So the GOG version is 1.12 if I understand correctly... Anyways I haven't played the game since it originally came out and just bought it to finally maybe finish it.

I was wondering if there were any good guides or gameplay videos to see before I jump into the game. I can't really remember how the game works etc. I don't need a walkthrough but just some hints and tips.

There are some hints and tips here and there on this forum.
Basically, get a team that covers all your bases:
- repair
- medic
- explosives
1 of them should have good to high leadership (use your custom merc for that).
IMO all of the above should be accompanied by 80+ marksmanship and when possible high intelligence.

My favorite starting team:
Buns, Steroid, Fidel and my custom merc.
I take Ira at day 1 as she has high intelligence and therefore learns quickly. Even if you don't want to use her in combat, she does have good medic skill and can be used solely for training militia if needed. I never go back for other mercs, but you might.

As for combat:
- make sure your mercs cover eachother
- use cover
- snipe from rooftops
- with enough time units left, you can and will get interupts. They can be a great strategic advantage
- you don't need to take an entire town at once. Feel free to take 1 or 2 sectors, train militia and than take the rest

Some general hints and tips:
- make sure your gear is in good condition before starting a fight
- always assign the entire team to duties. If 2 are training militia, your repair guy can repair equipment and your doc can heal wounded mercs. They can also rest
- get your cashflow up and running asap
- find the pilot, for obvious reasons only use him in green areas
- don't take out kingpin before your cashflow, weapon stock and ammo can do without Tony
- talk to all people with names above there head
- side missions will increase your liking in towns and therefore your income if the town has a mine
- there's more than 1 way to get to the queen
- keep some good equipment behind for future team expansion
- traveling road sectors is faster, but you're more likely to encounter enemies
- attacking enemies wandering around towns will increase your liked rating in towns

Wisdom, not Intelligence. And wisdom is a bitch to train. What does Tony have to do with Kingpin? Tony (and Hans) should be a different faction, thus not go hostile when Kingpin's faction does.

High wisdom helps to increase used skills faster. It's been a while since I last played it, but last few times I got attacked by Tony, Hans and the rest of the sector after killing Kingpin.

As I recall, usual method of getting Tony hostile is by misplacing the C4 used to make an emergency entrance to his room, thus catching Tony or Hans in the explosion. That turns them hostile, but doesn't turn Kingpin hostile. It is possible that a stray bullet injures them though, but not really sure.

Actually, Wisdom is relatively easy to train. (But it involved save/load "cheating".)
Save game, plant some TNT/C4, then disarm it, rinse and repeat. (load game if you get blown up)
If your explosives skill is not high enough, you need to raise it first by doing the same with landmines.

If you want to do it in a non-cheating manner, you can buy a ton of explosives from mickey in san mona, and have a doctor heal up the merc when he get damaged from failing his explosives check. I'll advise you stick the best armor you have on the merc tho, so there's less chance of him dying from the explosion.

@yugular
Extra Tips
1. You can disable SAM sites by blowing up the targeting computers in the control room instead of clearing the sector. The airspace above the site will remain clear until a "repair team" managed to reach the site. Alternatively, you can plant remote explosives at the SAM sites you control, so that it'll be easier to send in just 1 merc with a remote detonator on a sabotage mission when the site gets retaken by the enemy.

2. You can try to "grab" guns right out from enemies' hands by holding CTRL and clicking the hand cursor on enemies. It takes 10AP to initiate and will use up all your remaining APs, so be careful of retaliation. Success rate is influenced by strength, martial arts trait, health remaining, and whether your current hand is empty.

3. Leave your current hand empty when not in combat. (Right click on gun) This way, when you get ambushed by enemies, you won't drop your weapon if they throw grenades at you. Additionally, some animations (opening doors) play faster when you are not holding a gun. (You don't need to use any APs when switching weapons during combat.)

4. Town militia will pick up and use loaded weapons on the ground during battle, so be careful of leaving your backup guns lying on the ground. The airport building in Drassen however, is "off-limits", so you can drop your guns there.

