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Author Topic: Let's Play Jagged Alliance 2-1.13: Part 6: Storm Team  (Read 55310 times)

Fikes

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Let's Play Jagged Alliance 2-1.13: Part 6: Storm Team
« on: March 02, 2012, 11:03:39 pm »

Welcome to Arulco!



Progress:
Chapter 0: XEP624
Chapter 1: Battle for Omerta
Chapter 2: Battle for Drassen
Chapter 3: King in the North
Chapter 4: Setbacks
Chapter 5: Thirteen days of ambush
Chapter 6: Storm Team

First things first. Jagged Alliance 1 and 2 have brought me almost as many hours of fury as they have brought me joy. No other turn based strategy game makes it so easy to lose men and so unforgiving when you do. The Elite enemies in this game are a rage sandwich with a side order of rape. So, what do we do to mitigate the rage the rage and ulcers this LP may or may not cause me? Same thing we did with X-Com! Let's play IRON MAN MODE!

Jagged Alliance 2, LMGTFY: Jagged Alliance is a turn based tactical game that came out in 1999. It plays fairly similarly to X-Com, with some notable differences. The biggest difference is that every unit you can hire has a personality and voice pack. This gives the game a lot of depth but also creates a problem; a limited pool of recruits. Thus, JA2 is much more punishing when things go bad and, to some extent, makes bad situations more likely.

The JA2 story goes that some friend of yours has hired you to clear his country of a dictator. He gives you some money to hire mercenaries to do the dirty work for you. Once the seed money is exhausted you have to take over and hold the island's gold mines to keep your finances "in the black".

Jagged Alliance 2, 1.13: Version 1.13 is a fan made patch. I am not sure there has ever been a fan made patch on this level. It adds tons of features and hundreds of guns. The patch is simply amazing.

1.13 adds things you wonder how you lived without. For example, you can click on a unit and see his field of vision. You can aim a shot and see your chance to hit. Your mercs can raise their weapons and prepare an ambush. All things that make the game even more tactical.

There is, however, one thing about the patch that annoys me to no end. It adds way too many guns. Way way too many. It takes a long time to decide which gun is best. Once you do you have to buy ammo for it and it can be a huge bitch to find the right ammo. In this regard it is too realistic. For example there are like 3 different 7.62 rounds that are not interchangeable! Why!?


This LP: I will be playing JA2 the Iron Man way. That means I will not save scum. I actually got the term (it turns out) from Jagged Alliance 2, which has the option in the "configure your game" screen. It is funny JA gave the option to play this way since the game is so intent on making it completely un-fun to do so.

Anyways, the goal will be to beat the game without destroying my brand new laptop.

This LP will be a bit more story centric and a bit less screen-shot-this-happened than the Apocalypse LP. JA2 will give us the chance to get closer to the characters and give them more personality than Apoc did.

I will be changing some settings that piss me off. For instance, the sci-fi bugs are disabled, as is the stupid counter attack on Drassen (if you don't know what that stuff means do not worry). Enemies will drop all their weapons.

How you fit in: You get to pick our squad flavor. This will be the general MO of our squad. You can suggest anything, but I'd prefer to keep it to options like the following: Night/stealth ops, long range, close range, or hit and run. You can also modify this with a general theme to our group such as cowardly, insane, brave, cautious, ect. For example if everyone wants to go Insane, Night Ops, our squad will sneak as close to the enemy as possible before running in with guns blazing and little regard for their own safety. This is a very bad idea by the way.

Next, once the game gets rolling, you get to pick the team's objective. At the end of every update I will give over stats and give options for what we do next. You all get to decide. JA2 is very open, there will be plenty of things to decide.

Finally, you get to be the mercenaries! JA2 has much smaller teams than even Apoc. Not very many people will get to be a mercenary at a time. Even if we wanted a larger team, our budget will limit us greatly. First pick on merc's will go to those that were active in my last LP.

