Jagged Alliance 3 from Haemimont Games

[Smashing Axe]

The ability to plan-coordinate multiple kills at once during the stealth like in shadow tactics would've been cool. Probably broken, since you might be able to wipe out entire groups without using ammo or raising the alarm, but much more satisfying than knifing one guy and gunning the rest with overwatch.

Oh, and it's great how 90s-action-movie the music is while you're sneaking. Must be the marimbas.

I have managed to pull this off with Igor and my IMP doing simultaneous knife strikes. That said it is hard to arrange and you basically need to prepare takedowns for both your targets and then time your approach for both characters to reach your target at around the same time.

 

[Sunri]

 

[TheSoul]

A lot better than expected, I'm considering buying an actual copy now. It does keep a lot of the original spirit, although not perfectly.

• Unique perks don't feel balanced between mercs.
• The mercs are hit and miss. The dialogue does feel right, but the character designs and voice delivery aren't that great.
• The map with Pierre kept bugging out on me. Immediately after he said he'd give me one chance, a random enemy spotted me immediately and triggered combat once dialogue ended multiple times.
• I don't like the way enemies will move once combat starts like xcom. Ambushes feel a lot less rewarding now.

On a positive note, I really liked the maps. They use vertical heights really well with flexible strategies you can take, probably the one part that is better than JA2. I got a diamond mine, but I'm going to restart because stat growth isn't working like I expected to and I gimped my imp.

 

[Cyberarmy]

The map with Pierre kept bugging out on me. Immediately after he said he'd give me one chance, a random enemy spotted me immediately and triggered combat once dialogue ended multiple times.

Sniper in the tower detects you there, you have talk him while he was on the other side of his tower.
Nothing happens with that dialogue though. Leaving all 3 there is a better choice so you can lure them into MGs zone of fire.

 

[bobocrunch]

Anyone have luck with stealth commando / close range squads that aren't melee? I wanted to SOGmaxx and kit out Shadow + Flay + Fox + Larry with NVGs, gas, and masks but these SMGs do pitiful damage and the run and gun isn't really worth it when one flashbang can completely ruin you. Might have to just limit them to night but it's tough since I'm getting army'd

 

[TheSoul]

The map with Pierre kept bugging out on me. Immediately after he said he'd give me one chance, a random enemy spotted me immediately and triggered combat once dialogue ended multiple times.

Sniper in the tower detects you there, you have talk him while he was on the other side of his tower.
Nothing happens with that dialogue though. Leaving all 3 there is a better choice so you can lure them into MGs zone of fire.

I know how it triggered, its just poorly thought out considering he tells you before there's 1 chance for us to back off. You do get more "trust" if you try talking to him and reminding of his father so I wanted to try going that route.

 

[Beowulf]

Well well well.
You idiot!

Seems like he even has a bullet scar on his forehead.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Well well well.
You idiot!

Seems like he even has a bullet scar on his forehead.

I like how it's a Wisdom check to identify him as the guy who got bitch slapped a lot.

 

[Grotesque]

 

[Lord of Riva]

I'm having great fun, it's a bit too easy on normal. I'm wondering why people are complaining it's too hard on the steam forums, for all intents and purposes if there is something that is sucking the fun out of it it would be the low difficulty.

 

[bobocrunch]

I'm on Commando (Hard I think?) Ironman and it's been consistently challenging, the peak of difficulty for me was going to Port Cacao early and realizing I was underequipped. Enemy types and their abilities / equipment get more and more intricate as time goes on which stops you from abusing certain tactics (fucking flash grenade launchers)

 

[Shaki]

Good tactical game, you give everyone a rifle and autowin everything. You can have a merc with 50 marksmanship, he'll still be headshotting enemies left and right across the whole map. Literally just set up anywhere, start combat, keep clicking to headshot everyone. Or give one guy silencer and clear whole map in stealth solo. Keep some explosives to autowin all the scenarios when you're ambushed in close quarters.

All other types of weapons and strategies are pointless. Very tactical and challenging indeed.

I thought inventory system being so simple and lack of Bobby Ray's, was a MAJOR decline, but now I understand, it was a good design decision - what's the point of making a gun shop when all you need is 6 rifles that you find in the first 3 hours, to autowin the whole game.

After just finishing my first playthrough of Phoenix Point, this game is such a dogshit disappointment in comparison, I'll probably force myself to rush to the end just so retards cant tell me "NUH UH ITS AKSHUALLY GREAT GAME YOU JUST DIDN'T PLAY IT ENOUGH TO NOTICE!!!!!!"

 

[Cyberarmy]

Good tactial game, you give everyone a rifle and autowin everything.

So....
Just like JA1 and 2?

 

[Shaki]

Good tactial game, you give everyone a rifle and autowin everything.

So....
Just like JA1 and 2?

Yes, somehow they didn't manage to fix the mistakes of ~25 years old games, even though modders already showed them for free how it's supposed to be done. It doesn't even begin to approach JA2 1.13 with AI mod, and pretty much every modern tactical game I've played was also much better. Hell, even nuXCOM is 10x more challenging and complex than this dogshit.