5. If the enemy is "unaware" of your presence in the sector, you have a chance of instantly killing an enemy when you hit them with knives. It's extremely difficult to sneak into melee range without the enemy being alerted, so I'll advise using throwing knives instead.

6. If you want to raise your marksmanship faster, let your Merc dual wield pistols or SMGs. More shots = more chances for advancement.

7. There's a 2 AP "cost" in bringing up your weapon and aiming down the sights. E.g. The 1st time you fire a 6 AP weapon in combat, you'll need 6 + 2 = 8 AP. Subsequent shots will take 6 AP UNTIL you have moved from your position or brought down your weapon to reload. Knowing exactly how much APs you need to fire a shot may mean the difference between you killing / wounding an enemy or you standing there waiting for him to shoot first.

8. You can save up to 5 APs for your next turn if you do not use up all your APs in your current one.

9. Try to flank the enemy. The AI is such that if you only attack from only 1 direction, he'll eventually find cover that is most effective against bullets coming from your direction. If you managed to flank him, he'll have to compromise on his coverage.

10. The "correct" way to use windows in combat is to play "peekaboo" with the enemies. Fire a shot while crouched, then use the remaining AP to go prone during you turn so that the enemy cannot return fire. If you stay crouched instead, the enemies will aim at your head (since it is the only part visible) and headshots HURT. Combine this tactic with flanking, to force the enemy to waste APs switching directions frequently, and you will have less chance of getting interrupted when you peek your head out.

11. You can get some extra money by going into the mines, taking all the gold/silver nuggets, and depositing it into your bank.

That's all the "not readily apparent" tips I can recall on short notice, enjoy. :-)

Thus the bitch part. Compare it to strength (load up and start running around) or marksmanship (automatic weapon and shoot).

Actually, I've written an Autohotkey script to automate the entire process.
Yes, I understand it's kind of lame and it's probably much easier to edit the values using a hex editor or download an editor from the net, but I've always liked coding and for me, it was as much fun writing that script than playing the game. :-)

If anyone is interested, here is the link to the script.
Extract the zip file to any folder and run the .AHK file with Autohotkey. You can also edit the source code with any plain text editor. And here's the link to Autohotkey. (You'll need this program to run the script.)
http://www.autohotkey.com/

Instructions:
Start JA2, save your current game in a manual saveslot(in case anything goes wrong), go to the tactical screen, and leave the TNT or Landmine in the primary hand of the Merc whom you wish to train. If you want a more experienced Merc to help disarm the explosive, then their primary hand should also be empty. Merc should be in "Teamview Mode" (row of Merc portraits at the bottom) instead of "Inventory Mode", and NOT standing near any of the map edges. (So that script can center on the Merc properly)

Run the script, select the "TNT" or "Mine" tab, edit the options, then click on the "Run!" button.

If everything goes smoothly, the script will:
1) Switch back to the game.
2) Detect who is holding on to the TNT or Landmine and select said Merc.
3) Open, and then close "Inventory Mode". (To detect whether you are using the "new inventory system" in v1.13)
4) Center screen on selected Merc and save the game to the quicksave slot.
5) Repeatedly plant and disarm the TNT/Landmine, loading the quicksave slot if the Merc is damaged in the process.

Options:
"Number of tries before saving": 1~ 5. Affects the number of successful disarms before a new quicksave is made. (Saving after every successful attempt will slow down the attempt.)

"Character to assist": 0 ~ 6. Affects which Merc in the squad will assist in disarming the explosive. If 0 is selected, the Merc who is planting the explosive will disarm it.

"Character is Nice Guy?": Checked/Unchecked. Some Mercs (Dimitri , Gumpy, etc) have the hidden "Nice Guy" trait and will refuse to attack civilians (unable to plant explosives underneath their own feet). If checked, Merc will plant the landmine to an adjacent tile. (There's a similar routine to do it automatically in the TNT script after a number of failures, so option is not included there.)

Hotkeys and extras:
Since I usually leave the script running when I play JA2, I've coded some extra functions into it.

"Left Winkey + Pause": Pauses the script. So you can check the Merc's attributes and gauge your progress. Press again to resume.

