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I'm finding this game really difficult at the start. It's not that my merc's are actually dying but I took quite a bit of damage in the Drassen airport assault. So I gave Ira's medical kit to Blood and assigned him to doctor the patients...and then waited for two full days. And even that was only long enough to get back about 1/3 of the hit points of my most wounded merc though the rest of the party was in good shape. After taking the Drassen factory, I have another wounded merc. I'm guessing the rest of the team can probably take the last Drassen square without him but I'm going to have to go into medical again after that. And then it'll be the end of the week and I'll maybe be able to scrounge up enough funds to hire my mercs for another day or two, but that's it. Unless I get a ton of money for completing the Drassen quest, it's essentially game over.

From the guidance you're given at the beginning (don't spend all your money because you need to save 3,000 for IMP), I assumed the expectation was that you'd spend most of your starting money but now I'm wondering if the correct strategy is to hire only one merc and play really really carefully so that you can pay him for a few weeks out of your start money. I'm doubtful I can succeed with just 1 merc, my IMP guy, and Ira, but I just don't see how it's possible to support a team of mercenaries with the tiny amounts of loot available early in the game. I think I've picked up only a few hundred dollars plus whatever my loot is worth over the first 7 map squares and even if I can manage it without ever stopping to heal, the time required to search the maps and travel means you're realistically not going to do it in less than 2 days or so.
This sounds like you take too much damage. I usually let my mercs only play doctors if other mercs are training militia. Playing with one merc is not my cup of my tea. If I remember correct, my party consisted of a custom merc, Nails (comes with rifle), Ira, Igor, Malice, Buns and likely another one (Hitman?). By moving fast without much injury (also spend more action points for aiming), you can take the Drassen and Cambria mines and train militia there (which will also increase loyality which increases income). After that, the Chitzena mine might be next.
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maxernst: ...
One thing you can do is to go straight to San Mona and look for stuff to do there. From what I can remember, there's about $25000 to be earned there, and a whole lot more to be stolen. Moreover, $15000 of that $25000 can be earned on a daily basis. However it is not necessary. If you wish to liberate Drassen first you can do that, but consider taking the bottom section first, no later than the 2nd day. That way you'll earn a mine income early on. It won't be a lot at first, but it will net you a couple extra thousand by week's end. The income increases the more of Drassen you control, so you should immediately take a 2nd part of Drassen. Just remember that the Queen will send a counter attack to Drassen the moment you are in full control of it. So it can be worth it to just hold onto 2 sections of Drassen for a while and then head to San Mona in the meantime.

As for the counter attack itself. It depends on what version you are playing, like 1.13 for example where you can disable the counter attack. The Queen can send something like 60 soldiers to retake the city, and that early on it's essentially impossible to take on that many enemies at once. However before they attack they will break up into smaller groups and surround the square they want to invade. If you preemptively attack them then, then you have a much easier fight on your hands with only about 20 soldiers. If you're playing 1.13, then consider making your IMP a radio operator. That way he/she can jam radio signals and prevent the enemy from calling for reinforcement/artillery from adjacent tiles.

As for starting mercs. It's worth trying to get some for 2 weeks right from the start because you save a lot of money that way. Don't be afraid of taking some cheap ones: MD, Barry, Grizzly and Steroid are all solid choices (I usually pick them). By the way that's another thing: Blood isn't ideal for healing. You should try to take a team doctor with a high medical skill (and paramedic/doctor trait in 1.13) to heal your dudes, like MD.
Post edited August 29, 2016 by Matewis
Thanks for the thoughts. And yes, I know (now) that I'm taking too much damage, but I had no idea it would take so long to heal and that I would be racing against the clock. In most games your starting funds are small compared to what you get as loot, even quite early, and most games have magically fast healing.

I guess I'm not used to games where you actually have to read the manual before playing anymore...even very complex games like the ones made by Paradox aren't designed that way these days. And even after reading it, I'm still not sure what the best combat tactics are in the (very common) situation where the enemy drops to the ground and starts firing when there's not much cover and they're a long way beyond my "effective weapon range". It would help if there were some way to judge your percentage chance of hitting instead of simply being told you're within range or out of range so you could determine the value of advancing two steps vs staying in place and aiming.

Guess it's back to the drawing board.
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maxernst: Thanks for the thoughts. And yes, I know (now) that I'm taking too much damage, but I had no idea it would take so long to heal and that I would be racing against the clock. In most games your starting funds are small compared to what you get as loot, even quite early, and most games have magically fast healing.

