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[marshal99]

Argh , Mike.

On Day 1 , i hired too many expensive mercs and had problems paying 1 of them at end of day but had no cash flow problems since then. However , Mike has been bitching about that little cash flow problems even until day 19 and will not join my team even though i have no problems now. I wonder how long it will take before he finally changes his mind.

[Incappucciato d'Ombra]

Originally Posted by marshal99

Argh , Mike.
I wonder how long it will take before he finally changes his mind.

As far as i know, in order to hire Mike, you only need a low turnover (below 30%, just in case... you can see turnover on AIM screen).
Each day, if you don't fire mercs (nor mercs be killed/quit), your turnover goes down... so hold position, possibily avoiding to loose too many native confidence, and you will be able to hire Mike (well ... cough cough... if your turnover is very high, let say 50%, you need to be very very patient)


Just come in mind now : there is another possibility, if for some reason your rating is very low (basically because too many mercs/native are died) Mike will never join you, unless you rise your rating... but this is pretty impossible at this point. You need to conquer sector each day in a row, with NO casualty on your side (mercs and especially native) and killing at least 8 bad guy per day.... if even in a single day you aren't able to do this your rating will go down

[Incappucciato d'Ombra]

Or some sort of bug had occured?

Well, i've just finished playing JA for the second time at hard level and when i have attacked sector 1, i founded (and killed) only 3 Santino's men...

1) YES! You have read well ! I wrote 3...

2) NO! I don't found a mistical teleport to Santino's Room (or something similar) nor i have act so quickly that Santino's men aren't able to respawn with their normal quickness

3) In all the walktrought that i've founded, it is always said that Santino's men are unlimited in sector 1 and infact this happen to myself the first time that i've played JA (normal level) and the first time that i've played at Hard Level... until i'd managed to enter Santino's Room, each time that i kill a bad guy... another bad guy respawn, quit Santino's Home and engage my mercs.


Now... i'd killed 768 enemy in total, to this number it must add the enemy drowned during attack to sectors defended by mercs (combat resolved on tactical screen) or by guards (automatically resolved by computer). Infact enemy can even drown!! Generally when attaccking sector "not safely linked" and this number will never be take in count (Missing In Action?? :nuts. Since the game is last for 61 days, with many attacks of this type, i can estimate that at least 20-30 enemy are drowned.

It's possible that the maximun numeber of Santino's Men is 800?? Someone other than me had managed to kill so many enemy or it's normal ?

P.S. : i've also tried to quick restore from day 60 and then i'd played until day 65... without doing nothing !! For 6 days no attack from Santino's Men !

[Eagle of Fire]

I started playing JA again, and I see who Mike is now. I never bothered to even look at him, and if I remember well I've never even had the quest to find components to try to find a cure either. I remember blowing a sick tree up though...

Sadly, I completed this game only once. At easy level, a long time ago. I'm playing at normal right now and I find it easy. I'll probably be able to win hard in no time.

[Mike_B20]

Has anyone managed to survive long in this game without constant reloads?
I just tried playing a game on normal difficulty without reloading after disasters.

Day 1: Hired Ivan, Hurl, Ice and Vinny and managed to take sectors 59, 49 and 50 without a scratch.

Day 2: Hired Fidel.
Cleared sector 40, still without a scratch. Fidel is then seriously injured attempting to defuse explosives in sector 49(way to go 97 explosives skill ). After patching him up we attempt sector 49, approaching from the south(top left of sector 39).
The native guide Hamous is killed scouting.
The guys are then caught in a poor position when rushed by just about every redshirt on the map. Previously injured Fidel is hit by a grenade and killed :eek:
The other guys suffer in the firefight.

Day 3: Hire Elo and rest/heal entire team. Guards manage to hold all sectors but the natives are obviously not happy.

Day 4: We take on the dreaded sector 29.
The wheels fall off the campaign when the team is ambushed on reaching sector. Nearly everyone is hit. Especially bloody is the attempt on the "redoubt" in the centre.
This map is designed by the devil himself :evil:
That night 20 guards quit and virtually entire team is in hospital.
I admit defeat

[Incappucciato d'Ombra]

Originally Posted by Mike_B20

Has anyone managed to survive long in this game without constant reloads?
I just tried playing a game on normal difficulty without reloading after disasters.

