Well, I'm back in the USA for about a month for my vacation. A while back, I'd asked on a thread here on DSF for some good late 1990s games, and some people suggested Jagged Alliance 2. Since then I got a cheap copy off of amazon.com and have really been enjoying it. In fact, even though I hadn't seen JA2 until recently it happens to run a lot like how I like my SR combats to run, with a heavy emphasis on positioning regarding both cover but also trying to arrange your team so that at any given time you have as many people as possible firing at one enemy instead of having several enemies all firing at your one teammate who is a little bit ahead of the others.

One aspect of the game which is different from SR but which I actually like is how a lot of shooting takes place over long range and how in many cases rates of hitting as opposed to missing are a lot lower than in SR. In the first place that's more realistic, but secondly it adds another layer of strategy regarding resource management, since your team goes through a lot of ammunition which you need to keep them supplied with. Although I understand how for a pencil and paper game it would be more tedious to make tons of rolls in combats where most of the rolls miss, I was always a little bit annoyed on how a shadowrunner could possibly go through an entire combat-heavy campaign without even burning through two full Predator magazines. After all, historically, the management supplies was always one of the most difficult task that military commanders needed to manage. If SR teams needed to worry more about managing ammunition and medical supplies, wouldn't that be more realistic, more challenging, and also make contacts more important? All of a sudden, SR3s 2 free level 1 contacts would be less of a blowoff because there would always be prudence in having extra sources for your basic medical supplies.

So, I just wanted to thank the people who recommended JA2 to me because not only is it a fun game but it made me think a little bit about additional dimensions I could consider exploring in the future in pencil and paper games.

Incidentally, I really loved the cheap-o MERC site where you could hire cheap and incompetent mercenaries because it was so funny, and I ended up hiring many of the cheap mercenaries with the intention of training them up with the good mercenaries. Unfortunately, many of my cheap mercenaries got blown away from a single "bad" round of combat. Poor Flo.

I love this game and have played through it three times. While major combat could be time consuming, I always found it to be very satisfying. If I could have my SR combats run like JA2 fights, I'd be very happy.

JKL

PS: Loved all the mercs. Even Biff, Flo and Ira

It's all about Mad Dog. "I'm here, I ate every bug on the way. They were many."

All time favourite game!

Love the ability to adjust the realism of the game too (like the sci-fi bug hunts)

Partial to Shadow, Lynx and Fox myself.

I'm a big fan as well - and have played it through multiple times - but there's one thing about it that absolutely drove me up the wall.

That'd be the blatant enemy "cheating". I have no problem with the game manipulating things behind the scenes to make the AI opponent sufficiently challenging - just as long as it is not, at every turn, glaringly obvious.

In JA and JA2 the worst example of this was the way enemies would repeatedly and consistently hit your guys at distances that far exceeded the effective ranges of the weapons they were using - often making accurate shots despite concealment and cover - but the accuracy of your mercs would drop dramatically in identical circumstances (which was in accordance to the rules), and it'd sometimes seem like tree branches and trunks were made out of some magical substance that drew your bullets towards them and away from the enemies seeking cover behind them.

I suppose it did encourage more tactical play, but for all the wrong reasons, and could be maddening on some of the maps without much cover.

Another was the ability of the enemies to keep on fighting effectively (virtually unimpeded) when injured - again, something none of the player's mercenaries were capable of.
You'd sneak up on a bad guy, shoot him twice in the head from 20' away with carefully aimed shots, and end your round, only to have him turn around, and shoot you three times - at which point, your merc would lose half his health and action points, and probably miss if you tried to continue the exchange.

Again, it could be gotten around if you always moved your guys in teams (and I virtually always did) but it always felt absurd to me to have to bring two guys to sneak up on someone and shoot him in the back of the head - because you needed 3 or 4 bullets to make sure, a lot of the time.

Still, the game did have a "sweet spot" where the balance of your forces vs. the enemies felt just right, and the combat was tactical, and quickly decided if you managed to hit where they weren't looking. It's just too bad the feel wasn't maintained throughout.

http://www.abandonia.com/games/en/38/UFOEn...nemyUnknown.htm

Mention of Jagged Alliance 2 brings this old gem to mind, PC version still costs money (wow, that says something) but the DOS version is freeware now.

personal favorite is Grizzly. that man is a god damn man.

I agree with mmu1. When it was nice, it played really well, but mainly, it was just frustrating for very preventable reasons.

