Durrr, Jagged Alliance 2 combat is HARD

[Annonchinil]

Hmm I just found a tool kit in the mine. My problem now is that I don't have 50 leadership with my main merc, although one of my employees does. Also I can't seem to find the priest, I tried forwarding the time till its daylight (and got the MERC email) but still no luck. There is this room in the church that I can't open, can he be there? Also is the Irish guy in the bar usefull? I bought him lots of alcohol but got nothing in return.

 

[RK47]

The priest either pops in the church or at the bar. If I'm not wrong he should be in the middle sector bar.

 

[MisterStone]

OK, the game is starting to piss me off. Here's the problem: I turned on ironman mode and also cranked difficulty all the way up. But even though I am pretty good at taking out the enemy, I always get one merc killed. I'm in alma where there are a lot of maps with buildings, where you have to go in and storm through doorways and shit. Invariably, one of my d00ds gets capped twice in the head and dies as soon as I even APPROACH the fucking doors. I try to throw teargas and smoke through the doors, and sometimes it kind of works, but more often than not it does not, or the merc misses the door and bombs my own team. It's like one second you're just slinking along looking for dumbfucks to cap in the head, and the next second, COMBAT MODE, CAP CAP, BULL IS DEAD. God dammit.

I would start over in normal difficulty, but it just seems like it was too easy, and I am not a puss, so ironman mode is absolutely necessary. I actually do pretty well and take out a lot of badguys even at high diff, but this instakill shit is pissing me off.

Do I need to turn down the difficulty, or simply accept that one or two good mercs has to die? Maybe I need higher level guys for storming buildings, so they can get initiative more reliably?

 

[Zomg]

High level (7-8) guys almost never lose initiative (if they're facing the right way) on any difficulty IIRC.

You could also just look inside the buildings from way fuck away using binoculars or sniper scopes if you're playing 1.13. I remember clearing all the open areas then gingerly peeking in windows from a zillion tiles away until the last couple of guys were headshot'd.

 

[spectre]

You may also try explosives if you're suspicious that a dude is on the other side of the wall.

 

[hal900x]

You may also try explosives if you're suspicious that a dude is on the other side of the wall.

Ding ding ding. Yes. They get vicious with the open-and-clear areas. Plant a bomb and make your own entrance.

Another tactic: Split your team and create a diversion. Walk around to the other side, or on the roof(approximate where the opposite side of the room from your entrance team is) if you can't flank. Make some noise by walking unstealthed, shooting a wall or whatever. If you are using 1.13, they will usually hear and react appropriately. Then bust in and shoot them in the back. Use standard room clear tactics if you are going with this plan: high interrupt merc crouching to open, another merc standing behind opener, one merc on each side looking in diagonally to opposite sides of the room.

And by "approach" the door, do you mean open? You should have at least one stealther who can stealth to the door without the enemy hearing and opening it before you. If stealth is failing, drop some gear and crawl.

 

[MisterStone]

HMM, OK. The diversion thing works fine most of the time; I get my sniper and roofer guy up on the roof and can kill about 2/3rds of the dorks on the map, but I think some of the enemies are hard-wired to not leave their room. I think I will do the "make your own entrance" tactic with some TNT if it works on that kind of wall. Bomb explodes, fucking blackshirt commando guys are caught with their pants down on the shitter and no cover, cap cap headshots they die.

 

[Livonya]

OK, the game is starting to piss me off. Here's the problem: I turned on ironman mode and also cranked difficulty all the way up. But even though I am pretty good at taking out the enemy, I always get one merc killed. I'm in alma where there are a lot of maps with buildings, where you have to go in and storm through doorways and shit. Invariably, one of my d00ds gets capped twice in the head and dies as soon as I even APPROACH the fucking doors. I try to throw teargas and smoke through the doors, and sometimes it kind of works, but more often than not it does not, or the merc misses the door and bombs my own team. It's like one second you're just slinking along looking for dumbfucks to cap in the head, and the next second, COMBAT MODE, CAP CAP, BULL IS DEAD. God dammit.

This is what makes JA2 such a great game!!!

It is hard, and way more realistic than most other games.

Losing only 1 merc on every map should be the norm, especially poorly trained mercs like Bull.

Bull isn't supposed to live. He is meat. He is too stupid to realize it.

The only real draw back to Ironman mode is that there aren't enough mercs to hire.

If there were 300 possible mercs then having 1 of your team killed on every map would be okay. It would make for a far more interesting and challenging game as resources would really matter, as well as features like death insurance.

The later game is just as deadly as the begging part, especially if you don't mod out weapons like the mortar and the rocket launchers.

Nothing crazier than having an enemy mortar fall right in the middle of your squad.

I have played a few times with true Ironman where I never re-load and just take what ever happens. There is almost no chance of completing the game doing it that way, but it is fun while it lasts.

 

[Severian Silk]

Someone on Bearpit created a patch so you can manually start/end combat at any time.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Yup, that patch is just cheating, imho. Anyway, create your entrances with explosives - if you are already in Alma then you just might have accept some casulties - especially if it's low-level shit like Bull. Use mortars, grenade launchers - spill HE, smoke and mustard gas around, GO CRAZY! Alma is the very, very last place you go, you can go all over the board - by this stage you are supposed to have tons of explosives and grenades - now's the chance to use them!