"Left Winkey + Esc": End the current training.

"Left Winkey": Disabled. I hate it when I press this key accidentally during the game.

"Left Winkey + Left shift": Disabled. This key combination will switch between input languages if you have multiple languages installed. Not needed in JA2, not to mention damn annoying when I press it accidentally in game.

"Mousewheel Up": Hold down the CTRL key. Force the hand cursor to appear so its easier to open doors and manipulate items.

"Mousewheel Down": Hold down the SHIFT key. Move an entire stack of items when I click on them.

"Middle Mouse Button": Clear the CTRL, SHIFT, and ALT keys.

"Numpad0": Selects entire squad, put them on "stealth" mode, and makes them crouch. (This is the first thing I usually do when I enter combat)

Script should work for JA2 GOG version(v1.12) and JA2 v1.13 mod 800x600 and 1024x768 screen resolutions with both new/old inventory systems. Feel free to modify it to suit your needs. Enjoy! :-)

I made sure I never hit Hans or Tony and I never dynamited his building. I always figured I probably hit a friendly npc by accident causing Tony and Hans to go hostile.
It's not a big issue to me as I don't use Tony much after my cashflow from mining is high enough to sustain my operations.

As for wisdom, I never train it on my mercs. It's useful if it's high though as it helps to increase other skills faster.
Which is why I always have Ira train my militia. She increases her leadership skill rapidly and therefore becomes very useful for keeping militia at maximum strength. Which means I don't need to sacrifice attack squad members for that task.



Edit: typo

Tony does have access to items Bobby Ray doesn't, most notably the Rocket Rifle ammunition, and probably more. He also gets a bonus to the coolness calculations compared to BR, so he gets items earlier. But if BR has you covered, feel free to ignore Tony :)

If you're using the 1.13 mod, make sure to check that "enemies drop everything" option

But... but.... that option will totally mess up the game balance... :'(

Personally, I'll advise new players to at least complete the game once using the original 1.12 version BEFORE messing around with the 1.13 mod.

While I quite like some of the improvements the 1.13 mod makes (higher resolutions, improved AI, suppression, new inventory system) , I feel some of their other changes spoil the game by either introducing power creep, or changed the "flavor" of the original game by removing some of the quirky humor. (6 IMPs, enemies drop everything, steal everything from downed enemies, increased max number of mercs, removal of the hilarious IMP quiz, loss of some of the funny item descriptions, drassen counterattack, training elite milita, mobile milita, etc)

For 1st time players, messing around with the settings in the 1.13 mod is NOT an option because they wouldn't even know what was changed in the 1st place! They'll probably end up missing out on some of the stuff that made JA2 such a great game if they've started with the 1.13 mod instead the original game...

It's like the only way to beat the last part of the game, those rocket launchers don't grow on trees! =c

And what humor did you mean when you said it got taken out?

Erm... You can order LAWs and Mortars from Bobby Rays. I usually spend several game days amassing a stock of heavy weapons from Bobby, Tony and Mickey before my final push towards Meduna. :-)

I think it made the last part kind of "fun" for me, praying that my very last mortar / rocket can destroy the final tank and being forced to make a tactical retreat when I'm out of heavy weaponry. (By that time, I'm usually steamrolling over all the other fights due to the experienced Mercs. Being forced to fight at a disadvantage makes Meduna somewhat "special". It'll be kind of anti-climactic if I steamroll thru the last part too.)

1. The hilarious personality quiz that you have to go thru at the I.M.P website. (It's kind of tedious to go thru that quiz multiple times to get the exact Merc you want so I guess they took it out for long time players)

2. Some of the funny item descriptions seem to be changed I believe. I recall lots of funny quotes from reading the gun descriptions in the original game, but the item descriptions in 1.13 mod seems rather "dry" (straight to the point tho, but "dry".)

That's something I never really paid attention to. I prefer to go with the flow and have the enemy supply me as much as possible. It's annoying to have to take regular away from the frontline.

If you can sneak up to a tank, you can use HMX explosives on them. Can't remember how many, but you'll need more than 1 to destroy a full hp tank.