Jagged Alliance 3 from Haemimont Games

[Gilius Thunderhead]

AAR: Had my first "game over" scenario with my IMP getting shredded in the Fleatown church map. The campaign had been going great so far, with barely a scratch on Ernie island and only one mishap in the mines, after one half-dead hyena jumped out of nowhere to chew on Livewire's face, getting her down to 3HP before Meltdown finally tore it to pieces.

When the fight broke out in Fleatown, my IMP and Igor, who had already put 3 guys on the ground in the silence of the night, took cover behind some flimsy tin panels south of the church in order to cover the western approach, while Buns, Barry and Meltdown took care of business from the north. Big mistake. I don't know if he was already hiding in the church or not, but some guy put my IMP on Overwatch and in the next turn interrupted him for 60 damage. I held on for another 5 turns or so, with my IMP desperately trying to cover his ass with smoke grenades while being continually suppressed and grazed, Igor bravely tanking shots with his grit and the other mercs forced to reposition under heavy fire(Meltdown even fell from the roof after it collapsed from constant fire!). Unfortunately it wasn't enough to save the Boss, who was finally taken out with a grenade, also leaving Igor in bad shape, who was shielding him with his body.

These stealth Overwatch interrupts are brutal, even after toning down enemy stats. You just can't assume there's no one behind a window or around a corner. You have to treat the enemies as velociraptors some times. You won't see them but they'll see you. It's also a bit suspicious how some of these shots are able to connect sometimes. I suspect Tac AI changed some values that aren't covered by other mods.

I try to avoid savescumming, but losing my IMP or one of the essential mercs means I'll just restart the sector. I suspect it won't be the last time.

Overall, I'm enjoying the game a lot now. I'm using Tactical AI and Rato's with default settings(except one setting in Rato's that removes penalties for AI, which I disabled), while mostly removing the enemy advantages in free movement and rolls with Custom Difficulty Settings(I still gave them 1 free movement , because their aggressive tactics seem to depend somewhat on lots of AP). Mission Impossible economy and the vanilla options for extra enemies and negative effects from wounds are also enabled.

Despite some of Tac AI "cheating" already mentioned, I think this is the closest to a "tough but fair" set of rules. If you want a more hardcore challenge, you can simply boost the enemies a bit more in CDS.

 

[BadassNonbinaryPrincess]

I got bored playing this game. Too much running around and the occasional combat was boring. I quit in about 5 hours or so and didn't see much because again, running a lot. To be fair it took me a couple of hours to figure out there are teleports. I truly hate this game though.

 

[Yosharian]

I got bored playing this game. Too much running around and the occasional combat was boring. I quit in about 5 hours or so and didn't see much because again, running a lot. To be fair it took me a couple of hours to figure out there are teleports. I truly hate this game though.

I heard there's a new Call of Duty game out, try that perhaps

 

[Beowulf]

I think his complaint is somewhat valid, as there is no walking speed indeed.
You should have given it a couple more hours, so you'd be able to figure out that you can go into stealth mode, if you want to see less running around BadassNonbinaryPrincess GenericAltShitpostAccount.

 

[gooseman]

Fidel

I hired him for my first squad. God, it's unbearable. Every 5 seconds he has a generic marvel redditor quip about how BORED he is. Shut the fuck up nigger. To add insult to redditry, he eventually became the most expensive merc in the game (despite not actually being that much stronger). And then I started training everyone, after getting a foothold. And the faggot just left. I dont think there even was a warning. Other mercs will ask for a raise if they arent happy, like there's not enough fighting, but he just straight up leaves. Permanently. With all the gear he had. Such as the unique shotgun and deathsquad armor I got from a quest (would probably take quest items and other shit with him too). Maybe there was a warning, but it didn't say he will leave and become unhireable and take all the gear with him.
Has anyone figured out how merc fees increase? I know they increase with level, but it seems there's something else, maybe getting kills or stats in the field, because it seems to increase even when their level stays the same sometimes. And no, this isn't the negotiations they do, it just increases next time you have to pay. It doesn't increase from training.