JA2 vanilla at least had a lot of autism, inventory management and shit, so you could roleplay and pretend there is something complex in the game to do, here everything is streamlined so the flaws are even more glaring. Also in JA2 you at least had to get some mercs with decent marksmanship, so you had to do some money management, Gumpy wasn't going to headshot anyone, no matter what weapon you gave him. Here there is literally no difference between 3k merc and 30k merc, both come equipped with dogshit and both will 100% headshot with the rifle. I'm swimming in money, my 20k total cost squad is bulldozing everything and there is 0 reason to hire anyone else, nothing to spend all this cash on.

 

[anvi]

It's like this game was made by reddit.

 

[Beowulf]

It's like this game was made by reddit.

All new characters are like that.

 

[whydoibother]

Good tactical game, you give everyone a rifle and autowin everything.

Melee is much stronger.
>free movement from no armor
>free movement from starting turn in cover
>free movement from meleeing enemies
>free movements used TO melee enemies
I wish the action you open combat with would refund the points paid for it, so you can enter from stealth and just delete a group of enemies in melee.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

I have to say that after playing some hour in the mid game their decision to nerf damage for full-auto and burst weapon is even more baffling.
These are in DIRE need to get something to stay viable, because by this point you have more chances to shot down an enemy with a sniper rifle headshot from whatever distance that going auto-weapons and shotguns at point-blank range.

Still, nothing that can't be fixed with a rebalance patch, but they need to acknowledge that the problem exists.

P.S. For the record I'm not even concerned about "difficulty" or "challenge". I'm just stating that there is one clear dominant strategy and the other have very little appeal in comparison.

 

[Shaki]

Good tactical game, you give everyone a rifle and autowin everything.

Melee is much stronger.
>free movement from no armor
>free movement from starting turn in cover
>free movement from meleeing enemies
>free movements used TO melee enemies
I wish the action you open combat with would refund the points paid for it, so you can enter from stealth and just delete a group of enemies in melee.

Melee is only strong because its bugged and free movement allows for endless attacks, still rifles in long range and explosives in close quarters are even better tho, far less risk.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Good tactical game, you give everyone a rifle and autowin everything.

Melee is much stronger.
>free movement from no armor
>free movement from starting turn in cover
>free movement from meleeing enemies
>free movements used TO melee enemies
I wish the action you open combat with would refund the points paid for it, so you can enter from stealth and just delete a group of enemies in melee.

Or just lay out an MG, hit end turn, go make a cup of coffee and come back to a cleared sector.

Almost everything can be ludicrously overpowered in this game. Playing on harder difficulty modes is a must.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

You can have a merc with 50 marksmanship, he'll still be headshotting enemies left and right across the whole map.

This is fake news, mercs with 80+ marksmanship miss often, even with triple-aimed headshots. And you can't get enough explosives to spam them, at least not until the midgame. I did have Raven kill three guys in one overwatch, but that's because she was in stealth mode and has high dex, she has near max Marksmanship, and costs almost $20K by herself. So either you're playing on some modded super-easy mode or you're just a liar.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Or just lay out an MG, hit end turn, go make a cup of coffee and come back to a cleared sector.

Almost everything can be ludicrously overpowered in this game. Playing on harder difficulty modes is a must.

Yeah, well, but unless you spend time crafting them, there are not enough bullets in the entire game to feed a single full magazine of that thing, let alone using it as a recurring strategy.
That's also part of the problem: the "sniper strategy" is encouraged twice by being incredibly bullet efficient.

 

[Strange Fellow]

That's a fair point.

The Gewehr 98 is too good. Degenerate sniping tictacs were possible in 2 as well, but you needed good guns. Even in Silent Storm, where the degeneracy was dialled up to 11, getting scoped rifles was a big deal. The 98 should be a shoddy little bolt-action, not a viable end-game sniper rifle. It's 120 years old, for crying out loud.

You can have a merc with 50 marksmanship, he'll still be headshotting enemies left and right across the whole map.

This is fake news, mercs with 80+ marksmanship miss often, even with triple-aimed headshots.

They just don't. At least not on Normal difficulty. Mercs with rifles missing anything at all is a rarity.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

I'm wondering why people are complaining it's too hard on the steam forums

Codex is full of masochists, but Steam users are bad at the game. Nothing new there.

Playing on mid level with non-forgiving mode is fine. I'm seeing people on Steam complain that ammo is too scarce and single-shot rifles are mandatory. I am using three characters with burst fire regularly and I haven't run out or really come close. 7.62 WP and 9mm are quite common, 7.62 and 5.56 NATO are less so and I've had to craft them but it's no big deal. I haven't used a MG yet though. There's also the question of how much ammo is "not enough." If I go into combat with 1-2 extra mags per character, that is plenty. But some people may see that as dangerously low. You're not a "real" RPGer unless you hoard everything.

I recall the dev saying in JA2 loot drops were lowered by savescumming. I don't know if that's the same here but I suspect it is. If you savescum each shot you may end up with nothing at the end of the map. Players complaining of difficulty may be digging their own grave. It's not a bad system if the player knows about it, but it kinda sucks if you don't.

 

[whydoibother]

Playing on mid level with non-forgiving mode is fine. I'm seeing people on Steam complain that ammo is too scarce and single-shot rifles are mandatory.

The single shot weapons, and melee weapons, are stronger AND require less ammo management. You'd expect better performance for the extra ammo shot from rifles and machine guns.