I guess I'm not used to games where you actually have to read the manual before playing anymore...even very complex games like the ones made by Paradox aren't designed that way these days. And even after reading it, I'm still not sure what the best combat tactics are in the (very common) situation where the enemy drops to the ground and starts firing when there's not much cover and they're a long way beyond my "effective weapon range". It would help if there were some way to judge your percentage chance of hitting instead of simply being told you're within range or out of range so you could determine the value of advancing two steps vs staying in place and aiming.

Guess it's back to the drawing board.
In open terrain that can be difficult to deal with early on. On maps with buildings it's easier since you can force the shooting to become very close range with some cover to cover flanking / ambush maneuvers. A prone enemy is an easy target from the side.
However in general early game fighting can be very tiresome due to the poor weapons, and the best example of that is what you just mentioned. This becomes much less of a problem once you get some better gear and hire/train some mercs with very high marksmanship. For example, I like to eventually have Reaper in my employ that can headshot enemies over long distance with a proper sniper rifle (with 1.13's firing mechanics)

To get good gear early on is possible though, albeit very pricey, by hiring one of the more expensive mercs for one day and buying his/her expensive starting gear. The merc will leave behind his/her gear after the one day of employment.

Another option, if you're playing 1.13, is to use molotov cocktails. These can be obtained early on and can be used as deadly smoke grenades to hide you from enemies' line of sight, forcing them to get up and run around the fire if they want to engage you.
Attachments:
molotov.jpg (304 Kb)
Some tips that might help you on the way:
- hire a team that covers all the basics: mechanics (Steroid), medic (Buns), explosives (Fidel) and your custom merc (high leadership, high wisdom, high markmanship). Depending on your difficulty settings, you might only be able to hire Fidel for 1 week (IIRC). All those mercs have a markmanship of 85 or higher
- do what you have to do in the starting area and recruit Ira
- go to Drassen, take the mine 1st. I prefer to travel from the middle Drassen sector into the mine sector. Take cover behind a building and fire a shot. The enemy comes in and you shoot them 1 or 2 at a time
- see if the mine foreman wants to work for you
- go into the mine, take everything and bank the silver
- if you can train militia after taking the mine, do so with your IMP merc and Ira. If not, rest your team, go to the middle sector and take that. Train militia
- take the airport. As with the Drassen mine, I always prefer to take it from the north as it provides you with more cover

Once Drassen is taken, find the pilot while you're training militia with at least 2 mercs and while Steroid is repairing your gear. If you worry about your cashflow, don't take the SAM site. Obviously upgrade your mercs with looted gear.
Gather all the ammo and weapons you don't need and go to San Mona. Sell the ammo and guns to Tony and buy stuff you need in return. There is an opportunity in this town to make 10k without fighting or stealing.
Go to Chitzena and take it. You'll get an extra mine, might upgrade some gear, get extra loot to sell. It will also raise town loyalty in Drassen and therefore the mining income in that town. This is the time you want to start taking SAM sites too.
It somehow depends whether you are playing vanilla JA2 or JA 1.13,
also if you tend to play a game only once or several times if replay value is suficient, and its exceptional for JA2.

Always stay behind half or return to full cover, and/or go prone to minimize injuries/losses,
no matter which version of JA2 you play.

For vanilla go to Drassen, conquer the mine sector and whole town asap and train militia,
e.g. enter the airport from northern sector to spawn inside the fence with cover(e.g. NE corner)
Same for 1.13 unless you left counterattacks on,
in case you may leave one sector of a town untouched until you feel strong enough for an assault by 80+ enemies.

In 1.13 (use the latest development build!) you can adjust dozens of parameters incl starting money
in file JA2InstallDir\data-1.13\ja2Options.ini,
e.g. double the money for novice to experienced difficulties andbset insane to >=100k$,
disable the massive counterattacks and at least limit tanks/jeeps in patrols to progress lvl 90/70,
or disable them at all.
Make M.E.R.C. avaiable from start and give some of their cheap "limited use specialists" a try.

Independant from vanilla/1.13 i do not recommend Steroid as mechanic,
his low dex slows repairs and low wis slows skill increase while both decrease hit rate with 1.13 NCTH system.
Better get Barry who will quickly come up in repairs and also covers explosives.

