JA3 Jagged Alliance 3 - Some tips to get you started

[Kordanor]

Maybe that would make a "how to make a cookie cutter starter group video"
It would require quite some specific combination of people.
Like having Hitman and Buns as trainers I guess. Maybe even play far enough to get magazines which further improve hitchance?

Have MD, Livewire, Barry in the team to get trained. Though...I probably would recommend MD for training militia anyways, so mabye not a good choice for training marksmanship. But then you are almost running out of high wisdom characters already, as Buns is being used as trainer. Unless you use hitman as Marksmanship trainer, and have Buns trained in something else, which wouldnt max out Hitmans potential.

Also I am not sure that even works on higher difficulties. Money is rather tight at start. Even with a cheap group. 4 Days are probably not an issue, but then you really need to know what you are doing afterwards.

 

[bjon045]

Maybe that would make a "how to make a cookie cutter starter group video"
It would require quite some specific combination of people.
Like having Hitman and Buns as trainers I guess. Maybe even play far enough to get magazines which further improve hitchance?

Have MD, Livewire, Barry in the team to get trained. Though...I probably would recommend MD for training militia anyways, so mabye not a good choice for training marksmanship. But then you are almost running out of high wisdom characters already, as Buns is being used as trainer. Unless you use hitman as Marksmanship trainer, and have Buns trained in something else, which wouldnt max out Hitmans potential.

Also I am not sure that even works on higher difficulties. Money is rather tight at start. Even with a cheap group. 4 Days are probably not an issue, but then you really need to know what you are doing afterwards.

In my screenshot that is playing on max difficulty. I currently have two playthroughs going one on commando and one on the max. I think with just the first mine and diamond shipments I quickly got up to over 100k free and then once the other 3 mines were up money becomes a non-issue i.e. over 700k spare cash. The max one was using the meta group that you recommend i.e. MD, Livewire and Barry. Using an IMP merc to just train them in Marksmenship and provide leadership to move quickly and then relying on their natural skill growth. Because of their great stats they are stone cold killers by the time they reach midway through the second island. I would also take Fox for her unbeatable stealth killing once you have spare cash and Mouse/Buns/Hitman for a bit of extra muscle. For endgame the plan is to pick up Ivan, Shadow, Magic and Reaper.

For training milita I peel off MD and another merc and have the IMP merc (with teacher trait) train at the same time. That way you can train two squares with 16 veterans very rapidly. MD is part of my main kill squad so I don't leave him behind.

I also found out that if let go of Hitman his cost will reset back to his baseline cost which is a great cost saving mechanism - in one of my games his cost dropped from 22k down to 7k!!!. He is only greedy once he is actually in your team.

 

[henriquejr]

In some sectors the Operations menu is disabled (I suspect of one thing, will put it using Spoiler tags)

Spoiler: That's the reason?

I can't use the Operation menu in Sectors C7, D7 and D8 (Pantagruel and its surroundings) even after having defeated the Legion thugs in them. That's because of the Revolutionaries there present?

 

[bjon045]

In some sectors the Operations menu is disabled (I suspect of one thing, will put it using Spoiler tags)

You are correct. There are 2 "neutral" towns that have behave like that.

Spoiler: How to bring them under your control

If you get to 100% loyalty they will join you. I believe there is a second way but I have always got it to 100% without issue.
For the second town, no spoiler is required - it will be very obvious when you get there.

 

[largh]

I also had a little bit of time to try the game until I got a crash on GeForce NOW and it won't start any longer. My first impression of the game is very positive. It is an improved version of how I remember JA2. The game feels clunky in the good old way. The fights on the first island appear difficult, which is a good thing. Each seem to have some sort of puzzle and if you do the fight utilising elements placed on maps, the fights become easier. Still, on the negative side, my fights tend to take a long time. The longest one lasted for hours because I had to reload a few times. I am sure it would get easier once I figured out the right tactics. So far I have found out that using a sniper makes the fights a lot easier. The AI tends to place its soldiers close to each other, which would make the use of grenades effective had I one.

The crash is a bit annoying and since I do not own a Windows computer at the moment, I am unsure when I'll be able to continue the game. The map looks huge and I doubt I'll find the time to finish the game especially if it keeps crashing all the time. Well BG3 is only a week away. Hopefully that works better on GeForce NOW, but I'll certainly be returning to JA3 later once it works as it should.

 

[Redglyph]

@largh Isn't that surprising it crashes on GeForce NOW? I thought they had the right parameters for most of the games. Out of curiosity, can you adjust the video settings of games when you are using that service?

For the tips, should you want them, I recommend this thread and perhaps this video for the basics (but avoid Fextralife's 'Beginner Guide', which is a little odd). Unless you have a lot of time and prefer to discover that on your own.

 

[largh]

@largh Isn't that surprising it crashes on GeForce NOW? I thought they had the right parameters for most of the games. Out of curiosity, can you adjust the video settings of games when you are using that service?

For the tips, should you want them, I recommend this thread and perhaps this video for the basics (but avoid Fextralife's 'Beginner Guide', which is a little odd). Unless you have a lot of time and prefer to discover that on your own.