Overall, I liked the game, though it has issues. I think enemies are too tanky, why can they survive a few 7.62 headshots with no armor and don't even get any penalties? Tank 2-4 grenades? HP bloat is insane. First time playing, I went to the Good Place early with its speshul enemies who have what seems to be double or even triple the normal enemy hp. These nigger terminators tank multiple headshots and then run a marathon across the entire map to chop mercs up with machetes in a hit or two. Maybe you're supposed to shoot legs and arms to cripple them? But it's some weird crutch to force you to use this tactic, because the enemy HP is retardedly inflated. Or maybe you need hollow point ammo? But ammo is annoying to manage and craft and you aren't guaranteed to have it. That playthrough was before bobby rays update, not that it fixed anything, because bobby ray's more like bobby gay's he only stocks 12 shotgun shells a week (if at all), what the fuck? That'll last 1, maybe 2 encounters with just 1 shotgun user. Why can't i just buy a ton of ammo in one go and never bother with it again? Even after "upgrading" the shop once through progressing the story, it still doesn't stock that much. It's a lot of annoying micromanagement. Bonus points for $3000+ "steel pipe".

Only a couple of perks felt impactful, the rest are kind of meh. Stats are ok, but there's the issue of some characters being ultra gimped for their seemingly "intended" purpose, like Steroid, who's special perk is a melee attack.... except he has shit stats for melee: low dex and agi meaning less ap to move around and garbage accuracy when he does finally crawl his way into melee. I gave him an MG, seems pretty good for low AP mercs who are otherwise useless, though it absolutely destroys your ammo. First time around it took me a long time to start using weapon upgrades (maybe I missed a hint?), those change the game massively, it almost feels unfair. The last mechanic I ignored are the non-grenade explosives, too much micromanagement for me, but I can see how they would be very useful. Another thing that felt like cheating is the paki woman that gives you free intel and permanent maphack, why is that even in the game? And she's not even a bad merc, she has high wisdom and I think she's the top 3 mechanic (the better mechanics are I think the black girl and Magic, who are much more expensive, and she's one of the cheapest mercs in the game). I guess the tradeoff is listening to her insanely annoying lines and voice.

The dumbest fight I've had yet was in the nazi tunnels, where we had to defend against hordes of african ubermensch, as one of them sat at the end of a corridor so long, even proper sniper weapons seemed out of range. But he was also in the dark (not an issue, sniper had nvgs) and in full cover. The entire fight this fucker just spammed his grenade launcher, which thankfully only had flashbangs. They do chip damage and inflict fatigue and then exhaustion (no free move, lower ap). It took so long to kill him and he managed to knock out 2 guys with grenades dealing 1-5 damage. It was very funny.

 

[Yosharian]

Yeah Fidel is a cunt

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Steroid, who's special perk is a melee attack.... except he has shit stats for melee

You're right about agi but if his dex is shit just take away his knife, bare handed seems to run on Str.

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

Fidel

I hired him for my first squad. God, it's unbearable. Every 5 seconds he has a generic marvel redditor quip about how BORED he is. Shut the fuck up nigger. To add insult to redditry, he eventually became the most expensive merc in the game (despite not actually being that much stronger). And then I started training everyone, after getting a foothold. And the faggot just left. I dont think there even was a warning. Other mercs will ask for a raise if they arent happy, like there's not enough fighting, but he just straight up leaves. Permanently. With all the gear he had. Such as the unique shotgun and deathsquad armor I got from a quest (would probably take quest items and other shit with him too). Maybe there was a warning, but it didn't say he will leave and become unhireable and take all the gear with him.
Has anyone figured out how merc fees increase? I know they increase with level, but it seems there's something else, maybe getting kills or stats in the field, because it seems to increase even when their level stays the same sometimes. And no, this isn't the negotiations they do, it just increases next time you have to pay. It doesn't increase from training.

Overall, I liked the game, though it has issues. I think enemies are too tanky, why can they survive a few 7.62 headshots with no armor and don't even get any penalties? Tank 2-4 grenades? HP bloat is insane. First time playing, I went to the Good Place early with its speshul enemies who have what seems to be double or even triple the normal enemy hp. These nigger terminators tank multiple headshots and then run a marathon across the entire map to chop mercs up with machetes in a hit or two. Maybe you're supposed to shoot legs and arms to cripple them? But it's some weird crutch to force you to use this tactic, because the enemy HP is retardedly inflated. Or maybe you need hollow point ammo? But ammo is annoying to manage and craft and you aren't guaranteed to have it. That playthrough was before bobby rays update, not that it fixed anything, because bobby ray's more like bobby gay's he only stocks 12 shotgun shells a week (if at all), what the fuck? That'll last 1, maybe 2 encounters with just 1 shotgun user. Why can't i just buy a ton of ammo in one go and never bother with it again? Even after "upgrading" the shop once through progressing the story, it still doesn't stock that much. It's a lot of annoying micromanagement. Bonus points for $3000+ "steel pipe".