Buns has high salary for her lvl and will cost a lot through the full run,
better go for igor who has better physial stats and exp lvl/$ rate, mrk has the highest increse rate in standard campaigns,
and in 1.13 survival is just too good not to have it, along with Manuel the squad needs only 57min for road sectors.

For vanila e.g Ivan, Igor and Grunty are friends and make an excellent core team,
just ensure to keep ivans kills low in the beginning.

For 1.13 you could create a malicious psychopatic sniper scout and select the equipment yourself
to get 6x50 rds of 9x19 Match and 6x50 rds 9x19 AET for the Calico 950 & 900, and buy the acog for the latter.
With minimum progress speed of item choice that will provide sufficient superiority in early campaign.

add e.g. Bull(Tank), MD(doc), Igor(Jackofalltrades), Razor/Hector(run&throw/stab) and Skitz(explosives and outstanding speechset) along with Ira(shoot whenever possible to max mrk)
for a low cost team.

Btw i usually play on insane = 15k and selected equipment = additional IMP costs.
Post edited September 05, 2016 by townltu
I usually have at least $5000 after my initial hires. I've only been playing on Experienced though, so on Insane, I'd probably have to go flat broke.

You don't need a mechanic expert right at the start, and probably don't need an explosives expert either. So what you need or at least want comes down to this:

a Medic:
MD, Spider, Fox are top picks. Doc is probably another good pick for 1.13.

Someone with at least 75 Marksmanship. To train Ira later:
Meltdown, Buns, Grizzly, etc. Lots of picks here. Keep in mind Buns doesn't get along with a lot of characters, Meltdown doesn't get along with Flo, and Grizzly's dexterity is low enough that he'll miss a lot despite his high marksmanship.

Someone with a grenade launcher for 1.13:
Grizzly, Grunty. Don't use any grenades until you are defending Drassen. If you HAVE to, then take Drassen airport early and order more.

An IMP merc.
Some weapon specialization, Body Building, and Athletics is usually the best perk combo, unless you have something specific in mind. Around 55 leadership, 80 marksmanship, 80 wisdom, and a decent enough medical stat to start with a first aid kit.

Preferably someone with something better than a pistol at start:
Many characters. You can also wait on this till MERC opens up and hire either Gumpy or Flo with their premium gear, then give it to a more useful character. It's entirely possible to take Drassen with just pistol users. It's just very difficult to defend it afterwards unless you really trained up a lot of militia.

My usual party ends up being:
IMP, Grizzly, Bull, MD, Mouse
or
IMP, Fox, Meltdown, Igor, Grunty
But I've done a few other combinations with some success.

Mouse is another character to consider if you don't have Fox. She is stealthy and can come with a suppressed gun with cold ammunition. Letting her potentially kill off a few enemies on a night mission before the battle actually starts. Paired up with Dimitri and you have a shot at taking over a sector without even being detected. Makes the Drassen airport battle a breeze if you can manage it at night. Even if you don't plan on using stealth, her Dex and Agility are top notch, making her a rather flexible character in plain ol firefights.

When attacking Drassen I usually go with the mine first. Train about 10 militia, then take the rest of Drassen. Making sure you have at least 20 to deal with the Drassen counterattack. If Drassen is too much of a pain, you can take Chitzena at the start much easier. For the Drassen airport I highly recommend attacking at night and trying to surround the front entrance from just out of the light range so you have a visibility advantage. For Drassen mine I recommend trying to hole up in the mine foreman building on the bottom left and waiting for the enemy to expose themselves trying to get to you. For the middle sector of Drassen I REALLY recommend having some militia help you, but you can try to hole up in the bar on the bottom, just be careful as one of the enemies has a radio set and will call artillery strikes on you.

Once I take Drassen I order all the following from Bobby Rays:
Armor for Ira, if I didn't already find it.
Ammo for every weapon I have that isn't a pistol. Just the basic ammo types.
Grenades and grenade ammunition for a grenade launcher
2 medical bags, 1 first aid kit, possibly more
Throwing knives for Dimitri
Possibly a utility knife for lockpicking
Possibly another type of knife for Mouse, as well as more cold ammo for her

I then usually hire a cheap mechanic like Gasket to fix some of the 60% condition guns I'm bound to have at this point.
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maxernst: ...
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Matewis: One thing you can do is to go straight to San Mona and look for stuff to do there. From what I can remember, there's about $25000 to be earned there, and a whole lot more to be stolen. Moreover, $15000 of that $25000 can be earned on a daily basis. However it is not necessary. If you wish to liberate Drassen first you can do that, but consider taking the bottom section first, no later than the 2nd day. That way you'll earn a mine income early on. It won't be a lot at first, but it will net you a couple extra thousand by week's end. The income increases the more of Drassen you control, so you should immediately take a 2nd part of Drassen. Just remember that the Queen will send a counter attack to Drassen the moment you are in full control of it. So it can be worth it to just hold onto 2 sections of Drassen for a while and then head to San Mona in the meantime.