Possible, but very difficult. You need to learn to play very well before to attempt this. And even when you will be ready... a bit of luck is required :

1) enemy starting positions in each sector is "partially randomized" (position will be chosen between 4-5-6 or even more pre-calculated position and not on the entire map). This means that in some sector possibility to encounter an enemy just in front of you are very high.
So, you need to learn "from where" attacks must be launched.

2) Mercs level play a big role in the game, not only for interrupt purpouse but for ALL... and it's difficult or, well, pretty impossible to obtain a decent level for your mercs. In other words : before or later your mercs (even Mike....) will blow up on a stupid mine/trap, always try to disarm this things on real time, it is a bit more easy. Or will be targeted by an enemy with a grenade with no possibilty to doing nothing.

Fidel is then seriously injured attempting to defuse explosives in sector 49(way to go 97 explosives skill ). After patching him up we attempt sector 49, approaching from the south(top left of sector 39).

You means sector 29 (instead of 49)? This is not clear. As for Fidel, see point 2) above.

Hire Elo and rest/heal entire team.
Guards manage to hold all sectors but the natives are obviously not happy.

Never, never, never!! At lest one mercs must be always sent on duty. Otherwise native feeling will drop like a rock in water, even if there are no enemy attacks or guards are able to successfully defend sectors.

Day 4: We take on the dreaded sector 29.
The wheels fall off the campaign when the team is ambushed on reaching sector. Nearly everyone is hit. Especially bloody is the attempt on the "redoubt" in the centre.

Well in this sector best entry points are : South West (you can take advantage from the trees near the SW corner) or South/Center westside of the river. But in this positions... there is a "pre-set" position for enemy... this means that sometimes you will encounter an enemy just in front of your men.

As for the enemy in the centre: there is 2-3 position where you can hide your mercs with good possibility to see enemy without being seen, then you can :

a) launch 1 or 2 grenades...
b) distract enemy with 2-3 mercs, while a merc will traverse river and attack the enemy from the back

This map is designed by the devil himself

Trust me, compared to other sectors, this sector is easy :amused:

[Mike_B20]

Thanks for the tips Incappucciato d'Ombra.

Apologies, I meant to say "After patching him up we attempt sector 39, approaching from the south(top left of sector 49)".

I retried 29, approaching from SW and staying to the west of of the trees and it worked well. Many redshirts got caught out in the open in the swamp. Later, my best marksmen skirted well to the north of the centre "redoubt", while a couple guys approached more directly through the gap at the top. It worked well; The flankers managed to pick off most defenders.

Yes, good idea always having one merc on duty

[Incappucciato d'Ombra]

Originally Posted by Incappucciato d'Ombra

It's possible that the maximun numeber of Santino's Men is 800??

I have played an other game, in order to personally verify this, and effectively the number of the enemies is limited to 780-800. Moreover there are some strange/funny/interesting things that can be useful:

The Rocks... this unterrated things.
Rocks are generally used to distract the enemies and to make to explode mines and traps, but they can be used also to:

- (this is a bug and works only with rocks and not with grenades) 'to force' one or more interrupt before entering in a building. Place Mercs, that will have to enter in the room, in front of the door. Then, before opening the door, another merc will launch 1 or 2 rocks, from the outside, to the inside of the room, possibly to the opposite part of the door in which mercs will enter. After this, enemy will always move at least a bit or turn towards rocks, loosing some Movement Point. These can be helpful, at least a bit, but don't expect great advantages, and if you suspect that there are more than 2 enemies or enemies with a level much higher than your mercs... best things is to use grenades or explosives to open the door. Few tests are necessary in order to understand how to launch rocks since with certain angles-shot the rocks do not succeed in 'exceeding' the wall and do not (magically) land to the inside. A simple graphic example:
[ML= Merc Launcher, W=Wall, R=Rock landing zone, E=enemy position, D=Door, M=Merc ready to enter, . = space]