It was also laughably and often frustratingly unrealistic most of the time. Rather strange, considering how much I'd heard about it being realistic, and I would have assumed someone would make a realistic tactical squad level game by now. I tried out some JA2 modding briefly, but working around in that engine was frustrating at best and cripplingly infuriating more often.

I had the best luck with a night ops squad: Spider, Dr Q, Stephen, Raven. If you are lucky enough to get a mian charater with the night opsx2 advantage, you can quite often kill entire partols by yourself, you just need guys to follow you around and pick up the loot.

don't forget Blood, for the night ops. throw a knife into somebody's head from behind, you can one-shot them.

as far as realism, i don't know of many games that are more realistic.

This reminds me of my recent attempt to like Brothers in Arms, the most realistic shooter ever.

Complete with extremely realistic inability to hit anything with a rifle at ten feet.

Hmm? I had no real problem hitting things in Brothers in arms. But isn't that the game that didn't have crosshairs for 'hipshots'? Since the computer can't give you kinestetic info about where your wepon is pointed, it need to give you the cross hairs.

I didn't use crosshairs, but with iron sights, I couldn't keep a rifle on target from ten feet away. 100m shots were laughably out of the question.

Likewise, pistols that were out of range across the street in JA2 were... frustrating.

Wasn't this the game with the 'steady breathing' key? The rifles still wobbled some, worked better if you were crouched, etc. Holding a rifle stead in the standing unsupported position is kinda hard.

Well, plenty of editors ofr JA2. Personally I reduced a lot of 'gamish' weapon stats, increased range by around 50% and made most weapons available from the begining of the game

If it's realism you want, I'd suggest the single player training missions in America's Army. The obstacle course, the first aid lecture, the SF equipment identification lecture and the SERE excercise are especially mindnum... I mean realistic.

Squad level tactical games in the vein of X-COM, Jagged Alliance, Silent Storm, etc. are always plagued by the range problem. Usually the smallest unit of area, the square, is made to represent 10 meters, which results in streets 100+ meters across, living rooms dozens of meters wide, etc. This really messes with ranges and movement. I guess the other option, making the squares represent 1-2 meters, is out of the question because of the map complexity and visibility issues that'd cause.

I did spend a lot of time with Jagged Alliance 2 some years ago (I still have the completely redone equipment lists I made, with images and SFXs from some mod), but I haven't really looked back after Silent Storm. Completely flattening the whole operational area with panzerfausts, mortars and HMG fire never gets old.

The big problem with Brothers in Arms is how strongly it tied your accuracy and the effectiveness of your shots to the enemy's suppression level.

If the enemies were not suppressed, then you could walk up to them, and shoot them square in the vitals with a rifle from 10' away, and if you were lucky enough to register a hit, they'd shrug it off, and need at least one more.

On the other hand, if they were heavily suppressed, you could spray 4 or 5 of them from 30' away with SMG fire that didn't even go near more than 1 or 2 of them, and kill them all.

I played through the first three or four missions, then unistalled it, thinking fondly of Call of Duty.

So is Silent Storm worth picking up for 10€/$?

Credit Card, Internet shops, forums like these - zack! I bought it.

While we're on the subject of JA realism, how does Wildfire hold up in terms of realism? It came with my JA package but I haven't installed it yet. I heard that Wildfire was a JA mod made by some fans who wanted it to be more realistic and that they tweaked the ballistics and added more accurate sound effects.

Well, I'm still hooked on this game. Haven't beaten it yet, either. My continuing thanks to those who recommended it...it's one hell of a meaty and engaging game.

You know, one of the FAQs on gamefaqs.com says that if you're "cautious" none of your mercenaries should die. I have no idea how that could possibly be. I mean, granted I'm not an expert at the game, but I do my best to play cautiously and I have lost a lot of mercs. In the course of one game, after having captured 3 cities, while learning the basic ropes and making a few big mistakes, I've lost a lot of mercs...more than 5 but less than 10, I think.

The thing is that I tend to lose people when I'm surprised by something new in the game. For example, last night I encountered enemies who fling grenades for the first time. I had no idea they'd be able to fling grenades more accurately than they can shoot over really long distances and I didn't know how to deal with the grenade that takes away the mercs' stamina (as opposed to hit points). So I ended up losing Buns, Razor, and Grizzly all at once basically because they got miracle grenaded from outside of effective direct fire range and I couldn't figure out how to get them moving again. It's always these surprise moments when I encounter something new and unexpected in the game that lead me to lose a handful of mercs.