Also, if you are using newest 1.13 version, with the suppression fire method (which just rocks! MORE REALISM), then spray, spray, spray, spray to keep their heads down and sneak around with one-or-two good mercs.

 

[Zomg]

Is that the suppression that was in Headrock's mod? Didn't know they'd put it in the main release. I read his find about old suppression just being fuck broken and only working properly on each character once for the entire game.

 

[spectre]

Suppression should come bundled with recent releases. (HAM, or whatever it was called) You have to enable it in the ini though. The bug you're referring to was fixed iirc and there are quyite a few options to customize how it works, form fairly non-existant to quite brutal.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Yeah, it works beautifully now - after you customize it of course. Fully automatic weapons are now actually useful - before, it was better 99% of time to just use single-shots but now you spray an area which has multiple enemies, forcing them to the ground and making them loose AP's.

 

[Livonya]

Yeah, it works beautifully now - after you customize it of course. Fully automatic weapons are now actually useful - before, it was better 99% of time to just use single-shots but now you spray an area which has multiple enemies, forcing them to the ground and making them loose AP's.

That sounds interesting. I haven't played JA2 this year. The last time I was using the 1.13 mod thing this wasn't around.

I might have to give this a go... once again.

Frustrating to be returning to older games over and over rather than getting into new games.

 

[denizsi]

Has there been a mod/feature to pause real-time mode and give orders at it yet? It was pretty frustrating to lose initiative and get your men shot and killed just because you can't organize and manage your men in real time as good as the computer doing it all instantly.

 

[hal900x]

Has there been a mod/feature to pause real-time mode and give orders at it yet? It was pretty frustrating to lose initiative and get your men shot and killed just because you can't organize and manage your men in real time as good as the computer doing it all instantly.

Recent releases allow you to force turn-based mode, as long as there are enemies in the sector, at any time. That should serve your purpose. Although other than movement, you can pretty much do anything with your mercs from the strategic view. Gotta keep them within passing range, but then you can tweak and trade gear to your heart's content while paused.

If you aren't playing with Ham, you are missing out in the biggest possible way, IMO. More realism tweaks than you can shake a stick at, and all of them are configurable at a level of granularity that is pretty impressive. Above all, the ability to actually suppress (and be supressed, by an enemy that's not afraid to go full auto), is the most fun enhancement there is for this great game. There is nothing more satisfying than unloading full clips in an effort to make it out, barely, of a boxed-in situation. You can suppress to setup a theft attempt, suppression lets knifers be more effective, etc etc etc. And automatic bursts are not the only thing that suppress: grenades, especially stun grenades, are more useful now, with the way that suppression shock partially persists into the next round, if severe enough.

Latest HAM and JA 1.13 are pretty free of bugs, but I highly advise against Ironman mode because they do happen occasionally. You'll really regret it if you lose 3 hours of hard-fought ground to a CTD. Just do like the earlier poster said, and choose not to save during combat, but enable the option to save after every turn. That way, you'll have to go through an additional step to restore and will be less tempted to reload. But it'll be there to save your Omerta assault when you need it.

 

[denizsi]

Damn, that sounds impressive. I've had JA2 1.12 installed in my system for years, occasionally firing it up to get my tactical combat fix but it was getting boring. HAM and 1.13 you say?

 

[hal900x]

HAM and 1.13 you say?

Link to single click installer:

http://www.ja-galaxy-forum.com/board/ub ... Post172234

 

[denizsi]

Just what I needed. Thanks a bunch!

Has there been a new campaign by any chance? I'm sick of Deidreanna and her island of apes, honestly. I'd really appreciate a more urban setting in JA2.

 

[hal900x]

I'd really appreciate a more urban setting in JA2.

http://www.ja-galaxy-forum.com/board/ub ... Post211958

Urban Chaos, one of the better-known and well-polished mods

 

[Jasede]

I like JA2 but TBH the combat is way too slow-paced to stay interesting. This is what X-Com did better; it didn't offer too many options. I am all for complexity, but some options were just a bit too much and a time sink in JA2, great as the game may be.

Also thought X-Com had better graphics.

 

[hal900x]

Also thought X-Com had better graphics.

WTF? You thought grainy, pixellated 300x240 8-bit graphics looked better than JA2? Especially now that 1.13 has added 800x600 and 1024x768 modes? Unless you are just biased towards a truly old-school look, in which case you are arguing a subjective point.

 

[Zomg]

I prefer X-Com by a large margin over the original JA2, but with all the nice stuff that's trickled into 1.13 by this point it's too good. Thanks creepy weirdo gun nut modders!

 

[Gragt]

The aliens sure have more personality in the way they look than the soldiers. Might also be that the different areas in X-Com are more distinct than different zones of JA2. Can't speak for Jasede as I do not know exactly what he got in mind, but the "better graphics" part might not just refer to the technical side of things.

JA2 got some nice portraits though.

 

[Burning Bridges]

I recently tried one of the latest versions from SVN but then on the second battle lots of enemies appeared out of nowhere, always on the borders of the map. I can't say I liked this behavior. It seems the AI now gets reinforcements from other sectors during a battle (?)

Unfortunately I couldn't find how to change that in the ini, so I reverted to playing with version 2445 which is about six months old or so.

Just thought, if someone knows what I am talking about and how to switch it off I could upgrade to the latest version. Otherwise I am very happy with 1.13.