...................ML


WWWWWWW
W.. R.. E....D M M M

- in order to stone to death the enemies and to kill them (or to carry them to critical level). To stone to death them isn't particularly useful (except if your mercs are short of ammo)... but it is amusing. Now, first of all an explanation about IA : when the Hit Points of an enemy drop down to [critical status minus few Hit Points] this enemy is forced to run away without being able to do anything else (even if you shot at him). He will attempt to reach the more close angle of the map, and only when he had reached this angle he will begin to react, but only if he sees a merc, otherwise he will remain in the angle without being able to do nothing, except loosing HP to the death. Also, each rocks can do from 0 to 4 hit point damage and this is important in order to wound an enemy without killing him.
Sometimes this 'permanently retreat status' can be useful, just to give an example : Sector 1, here hundreds of enemies can exit from Santino's Home, until you managed to enter Santino's Room, and there will be always until 8 enemy in the map. In this situation can be useful to force 1 or 2 enemies in this 'permanently retreat status', because this means that for some turns (even 7-8 if you are lucky) there will be 2 enemies that can't be replaced and are virtually inoffensives.

I love C4, give me more more moooooore!!
Especially if you hire Fidel, can happens that you found more detonators than explosive/C4. If this happens, or if you prefer to use more C4 (slightly more powerful than explosive)... hidden in processing plant there are 2 (2° p.plant) or 4 (3° & 4° p.plant) C4 available, but only if you are able to take sector avoiding sabotage sequence (search with a very good explosive guy in the main room, where outbreaks happen due to sabotage).

Special Chests in S.36, S.18 and S.4
Similarly to the Brenda's Quest, the Journal's Quest and the Headstone Quest, it is not necessary to conquer the sector in order to obtain the special chests that will appear in specific days (info that can be founded solving some Encrypted Notes). Simply enter sector, locate all the chests and then if you don't have time, or convenience, retreat from sector and return later. Also, S.18 can be attacked from S.19 with no great danger (to see your mercs drowned...) if you 'traverse' with mercs positioned in a specific position (about south-west of the map). This can be helpfull if there is no more time to conquest all the sectors that leads to S.18 by land.
Finally about S.4, in a strategic guide i'd found an advice about avoiding at all cost the conquest after day 31 for presumed enormous difficulties... well this 'enormous difficulty' is simply the presence of 8 chests, some of this are trapped and the others are filled with trapped grenades, but at this point untrapping this cheasts/items is an easy task (one of my explosive specialists, Ivan, at Level 6 with explosives 95, has been able to untrap all this thinghy with no problem). In total there are 3 tear gas (useless), 4 grenades (useless) and 3 grenades (102-106%), not much but if happens that you are around S.4 at the right day... few grenades are better than nothing.

Saving Brenda without a good mechanic
To save Brenda, there is no need of a good mechanic. Take your best merc (because then he will quit to escort Brenda) with a knife and 2 grenades. Traverse water and place the merc 4-5 square away from the first door on the back. Launch the first grenade, on the door, using minimun amount of action points (about 11), then launch the second grenade on the second door with the remaining action points (about 14), Brenda will take no damage (even if you are so foolish to use explosive in front of the door:laugh, will see the merc and automatic sequence will start. As a side note, this quest is timed, Brenda must be saved within 4 or 5 days or when you open the last door you always found Brenda died.

In the next post i will give some alternative methods of training :amused:

[Incappucciato d'Ombra]

In the previous post i write about generic hints, now it's time to release my 'powerplayer' soul

Mercs can be trained even in real time, while they are on duty. This can be quite easy or stressful, depending on your playing style and on how many mercenary you want to train. However, because of the general structure of the game isn't possible to put into effect a massive training. In other words, massive training of more than 3-4 mercs it's pretty impossible and even trainig only 2-3 mercs can become an 'hell on earth'. Best way to use methods described below is to concentrate training on 1-2 mercs, choosing very carefully stat and/or skill that you want to raise. Also, some of the method below can be mixed togheter in various way, just experiment and use fantasy. Also, take in mind that more level means more $$$ to be payed and there are:

- very good mercs that becomes very expensives, Ivan is an example. He is a very good mercs, but he become more expensive than Mike, a Level 7 Ivan will cost 11,000 $ and at level 8 he will cost about 16,500 $ !!