I don't reload every time someone dies because I think that's weak; just like I believe in letting the dice fall where they may in SR I'd rather do the same in a strategy game and potentially let an entire game be a wash or a "loss" if I am very unlucky or not good enough of a player to win.

Slightly different topic: has there been a lot of modding of JA2? I can imagine potential for a lot of fun mods with the engine, like a Full Metal Jacket mod, or a military vs. 1950s giant insects campaign mod, or an Aliens 2 mod, or a Damage Incorporated mod...

It looks like Jagged Alliance Galaxy is still up, they had most everything, once upon a time. Wildfire is a 'super mod' I remember reading some early development nots, but forget what all they were doing.

As for not losing a merc, deponds on what you are doing. I tended to run only two squads, my night-ops killing squad, and my traning/repair/pack mule squad.

The killing squad had the main merc, spider, dr q, stephen, and raven with maybe someone else (scope, for example), while the training squad usually had Biff, Flo, Dimitri, Gasket, and Ira in it. The training squad only engaged in combet when they had a bunch of militia to hide behind, you go prone and let the militia draw all the fire. Ira and Dimitri did most of the killin' if it had to be done.

If you get attacked in the day, find cover, go prone, and slowly pick apart the bad guys. Use smoke to cover teh withdrawal of any merc you gets too much attention (this works until the stupid rocket rifles show up), for the night ops, keep your squad tight, cover all directions and just blaze away as they come to you. (or if you have a good silent weapon, just have your main character do all of the killing by sneaking around. Keep the rest of the squad close to provide fire support if it all goes south).

Rocket rifles? Holy crap. That sounds like something from Buck Rogers. I think they had "rocket rifles" in the D20 Buck Rogers game they put out for Genesis.

Thanks for the gameplay advice. I hadn't gotten around to using the nightops characters yet, so maybe that's what I need to go and do next.

I found it pretty interesting that you used only two squads and one combat squad. In the game manual it says that later in the game an "essential strategy" or something like that is using two big squads from different directions against one enemy-occupied sector. However, a lot of people on the internet have emphasized using a nightops squad and not so much the giant World War II style massive infantry rush from multiple directions. Seems like another case of the common phenomenon of a game manual claiming that something is an important strategy when in fact it really isn't.

haven't looked into mods. hell, i haven't even beaten the damn game yet; it's unbelievably time-consuming because of the way i play. there doesn't seem to be a wide array of mods out there, though strategyplanet.com has a) a few interesting ones, along with b) a toolkit for making your own.

edit: bah, Crusher beat me to it. an addition to his night ops squad strategy: get Blood, and have him sneak around throwing knives into peoples' chests. ammo-free (or at least ammo-renewable) one-shot silent kills without the fuss and muss of trying to sneak close enough for a melee attack.

I think I used two squads for the bloodcat lair, most other places with a bunch of bad guys (like the big city) you ca nwhittle down by raiding. Just go in at night, kill a bunch of guys, leave before you get overwhelmed. Then come back the next night to finish the job.

The two+ squad day assault is usually not economical, as you can only afford two squads of worthwhile mercs for a short time and two squads of crappy mercs are probably just going to get you guys killed. In the begining, use any extra cash you have to extend the contracts of your current guys, so that you can get them at the 'low level' contract rates. As they go up in levels, thier price goes up.

Did you know you can send flowers to the queen? You get a cut scene.

damn, now i'm gonna have to install it again.

iirc, the elf and mage can only use their spells one time, and they cant share the elements available...

the mage had a crossbow, and i think the elf did as well. or maybe one of them used throwing knives, did HeroQuest have those?

I've long wanted to find a GM who'd run games for a Shadowrunner team of mine. Not just "I run a Shadowrunner and desperately hope for a few other competent players to fill key roles in my team," but just "I make a fucking Shadowrunner team, and do this shit like it's supposed to be done."

What are you doing now instead?

yeah, he blew. i always saved his spells for the last boss.

er...? X-COM is the UFO series.

ah.

yeah I thought you were referring to the european title of UFO: Enemy Unknown

I forgot about the cenega series, it looked sure to disappoint (more realism in some aspects like weapons, much less realism in others such as no more entering buildings!).

Maybe someday I'll For Real This Time dig up my SL password.

~J

I'm stalled until sometime after Gencon (it would be right after Gencon, but there were scheduling conflicts with Players). After that, yeah, come on over.