I played Jagged Alliance 2 (1999) about 20 years ago and while I remember it being somewhat of a tactical slog with sometimes indecisive firefights, I was able to get through about 75% of the game. This week I tried Jagged Alliance 2: Wildfire (2005), a mod turned standalone expansion, and I ragequit during the second campaign mission (the airfield) because all 7 of my mercs were wounded by the time I eliminated just three guards.
I remember there was a fair bit of turtling, progressing slowly by crawling to the enemy positions, peppering them on the way, but this hasn't seemed to be effective in my new game, where my team regularly miss all of their shots while the enemies get a much better hit ratio despite carrying handguns and SMGs which have poor optimal range.
Of course, if my mercs get closer any faster than by crawling, they either get more chances to be successfully hit or uncover more enemies with more bullets coming their way.
Is there something I'm missing to be practically stuck at the second campaign mission?
Isaac Kuo likes this.
Schmaker
•I can't tell more about Wildfire as i never played it, just want to point out that if you liked JA2, then consider replaying with 1.13 patch that adds a HUGE LOT of features and balance changes (no more dragunov headshots from 5 tiles) and so on.
Also, Jagged Alliance 3 is also fun to play even though gameplay is a bit different and has some uber-hard boss fights
Hypolite Petovan
•@Schmaker Thanks for the suggestion! I remember I tried this patch once with the specialized inventory slots, but it still didn't fix the cruelly short sight lines that inevitably make all skirmishes short-ranged firefights between two lines of people ten squares away from each other. I tried messing around with the game files, but I ended up getting weird results where mercs could see further, but nothing close.
I don't have access to a copy of Jagged Alliance 2 at the moment, so I won't be able to try it again.
Schmaker
•@Hypolite Petovan
That's one of things fixed in it - cone of view is adjusted to used gun and optics (narrow for snipers with x10 sights and wide for SMGs)
If you own Wildfire on steam, IIRC JA2 is included
Hypolite Petovan likes this.
Hypolite Petovan
•@Schmaker Nope, it's actually a $4.99 DLC for Wildfire! https://store.steampowered.com/app/545210/Jagged_Alliance_2_Classic/
Beyond that technicality, are there other tactics to minimize merc wounds I could have overlooked with my one-size-fit-all turtle tactic?
Schmaker
•@Hypolite Petovan Guess that's some change as I am pretty sure i did not bought the DLC 😀
I mostly assaulted cities at night - sneak short ranged mercs to bottleneck passages and use sniper to bring enemies out.
Key to success are lights, noises and interrupts 😀
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Hypolite Petovan
•Schmaker
•@Hypolite Petovan It should not be missfest if you properly use lights. Attack from shadows and let enemy reveal themselves under the lamps or using stick lights.
Night vision goggles also helps 😀
Hypolite Petovan likes this.
Hypolite Petovan
•@Schmaker I finally got unstuck thanks to engaging town fights at night and save-scumming. For some reason I thought you couldn't save during fights but it's only for the Ironman mode which I would never touch even with a ten-foot pole.
Thanks for the help!
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Schmaker
•Hypolite Petovan likes this.
Schmaker
•Somehow I think (not sure if I remember correctly) there is a key for LOS indicators. Also, LOS changes a lot when you actually look (L key) in the right direction
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