If you are familiar with the game you can request a mercenary by name. AIM and MERC mercs can be modified to fit in better with our team. If not familiar with the game you can give some details about what you want in a mercenary (I can create up to SIX custom mercs).

Requesting should look like this

Name (add AIM after the name if you want an AIM Merc)
Role*
Trait/preferred weapon
Attitude
Backstory (if desired)

*Role can be any one of the following, the number is how many max we will have in our squad:
Assault (3) (long or short range depending on MO)
Sniper (1)
Medic (1)
Utility/Guard (1)

The utility role includes traps, lock picking, and repair. Lock picking is a must have right off the bat.

A few final notes: I have not played this most recent build of 1.13 yet. Some things are confusing, but I will work through them.

I have never beaten Jagged Alliance 2. I have many hours into it but always give it up with a few towns to go. I vow to play this LP to the end.

Progress will always go at the top of this post.

My schedule is wonkity. In the past month I have been completely with out internet for 3 weeks. I will be off the grid again in the middle of next month.

All that noise out of the way lets get this bitch started! Someone tell me about our team!
« Last Edit: September 12, 2012, 09:12:47 pm by Fikes »
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Xeron

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Re: Let's Play Jagged Alliance 2-1.13: Part 0: XEP624
« Reply #1 on: March 03, 2012, 04:09:11 am »

Name:Bill Tuck
Role*:Sniper
Trait/preferred weapon:Psycho,Dragunov Sniper Rifle
Attitude:Vicious yet friendly to those who get close to him
Backstory (if desired)
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Shadowgandor

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Re: Let's Play Jagged Alliance 2-1.13: Part 0: XEP624
« Reply #2 on: March 03, 2012, 05:00:00 am »

Name: Shadowgandor (I'd have taken Shadow but there's already an AIM agent with that name :P)
Role: Long range assault
Trait/preferred weapon: Anything which can pewpew accurate at a distance
Attitude: Sneaky, loyal, friendly as long as he gets paid. Prefers to get a height advantage in order to give covering fire to his squadmates.
Backstory (if desired)

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NRDL

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Re: Let's Play Jagged Alliance 2-1.13: Part 0: XEP624
« Reply #3 on: March 03, 2012, 05:04:42 am »

HIT AND RUN!!! Let's be guerrillas.

Name: Nix
Role: Assault ( long range )
Trait/Preferred weapon: Something that is versatile, for both close and medium range
Attitude: Friendly and optimistic, goes into a mad rage if one of his friends gets killed.
Backstory:(I don't think anyone desires it.)
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Taricus

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Re: Let's Play Jagged Alliance 2-1.13: Part 0: XEP624
« Reply #4 on: March 03, 2012, 06:13:18 am »

Hit and run? We're not some practical military force, We're ACTION HEROES! :P That being said, glad someone is doing an LP of this.

Anyway, my merc sheet is here:

Name: Taricus Elvare (AKA Guardian)
Role: Sapper/Marksman
Trait/Preferred Weapon Marksman/Technician/Demolitions. WoC: M14 EBR, FN Five SeveN sidearm.
Attitude: Cautious, prefers to stay in northern climates
Backstory: (Will work on.)

Is there no chance of having the bugs or the Drassen counterattack activated? The bugs have something that makes all their trouble REALLY worth the effort, while the counterattack is just plain ‼FUN‼ (Also free weapons.)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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EuchreJack

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Re: Let's Play Jagged Alliance 2-1.13: Part 0: XEP624
« Reply #6 on: March 03, 2012, 12:52:47 pm »

Considering my extensive knowledge in the Art of Dying from the last LP, and my desire that others do not become as adept, I request the following character:

Euch-R-JAK-6 (AIM, since our stock of created members is limited)
Role: Medic
Trait: Coward
Weapon: Shogun (might as well be the Fallout Tactics medic  ;D)
Attitude: Scared of dying, mutters about dying many times before and this being his last life.  Whatever that means.
Backstory (if desired)

Anvilfolk

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Re: Let's Play Jagged Alliance 2-1.13: Part 0: XEP624
« Reply #7 on: March 03, 2012, 01:09:05 pm »

Oooooh, I might actually learn how to play this... watching!