- good mercs that are quite cheap; Grunty & Vinny are an example. Raise Agil & Marks of Grunty and you will obtain a very impressive mercs. Raise Agil, Marks & Level of Vinny (dext & mech needed to be raised also, but just a bit) and you will obtain the perfect lockpicker... no more need to hire Magics or similar mercs.

- poor mercs that are very cheap. Never tried this, but can you figure out a merc like Bruce 'Skitz' Bonner (90$ at level 1) that becomes a 'killing machine' ? or Herman 'Turtle' Regents (Agility 8...) that becomes like Flash Gordon? or Marty 'Kaboom' Moffat (Wisdom 13...) that becomes like Albert Einstein? Pheraps this can be funny ...

Finally, the level... raising skill/stat will raise even the level, and level is the most important factor of the whole game. All the equations that governs each action that can be taken in game have level always as a multiplier. For this reason mercs like Fidel with high explosive level but poor level sometimes aren't able to disarm a simple crappy mine or mercs like Vinny with good Dexterity and Mechanical but poor level becomes 'the perfect lockpicker-mechanic' if you raise the level.

Killing Metaviran Reptiles. (will increase DEX, AGI & WIS)
Simply the best training way!! Stats quickly raise until 90's, then increase slow down. For example: Vinny, killing 16 metaviran reptiles, increases of +5 WIS, +3 AGI and +1 DEX. After the 90's has reached he will increas of about +1 for each stats killing about 20 metaviran reptiles. Some sectors seems to be better than other (S.33 seems to be very good) and some sector are very dangerous, like S.47. Don't forget to save often since even the best merc can be killed by those repetiles.
Finally, move your merc (hopefully with a knife) through medium deept water and kill, kill kill !! Avoid, obviously low water because merc can't be attacked here and deep water (in wich merc will need to swim) because breath can only goes down and can't be recovered, and because not all mercs are able to swim and except in rare cases no-one has bothered to tell you something.

Hey i've a rock! And it's so funny launch it at my feet! (will increase DEX and EXP)
Well this method can be very boring, but at least isn't dangerous (no need to quick save often). Simply launch the rocks at your feets, at the square just in front of merc. Very helpful, in order to create a bomb dude or to raise the level of a low-level merc. To give an idea: Ivan's explosive skill, after launching 200 rocks, will raise from 50 to 58 (and this require about less than an half day of game time).

Wound the tappers and then cure them (MARK, MED and DEX)
MED will raise very good, MARK will raise quite good, DEX will raise just a bit. If you want, you can use a gun in bad condition (about 50%) in order to raise even MECH, but don't expect great things Mech is one of the slowest skill in game.
Use weapon like S&W, C45 and Beretta, there are a lot of ammos of this kind and you can fire from 1 to 3 time without killing the poor tapper (and remember... save often!). Just place merc 2-3 square away from the tapper and fire! Finally, take in mind that tappers (and also guards) when wounded don't recover the original status, a tapper that become 'critical' will be 'critical' forever... so, go in sectors that are very behind from first line.

Firing with bad damaged weapon against door/sign/trees (MARK and MECH)
Instead of wounding tappers, it's possible to fire against a sign, a door, a tree and any thing on which it is possible to aim. Marksmanship will raise quite good. In this way you can use all the bad damaged weapon that you find in game, without loosing time to repair them. The raise of mechanical will be... insignificant (not tried but probably a good mechanic can do better) so use only the ammo already on the weapon.

Ok, that's all, good luck and be patient if you want to try this training methods

[BranjoHello]

This game has a lot of potential.

It was great until the "action" started, movement is slow and the fact that my men can just walk in front of the guard and than pull out their guns and shoot them like pidgeons made me head to EXIT TO DOS button.

Hopefully JA2 is much better and even more hopefully it will become abandonware soon.