Only a couple of perks felt impactful, the rest are kind of meh. Stats are ok, but there's the issue of some characters being ultra gimped for their seemingly "intended" purpose, like Steroid, who's special perk is a melee attack.... except he has shit stats for melee: low dex and agi meaning less ap to move around and garbage accuracy when he does finally crawl his way into melee. I gave him an MG, seems pretty good for low AP mercs who are otherwise useless, though it absolutely destroys your ammo. First time around it took me a long time to start using weapon upgrades (maybe I missed a hint?), those change the game massively, it almost feels unfair. The last mechanic I ignored are the non-grenade explosives, too much micromanagement for me, but I can see how they would be very useful. Another thing that felt like cheating is the paki woman that gives you free intel and permanent maphack, why is that even in the game? And she's not even a bad merc, she has high wisdom and I think she's the top 3 mechanic (the better mechanics are I think the black girl and Magic, who are much more expensive, and she's one of the cheapest mercs in the game). I guess the tradeoff is listening to her insanely annoying lines and voice.

The dumbest fight I've had yet was in the nazi tunnels, where we had to defend against hordes of african ubermensch, as one of them sat at the end of a corridor so long, even proper sniper weapons seemed out of range. But he was also in the dark (not an issue, sniper had nvgs) and in full cover. The entire fight this fucker just spammed his grenade launcher, which thankfully only had flashbangs. They do chip damage and inflict fatigue and then exhaustion (no free move, lower ap). It took so long to kill him and he managed to knock out 2 guys with grenades dealing 1-5 damage. It was very funny.

I haven't noticed HP bloat, except on melee guys(Brutes, Slashers) who I always take out as first priority. I'm playing with Rato's mod, though, which changes weapon calibers and damage output based on those, I believe. Much more annoying to me was the AP bloat, with guys who can run a marathon and still shoot me, or get in melee range which is even worse. Thankfully I was able to tone it down with the Custom Difficulty Settings mod, although I have the impression some specific units aren't affected--there was this "Badass Slasher" at the Good Place who made an insane run around the main building, got supressed with an interrupt while passing by a window, managed to enter through the main door and then glitched out in front of my team, just running back and forth while getting a bunch of interrupts until finally running out of steam(Buns put him down in the next turn with a pistol). If he'd gone straight to one of my units, they'd be dead.

I never took Fidel, for one simple reason: Barry. His explosives skill is almost as good as Red's or Fidel's(it can quickly become as good with field experience + magazines), while being the cheapest. His shaped charges and the fact that he has no quirks or personality conflicts also put him above the others in absolute terms. Just train his agility a little bit so he can throw 2 grenades during a turn, maybe get some perks that improve mobility, and he's a great asset in a fight.

I know that fees can increase by leveling up, personality conflicts and making choices that they disapprove of. So maybe one of those. I've been lucky so far in my campaign.

I'm at the point where I reached the Sanatorium. I killed all the guards only to realize that's the "wrong" thing to do, even though the guards are marked as enemies... I don't mind "roleplaying" a mistake, but this is just dumb. Reload. Just had a fun run in with the Nazi troopers in the tunnels, after I'd sent just my IMP and Barry on a scouting expedition to a Great Forest square. I wasn't expecting to find enemies, only a couple of mines and traps maybe, then I go down this tunnel and suddenly have to fight 6-7 heavily armed gorillas. I just barely survived, and only because of Barry's shaped charges and my superhero IMP's skill with a sharpened machete and his perk that gives him grit by staying out of cover. No way I'd survive otherwise.

All of Fleatown and Port Cacao are liberated, with Kalyna and Hitman working overtime to train veteran militia in every province. I know the game will become much harder later on and I want to be somewhat prepared. I'm saving up so I can hire good mercs when the time comes.

 

[Yosharian]

Steroids attack doesn't use DEX I think it's unique to him

 

[damager]

I always ready "Jagged Alliance 3 from Hemorrhoids Games"

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

Steroid can be useful in the beginning if you can't hire Livewire, but his stat distribution is all wrong. He can't be a frontline fighter due to his bad AGI, as it's crucial to be able to move from cover to cover. He has to stay in the back, but for that he'd need high DEX for sniping and he doesn't have that, either. What he does have is high Health and Marksman, which is more suited to the frontline. I suppose you could make him a machinegunner, but you already have Grizzly, who is cheaper, and Meltdown is much superior for only a little more. He's just not particularly good at anything and he's more expensive than more useful characters.

I find his lines very annoying too, more than Livewire, who I actually like.