As for the counter attack itself. It depends on what version you are playing, like 1.13 for example where you can disable the counter attack. The Queen can send something like 60 soldiers to retake the city, and that early on it's essentially impossible to take on that many enemies at once. However before they attack they will break up into smaller groups and surround the square they want to invade. If you preemptively attack them then, then you have a much easier fight on your hands with only about 20 soldiers. If you're playing 1.13, then consider making your IMP a radio operator. That way he/she can jam radio signals and prevent the enemy from calling for reinforcement/artillery from adjacent tiles.

As for starting mercs. It's worth trying to get some for 2 weeks right from the start because you save a lot of money that way. Don't be afraid of taking some cheap ones: MD, Barry, Grizzly and Steroid are all solid choices (I usually pick them). By the way that's another thing: Blood isn't ideal for healing. You should try to take a team doctor with a high medical skill (and paramedic/doctor trait in 1.13) to heal your dudes, like MD.
I don't recommend turning off the counterattack. It's easily the most fun moment early in the game. I survived it a few days ago with Flo, Grizzly, Biff, Bull, MD, Ira, Dimitri, and my auto weapons IMP merc. Not exactly a heavy hitting team. I had 20 militia and 10 militia came in as reinforcements, and I survived the attack by bolting to the rooftop of the building in the middle of Drassen mine and having my whole squad go prone 1 tile away from the buildings edge while Grizzly used up all the grenades I bought from Devin and the grenade ammunition for his grenade launcher.

The enemy AI doesn't usually try to climb rooftops until all opposing ground level forces are dead, but they will still waste turns trying to shoot targets on the roof that they can barely even see. Letting your militia pretty much mow them down unopposed. Just be careful as the ones farther from the roof can occasionally manage a lucky shot.
Post edited December 26, 2016 by Grilleds
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townltu: Independant from vanilla/1.13 i do not recommend Steroid as mechanic,
his low dex slows repairs and low wis slows skill increase while both decrease hit rate with 1.13 NCTH system.
Better get Barry who will quickly come up in repairs and also covers explosives.
Agree with pretty much everything you said (much of which I cut out of the quote for my reply). I would add that unless you are using the merc ini editor in 1.13 to change which mercs like or dislike other mercs, Steroid is IIRC disliked/hated by some of the better mercs from AIM.

Barry is always one of my first hires. By the time you get him a decent gun he becomes a reliable monster of a mercenary.


For 1.13 you could create a malicious psychopatic sniper scout and select the equipment yourself
to get 6x50 rds of 9x19 Match and 6x50 rds 9x19 AET for the Calico 950 & 900, and buy the acog for the latter.
With minimum progress speed of item choice that will provide sufficient superiority in early campaign.
Hmmm...I would never have tried a psycho sniper because IIRC they periodically go berserk with auto-weapons and lose morale if they are not equipped with an auto-weapon. I know I have used a 'Malicious' sniper before (IIRC has better critical chances or gains morale for causing injuries or something like that) though. And I do often use a psycho auto-weapons guy. Buzz is excellent for this and even Haywire can be made into a respectable killing machine.
add e.g. Bull(Tank), MD(doc), Igor(Jackofalltrades), Razor/Hector(run&throw/stab) and Skitz(explosives and outstanding speechset) along with Ira(shoot whenever possible to max mrk)
for a low cost team.
Yes! Although I personally rather have almost any other medic than MD. Fox has a better speechset and can make good use of those twin pistols from John (& Mary) once her marksmanship is upped. Thor does not cost any insurance, is relatively cheap and has very high wisdom (and stealth skills?).

Razor becomes a ninja-like killing machine with throwing knives in the late game for me. I greatly prefer him over Blood.
Btw i usually play on insane = 15k and selected equipment = additional IMP costs.
Ah...you are probably a much better player than I am then. I rarely play any game on such high difficulty levels -not because I cannot beat them because I most certainly can- but because for me it turns the game into a tiresome job I must do instead of a fun diversion.