Behold: an explanation!

If you don't import your character from the first game, then you're stuck with a level one character in a game that expects you to be level five to seven. It may not sound like a lot, but it makes a world of difference in turn interrupts. If you'd like to play it and beat it, I'd strongly encourage you to play the core game, JA2, and keep your main character alive. Forget about explosives, and medicine, and mechanical, and maybe even leadership. Get good marksmanship, agility, and wisdom (which will increase the rate of improvement for your character) and play through JA2. Import your character, and keep camouflaged and ahead of your hired Troop o' Noobs. As you get turn interrupts, use your silenced Calico to drop headshots on the guys you see, staggering them and allowing your Hapless Henchmen to finish them off on your turn.

Do that a few times and your entire squad can stand on their own. Get a few nice guns and someone who's really good at stealth to be your spotter, and you can set your marksman a hundred yards back with the .50 cal and explode anyone that dares to be on the same map with you.

Ah. That would explain why I couldn't damn hit anything.

That makes for a pretty poor standalone product, I'd say. If it's balanced for level 5-7 at the beginning, then it ought to start my character (and my mercs) at level 5, not level 1. :/ That's like if Baldur's Gate II started your party at level 1 if you didn't import. You'd be obliterated.

Thanks for the explanation. I don't know if I'll bother with the core JA2. I'd rather not spend $(10-discount) on it and find out that it's still absurdly difficult.

What about the Deadly Games that they gave everyone for free? Is that also a standalone that doesn't actually stand alone?

Oh, please play it. It's *excellent* It truly is one of the halcyon squad-based, turn-based tactical games. Well, unless you don't like that kind of game. Then fuggedaboutit.

Deadly Games *is* JA2. It's Wildfire that's the fan created one. Wildfire is... if JA2 were akin to being facepunched by Evander Holyfield, and JA2:UB by extension was like getting gored by ten angry bulls, then Wildfire is more or less being sucked through a jet turbine. It's entirely standalone, it expects you to start at level 1, but it's re-designed for those poor, sad nerds (like me) who finished JA2 on the hardest level and went "meh."

I think you are sorely mistaken for not wanting the original game, as you can install the 1.13 patch/mod for only the original Jagged Alliance 2. The 1.13 patch fixes so many things, adds so many things to the UI, and gives you LOTS of guns. As in so many I spent an hour shopping at Bobby Ray's many times. There is even things like mobile militia, tons of add-ons like reflex scopes, 4x acogs, multiple types of camo and even ghillie suits, you just can't go wrong with a purchase of JA2 and downloading and installing 1.13 which is really a patch of what the devs would have wanted to do with the game today.

http://www.ja-galaxy-forum.com/
Link to the Bear's Pit, where there is dozens of projects involving JA2 and it's sourcecode going on, 1.13 being the one where the game still feels like an improved version of the original, others are totally different stories and maps and can feel like a mostly different game altogether.

Every 4X game ever made. Way over my head.

All the Paradox games.

...but also point and click Adventure games! I love them...especially the Lucasarts ones but the puzzles never really jump out at me. Something like Riven is just impossible for me as well. Some people just finish these kinds of games easily. I just wander around not finding the obvious solutions to the puzzles.

Reading through this I keep seeing games I play constantly come up. Uplink for example, in 2 hours I was a pseudo-hacker no problem, just experiment and take chances with stuff in that game. X3 I grasped no problem, in fact I love that game to death for all the options it gives me. Space Empires 4+5 I simply had to do trial and error, no manuals, and within a week I began winning consistently.

XCom was my first turn-based tactical I ever played but play it on the ground with a military mind and things are easy (leap-frog in pairs, covering fire-lanes, getting snipers to rooftops for broader field of fire, etc.) and the UFO: Aftermath game, I hate to admit, was the 4th game I ever bought for PC. Ever. I think before it was some B-grade racer and Sonic and Creatures. Creatures and UFO: Aftermath were games that intrigued me because they made me think, and that mentality definitely shows today as I just purchased the Battle Isle Series. I prefer games that engage brain-power to win because it is satisfying and keeps me sharp.

I love Silent Storm very much, so it should be the kind of game that I would like.

If I think Silent Storm is challenging, but not excessively difficult, and if I gave up on Unfinished Business after the first screen (with my level 1 character), how would I probably react to JA2?

Now I'm a bit confused. I mean this one, the one that GOG added to everyone's account for free, as an apology for that thing that didn't bother me. Then there's this JA2, and this horrid thing is what I played.

Really? Galactic Civilizations 2 has an outstanding forum with tons of gameplay tips and a pretty good community. I enjoyed that one a lot and with the help of a lot of forum reading to tie up the loose ends, had a blast and didn't find it overwhelmingly difficult.

ON ANOTHER SUBJECT:

My best score in the largest Minesweeper was 133. I've always felt totally humiliated to hear of people claiming much, much better scores, as I feel I am clicking away pretty much instantly and have all the logic/bomb-vs-free-space patterns down cold. But there's only so fast I can click, perhaps. And I'm talking as of 20 years ago, I reached my clicking limits, too, so it's not just middle-aged over-tight stupidfingers, either. It's irritating to run into a brick wall like that. Especially when it's something you think you're really good at!

Galactic Civ 2 completely lost me - even with the opening video demonstrations.

I remember the tutorial videos being kind of overwhelming. I think that was a case of too much being shoved at you way too fast, because the tendency is to watch a bunch of them (if not all of them) in a row. Most of that stuff is better found out/researched piece by piece while playing. Otherwise it's like trying to memorize an encyclopedia all at once. That'll just give you brain constipation.

FWIW, I never did like designing the space ships and always found it very cumbersome and difficult. Some would consider that the heart of the way they play the game, but I didn't care much for it and did without it.

Actually, GalCiv 2 was the only one I was actually pretty good at. Sword of the Stars? NOPE.

You're confused because I was wrong. Deadly Games isn't JA2. That's what I get for posting from work when I don't take the time to check my references.


JA2 opens with a somewhat challenging fight. If you're going to give it a go, here's my suggestion: first, go to a website like http://www.strategyplanet.com/jaggedalliance/ja2t&t/impmerc.htm so that you can see what you need to do to build out the character you want. One of the few things I actually disliked about the game is the character creation questionnaire, but I stopped minding it once I got a hold of a resource like that. Once you know what character you want, get a group of three or four cheap mercs, like Ivan (Igor? whichever one's the cheap one), Barry, and MD, on two week contracts, and then a more expensive merc with some good starter gear for one day. That way you can get at least one good gun to start you off. Then, save your game before you go to the first tactical screen. The fight starts very quickly, and if you are caught unprepared, it's nice to be able to go back and figure it out.

If you start the game with a character you want and a four or five man team of mostly good mercs, you should be able to get through the first bit with little difficulty. From there, the game will ramp up the difficulty a little at a time. If you found Silent Storm challenging, then try JA2 on the normal difficulty and I think you'll have fun with it.