 

[Papill0n]

Steroid can be useful in the beginning if you can't hire Livewire, but his stat distribution is all wrong. He can't be a frontline fighter due to his bad AGI, as it's crucial to be able to move from cover to cover. He has to stay in the back, but for that he'd need high DEX for sniping and he doesn't have that, either. What he does have is high Health and Marksman, which is more suited to the frontline. I suppose you could make him a machinegunner, but you already have Grizzly, who is cheaper, and Meltdown is much superior for only a little more. He's just not particularly good at anything and he's more expensive than more useful characters.

I find his lines very annoying too, more than Livewire, who I actually like.

I think I only used Steroid in one playthrough and I ended up using him as some sort of tank with a machinegun (when even using him in combat). If you pick some good perks and strong armour, get him prone with an LMG, he can tank damage like the classical RPG meatshield while the others do the damage.

But characters like Grizzly and Steroid are bad due to bad game design. Ja2 had the firing cost AP defined relative to a character's max AP in a turn. In Ja3, gun firing AP is absolute. So we'll sometiems end up with characters who can barely pull a trigger during their entire turn. I am also not sold on how essential dexterity should be for hand-to-hand combat. I mean do we expect a concert pianist to be most efficient at slashing somebody with a machete or rather a lumberjack? I think the skill system has a large flaw there which also punishes low dex characters that would normally be considered decent hand-to-hand or melee guys.

 

[Yosharian]

Yeah AGI is too much of a god stat. Basically every character needs a high AGI.

Also agreed on the DEX/STR point, STR should be able to stand in for DEX at least partially from a to-hit perspective

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Guys doesn't dex matter only if you knife people and strength for fisting and machete?

 

[Yosharian]

Nope DEX modifies all to-hit rolls in melee. Aside from Steroid's unique attack

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Nope DEX modifies all to-hit rolls in melee. Aside from Steroid's unique attack

Oh ok, guess str just modifies the damage then.

 

[Yosharian]

Yup

 

[gooseman]

I never took Fidel, for one simple reason: Barry.

if you can't hire Livewire

you already have Grizzly

This is another thing I'm not really a fan of. There's a bunch of mercs who are just so objectively stronger than others... Even within the same bracket. But also the fee scaling seems insane. I mentioned how Fidel became the most expensive merc in the game, but the rest of them get more expensive too (still have no idea why, there's no rhyme or reason to it). I picked Steroid solely because the only other good cheap mechanic (who are incredibly important) is Livewire, which, as I said, is a maphacking whore who kind of just completely ruins the balance. I didn't want to "powergame" and hire the best guys, but ones I thought were cool.
I haven't played 2 enough, but from what I've been told, the merc fees do increase, but they will never charge you more than the top mercs, but will become as good or better than them. Something like that would make shittier mercs like Steroid more usable, but he also charges me 20k+ now. I feel there's just too many underpowered mercs or ones with very unimpactful perks or easily outshined by ones in the same or lower price range.
And yeah, str vs dex is really stupid. It sounds a lot like dnd monks who need like 4 different attributes to be playable at all (unless you do that dual weild monk swords build or whatever... but isnt fisting the entire point of the class?). At the same time, this could just be a special perk or a perk in the str tree to make melee accuracy depend on str instead. And agi definitely needs tweaking. While AP scaling with some stats is probably a good thing (is it?), it's just too much. Anyone with low agi is a useless cripple who cant do anything at all. And I'm sure none of the enemies have low agi either, given they can run a circuit around the entire map with their kneecaps blown off and still have enough AP to slice a tomato.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Objectively bad hires have always existed in Jagged Alliance. In fact, 3 is much more balanced than any of the other games. None of the mercs in this game are actually shit, whereas doing, say, a MERC only run of 2 and trying to get the likes of Flo to do anything constructive is an ordeal. I actually miss that - although mainly what I miss is a bigger roster in general. It let you carry on with the campaign more easily after losing mercs, and it let you self-regulate the difficulty by picking the shit ones. There was also a certain sense of accomplishment in picking lost causes and turning them into competent soldiers.

I can't agree with the agi thing either. Someone like Hitman has pretty bad agi, so not a lot of AP. It fits his character, and is compensated for by his high marksmanship for a low price, which makes him a very good merc to have early on. It's true that a merc with great physical stats will eventually outpace him, but that's how it should be and there's nothing wrong with that.

And I'm sure none of the enemies have low agi either, given they can run a circuit around the entire map with their kneecaps blown off and still have enough AP to slice a tomato.

Supposedly the enemies get extra movement points by default. This could be turned off via mods when I last played.