Simmura McCrea

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Re: Let's Play Jagged Alliance 2-1.13: Part 0: XEP624
« Reply #8 on: March 03, 2012, 01:32:12 pm »

You have a list of the traits?
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Fikes

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Re: Let's Play Jagged Alliance 2-1.13: Part 0: XEP624
« Reply #9 on: March 03, 2012, 06:46:31 pm »

Spoiler: List of Traits (click to show/hide)

Source. That first post is updated regularly. It will be one of the main sources for game information I refer to.



Is there no chance of having the bugs or the Drassen counterattack activated? The bugs have something that makes all their trouble REALLY worth the effort, while the counterattack is just plain ‼FUN‼ (Also free weapons.)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)



I said no to these because they are both situations that are impossible to win (death free) without serious save scumming. The queen bug is positioned so no one can get the jump on her. As soon as someone walks in her field of vision, she opens fire and kills them. If you don't kill her that same turn she will kill another merc. To me both the situations leave room for anything other than a meat grinder.

I could leave the Drassen counter attack on and just flee when it launches, but then we just have to re-take the town. It honestly just seems a little pointless.

If you guys want to try and convince me this will need to FUN and not ulcers, I am open to the idea.

One problem I forgot to mention is that custom Mercs don't cost any money to keep hired. For that reason I will try to match our characters to "real" mercs (the expensive kind). If you are particular about gender, let me know.

I may make an administrative merc for myself. Someone who doesn't fight but trains up the militia and repairs gear. We can do something interesting if he manages to die. Succession JA2?

inteuniso

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Re: Let's Play Jagged Alliance 2-1.13: Part 0: XEP624
« Reply #10 on: March 03, 2012, 07:13:38 pm »

To explain why 7.62 ammo isn't interchangeable (sounds like someone was going for pure realism) you have to understand that a 7.62x54R round (used in the Mosin-Nagant rifle) has a different length than the 7.62x39mm(used in the AK-47 and SKS, other AK variants) and THAT has a different length 7.62x38mmR(used in the Nagant 1895 revolver)... this goes on and on. All these cartridges fire differently, and no gun is chambered for all of them. That's impossible.
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EuchreJack

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Re: Let's Play Jagged Alliance 2-1.13: Part 0: XEP624
« Reply #11 on: March 03, 2012, 07:45:27 pm »

I may make an administrative merc for myself. Someone who doesn't fight but trains up the militia and repairs gear. We can do something interesting if he manages to die. Succession JA2?

Why not just play as Biff?  :P

How much starting cash do you have?  I'm trying to decide which AIM merc I'd suggest as my avatar.

If you don't like how many guns have been added, you can always select "reduced guns".  You'll still get all the guns the original had to offer.  But, but 700 guns to chose from... *drool*

Simmura McCrea

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Re: Let's Play Jagged Alliance 2-1.13: Part 0: XEP624
« Reply #12 on: March 03, 2012, 07:55:54 pm »

Name: Simmura
Role: Utility
Trait/preferred weapon: Technician, athletics, night ops, any weapon, I'm not fussed.
Attitude: A little flinchy but remarkably happy to stay somewhere dangerous to get something done.
Backstory (if desired)
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Fikes

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Re: Let's Play Jagged Alliance 2-1.13: Part 0: XEP624
« Reply #13 on: March 05, 2012, 10:24:29 pm »

« Last Edit: April 08, 2012, 09:55:44 pm by Fikes »
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NRDL

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Re: Let's Play Jagged Alliance 2-1.13: Part 0: XEP624
« Reply #14 on: March 05, 2012, 10:30:35 pm »

Will you be able to add the rest of us in when you've got more moneyz? 
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