with the priest and retreating)
1. What happens when all mines run dry? Is it posible to fund the war from loot alone?
2. How long does it take for all the mines to run dry?
3. I only encountered bugs on the first level. I had searched like 5 separate sectors now and no bugs. I had founsd some eggs but no queen :/ Is this normal?
1&2) A single mine gets randomly selected at the start of the game to have limited ore - the rest is safe. Sucks if it's the most profitable one.
There are some cheap mercs, and cheap/free locals you can recruit that should allow for a reduction in operating costs, but they either require lots of training to be useful in the late game, or are locked behind progress (e.g. try visiting rebels back in Omerta once you've freed a few towns). Your only win condition is to defeat the queen, the liberating of the country before that is optional, so in a theoretical situation where you'd lose all mines you'd still be able to plan around that to finish the game.
3) From the wiki: "The lair must be cleaned overnight, or else the Crepitus will hide and reappear on the next night."