 

[gooseman]

In fact, 3 is much more balanced than any of the other games. None of the mercs in this game are actually shit, whereas doing, say, a MERC only run of 2 and trying to get the likes of Flo to do anything constructive is an ordeal. I actually miss that a little bit - although mainly what I miss is a bigger roster in general. It let you carry on the campaign more easily after losing mercs, and it let you self-regulate the difficulty by picking the shit ones.

Yes, it seemed more interesting to have more options. Cheap shitty mercs had uses, I've seen people set flo to train militia. You could use them to move and sell items. Not much of that going on in 3, since you cant sell and militia training can only be done 4 times per tile. Idk about 2, but this has a lot of chokepoints on strategic map that you can defend without any surprises from the enemy attack forces.
But here, you have very few choices. Want a cheap mechanic? It's Livewire or Steroid. It's very obvious which is better. Livewire's perk is just broken, has high wisdom and ok combat stats. Steroid has shit AP and I think also way worse relations with other mercs: eternal Polish butthurt about Igor (another good cheap merc, I actually had them together and the morale hit made Steroid's AP suck even worse lol) and Ivan, mutual dislike with Fox, MD hates him. This seems to be the case for a lot of choices. Fidel costs way more than Barry and is very annoying in many ways.

 

[destinae vomitus]

Steroid is worthwhile thanks to the sheer virtue of being a mechanic and not to mention a tanky pack mule, but I find that he's very much usable in combat even without pumping up his agi/dex, assuming you're proactively using the run&gun ability with a pistol or SMG early on since it both makes up for his lack of mobility and dex also since it only takes his 90+ marksmanship into account. By the time he's leveled up he'll actually start pulling his weight in combat (pun partly intended) cuz he's bound to have the health perk that effectively grants +3 AP and you can just have him using stims constantly without consequences, which are hardly ever worth using IMO since they'd normally make a merc tired.

At the same though he's competing with Livewire and refuses to work with Ivan, both of whom are undeniably OP, so he's very much the weakest link if looked at from a pure minmax perspective.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Want a cheap mechanic? It's Livewire or Steroid.

Or Kalyna, or you could spring a little bit more for Vicki or Wolf or Nails. You can afford any one of those plus a couple of cheapos even with your starting funds. They're not amazing (apart from Vicki) but they'll get the job done OK and they'll improve as they go. Or you could make your own. There's also nothing stopping you from kicking Steroid to the kerb the moment you have the cash for a proper mechanic.

It's true that if a) you're playing for the first time, and b) you're powergaming, you don't have many attractive options. But why would you want them? You're going to pick the best one and not worry about the rest, doesn't matter if they're a little worse or a lot worse.

 

[Gilius Thunderhead]

Kalyna doesn't have the Mr. Fixit perk, which you definitely want for a field mechanic(hacking, traps). I ended up hiring Kalyna later in the game, as her Leadership is useful for my secondary squad(I'm trying to get the blood samples quickly). Otherwise, she's more of a beginner merc, with her Gewehr rifle and Night Vision perks being specially useful early on.

Hitman comes with Hit the Deck and his special perk takes into account his lack of mobility(gain Focused by staying still), so his low AGI is not by itself crippling. High marksmanship and Recoil Control make him pretty good with mobile shot, in my experience, and he also knows how to throw a grenade. Pretty solid merc who's also one of the best trainers, while being much cheaper than his rival Raider.

All in all, I agree that the game is generally pretty balanced insofar as every merc being useful in some way, but the pricing doesn't really reflect each merc's value. Tbh, I think this is OK in principle, but there's a problem with the lack of variety, so you end up getting the same mercs every time. There's Key's Mercs, a pretty good mod I've talked about before, but if you want balance you'll have to dip into the lua files and raise some salaries, as some are way too low and it makes the game a lot easier.

BTW, I think one of the popular mods, probably Tactical AI Project, nerfs Livewire's superpower, so you can only see the enemies' location before the fight starts.

 

[Yosharian]

I can't agree with the agi thing either. Someone like Hitman has pretty bad agi, so not a lot of AP. It fits his character, and is compensated for by his high marksmanship for a low price, which makes him a very good merc to have early on. It's true that a merc with great physical stats will eventually outpace him, but that's how it should be and there's nothing wrong with that.

Hitman and Kalyna are in competition for the worst mercs in the game

Bad AGI is the least of Hitman's problems, his DEX of 40 is what really messes him up

The only reason you hire Hitman is to teach MRK to someone, then you ditch him for someone actually worth his asking price like Ice

 

[Strange Fellow]

I hired him to snipe people and be a fun character and he performed both jobs very well from the beginning of the game to the end. I don't even remember what Dex affects, apart from melee.