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This is the first game *ever* where I actually needed to play easy/novice.
Does anyone know what exactly the differences are between the difficulty levels? Just the amount of enemies and the composition enemy squads, or is the AI dumbed down as well?
I'm using v1.13. When I take over Drassen, the queen sends an insane amount of troops. Is the difficulty of that battle exemplary for the rest of the game, or should I just turn that event off in the v1.13 .ini? Because Experienced was quite ok before that attack...
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LordCinnamon: This is the first game *ever* where I actually needed to play easy/novice.
Does anyone know what exactly the differences are between the difficulty levels? Just the amount of enemies and the composition enemy squads, or is the AI dumbed down as well?
I'm using v1.13. When I take over Drassen, the queen sends an insane amount of troops. Is the difficulty of that battle exemplary for the rest of the game, or should I just turn that event off in the v1.13 .ini? Because Experienced was quite ok before that attack...

That only happened to me in Drassen, once I had captured the mine I got attacked within hours by about 40-50 troops.
Thankfully I had some pretty good weaponry, since I'd gone for the maximum stock gun shop.
After that, it was relatively normal.
There were other minor issues that prevented me from continuing to use the 1.13 mod though.
Post edited June 19, 2009 by Andy_Panthro
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Andy_Panthro: That only happened to me in Drassen, once I had captured the mine I got attacked within hours by about 40-50 troops.
Thankfully I had some pretty good weaponry, since I'd gone for the maximum stock gun shop.
After that, it was relatively normal.
There were other minor issues that prevented me from continuing to use the 1.13 mod though.

Hmm, ok. I'll might try again on Experienced without that event then (I had the gun shop on normal). Or I might just stick to Novice. It's not annoyingly easy (it's still fun) and battles take less time. Which is good, I have so many more games to play =)
It was a feature made but disabled by Sir Tech, so it's pretty unbalanced. So only if you like great big fights you should have it turned on. You could of course forget about Drassen and liberate other parts of the country and come back when you want to tackle it. Of course you could also liberate only 2 sectors since the attack only happens after you liberated all 3.
There were plans of introducing similar attack on all cities, but nothing came out of it as of yet. It may someday.
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LordCinnamon: I'm using v1.13. When I take over Drassen, the queen sends an insane amount of troops. Is the difficulty of that battle exemplary for the rest of the game,

No! That events rapes 1.13 newbies. Just fear what says the queen in the little video: Leave the town, prepare, and wait for taking back the town from that invading queen army. It will be a great battle, but you'll do it when and how YOU want.
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LordCinnamon: or should I just turn that event off in the v1.13 .ini? Because Experienced was quite ok before that attack...

As I said, learn how to do with this event: It's better.
Post edited January 01, 2010 by ERISS
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LordCinnamon: Does anyone know what exactly the differences are between the difficulty levels? Just the amount of enemies and the composition enemy squads, or is the AI dumbed down as well?

I recommend you read through the config files, there's a bunch of settings in there pertaining to the difficulty levels along with explanatory comments. Short anwer, difficulty levels change a lot of stuff. I don't think the battle AI is affected, but the strategic AI definitely is - on the highest difficulty level, the queen has infinite troops and keeps throwing them at you extremely aggressively.
As for the attack on Drassen, it's fairly easy if you know what to do. There's a little bar in the top right of the Drassen mine sector with only one door and no windows. Stock up on guns that can shoot as fast as possible (lowest number of action points per shot, enemies should've dropped plenty by this point if you play with "drop all") and hole up in there. Since enemies aren't smart enough to throw grenades in or blow a hole in the wall, you can defend the door with just two mercs (IMP + Ira), getting interrupts and scoring headshot after headshot from point blank range.
Alternately, you can simply disable this event in the aforementioned config files. ;)
Drassen is the only town with such big counter attack. Other towns may get a dozen elite as counter attack, but not that much.
They are many ways to beat the counter attack, you may find a lot of advices on the JA 1.13 official forum [url=www.ja-galaxy-forum.com]The Bear's Pit Forums[/url]. Here is one way that does not rely on cheesy technique like fighting in a closet.
The counter attack is triggered when you secure the whole city and activate the mine. If you do not take the whole city (by leaving the sector in the middle for example) you can get money from the mine and start training militia up to 2x20 blue militia before taking the final sector. By doing so you may get full trained militia before elite troops get to Drassen.
You can also weaken the queen troops before they attack the town. Her troops circle the mine sector before attacking so they can launch a full scale attack from those three sectors. However if you attack an enemy group that does not have another group next to them they can not call reinforcements and they will be a lot easier to kill. You can thus kill a lot of enemies and let the militia take care of the rest.
Finally you can kill them all in the town with aid from militia. Put your mercs on a secured position (on the roof of a building near one side of the map for example) and kill soldiers as they come. There is a maximum number of soldier for each faction that can be on one map at the same time, some new enemies will thus come in reinforcement each time one is killed. Be careful however, reinforcements from adjacent sector come with full AP excepted in the last builds. Do not stay too close to their spawning point or you may get killed before getting the opportunity to fire back.
By the way, maybe you should have played the game a bit with 1.12 before going to 1.13. The beginner setting on 1.13 is quite hard compared to the one in 1.12, especially for the beginning of the game, because of this reinforcement feature. As other said, you may also deactivate that over counter attack in your first game (search in the ini editor).
Wow, old post of mine. Still, all advice was very welcome, I actually dropped JA fro a while and *just* started playing again (fancy that). So, thanks!
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LordCinnamon: Wow, old post of mine. Still, all advice was very welcome, I actually dropped JA fro a while and *just* started playing again (fancy that). So, thanks!

lol! I just noticed the original post was that old.
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LordCinnamon: I'm using v1.13. When I take over Drassen, the queen sends an insane amount of troops. Is the difficulty of that battle exemplary for the rest of the game, or should I just turn that event off in the v1.13 .ini? Because Experienced was quite ok before that attack...

if you have any militia trained up before taking the last sector have them move in and leave your squad stationed around one of the centre buildings and you can usually defend the attack, using the miltia to spot the enemy and screen your own squad against attack (the combat will go on for a while though) either that or just pull out and let the miltia take out a few of the guards and then retake the sector. its also a lot easier when you generate more than one custom merc.
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robobrien: or just pull out and let the miltia take out a few of the guards and then retake the sector.

I'm not completely sure, but if I remember correctly this lowers the loyalty in the town.
The town's loyalty will be lower the 2nd time you take the sector.