I have not had such crashes on GeForce NOW before. Probably something to do with the game & server OS / hardware running the game. Others also report similar issue but not everyone. It is possible to pick preferred streaming quality before entering the game but not possible to adjust graphic settings until reaching the in-game options. In this case, the game crashes at start so I cannot adjust settings. Oh well, I believe they'll fix it eventually. Until then (or August 3rd), I might as well enjoy real-life summer

I avoid watching videos because they contain so many spoilers which I have found dilute the enjoyment I get from strategy games. Discovering on my own is what I prefer during the first play-through.

 

[Kordanor]

You can watch the videos I posted in the starting post (I updated that with the other tutorial videos I made). They do not contain any spoilers in regards to story, and hardly any footage outside of the main island.

These are also not about best tactics or anything like that, but more about things which I think should have been in a manual or tutorial, but are not.

Regarding the battles: Sniper can help. There are 2 other things which can help a lot:
1. Stealth Kills to thin out the enemies. Actually Stealth attacks are an extremely easy way for several fights to make them much easier, which I actually find kinda unfortunate as the game becomes too much of an Commandos like Stealth game with that
2. Setup your group correctly. This can be combined with your sniper, but can also be the opposite tactic. It's extremely powerful if you surround enemies quickly.
So lets say enemies are in the center of the map. If you can position half your party west and half your party east, and get them so close, that the can charge in when the combat starts, you might kill almost everyone in the first turn already. It needs a bit to get used to though.

I remember the first time when I did the sector of the bunker (the outside) and had everyone coming from the forest...it was just an endless shooting against trees. Rushing in and flanking is extremely powerful.

 

[henriquejr]

Legion thugs took over the first diamond mine I found in the game (map sector H7, west of Fleatown). Thing is: this mine was already deplted when they took it from me.
Is there any point bothering to retake it? Or will it be a simple waste of resources (ammo, meds etc) trying to do it?

 

[Kordanor]

Legion thugs took over the first diamond mine I found in the game (map sector H7, west of Fleatown). Thing is: this mine was already deplted when they took it from me.
Is there any point bothering to retake it? Or will it be a simple waste of resources (ammo, meds etc) trying to do it?

It depends on which difficulty you are playing on.
If you play on easy or medium, then the next patch 1.03 coming end of the week or next week will grant you some income even on depleted mines

 

[henriquejr]

It depends on which difficulty you are playing on.
If you play on easy or medium, then the next patch 1.03 coming end of the week or next week will grant you some income even on depleted mines

OK, that's my case! Danke!
By the way, where do you get the changelog notes for the next patch?

 

[Kordanor]

OK, that's my case! Danke!
By the way, where do you get the changelog notes for the next patch?

There are no changelogs yet. But it was mentioned on the Dev Stream on Monday.

 

[bjon045]

I don't know why they are doing that to be honest. Money should not be a problem if they just make it so you don't need a 80+ leadership skill to get anywhere in a decent time. At the end of my first game I had 3 million cash LEFTOVER. In my current game (around 70%) I have 1.5 million. Money should not be a problem unless you buy the most expensive mercs on day 1. In both games I have spent months just sitting around doing nothing i.e. training non-essential skills etc. I think in my first game 3 mines are depleted with 1 heading that way and the rest still running. Diamond Red makes 12.5K a day once it is fully upgraded! There is actually too much money in the game if anything.

I think fixing leadership and providing more tips around creating a starting party is all that is needed.

 

[Kordanor]

Yep, I also pointed towards the leadership issue in the stream. They werent immediately aware but then said, they are going to look into it. So my guess is, that Leadership will be fixed with the patch after that which will be around Mid August.
And that fix might need some other rebalances then

 

[bjon045]

Yep, I also pointed towards the leadership issue in the stream. They werent immediately aware but then said, they are going to look into it. So my guess is, that Leadership will be fixed with the patch after that which will be around Mid August.
And that fix might need some other rebalances then

Yeah I saw your questions in the stream. I was suprised how little they seemed to know about their own game including the AP system! I am thinking those 2 aren't down in the details and more set the high level vision?

 

[Kordanor]

Yeah I saw your questions in the stream. I was suprised how little they seemed to know about their own game including the AP system! I am thinking those 2 aren't down in the details and more set the high level vision?

Nah, you just cant be deep into every single mechanic. In addition ofc you never intend things to be broken in the first place. They might just have made it, thought it worked, and forgot about it.

 

[bjon045]

Nah, you just cant be deep into every single mechanic. In addition ofc you never intend things to be broken in the first place. They might just have made it, thought it worked, and forgot about it.

I agree re: leadership. I wouldn't have thought knowing how AP are shown on the screen as being deep into it though. It was just a general comment as it almost seemed like they were playing it for the first/second time. As someone who has played it for 100 hours+ it seemed like they lacked an understanding of their own UI!

Looking forward to the upcoming patches!

 

[Kordanor]

Leadership is not affecting AP though. (well besides of indirectly via a buff).
Leadership affects travelling Speed. Ranges from -25% at skill 0 to 75% at skill 100.
Just that this "Travelling Speed" is not actually speed, but "cutting" total travel duration.
So on first look everything appears to be right. It's just that it works very differently internally.
(with a 75% speed you are actually travelling with 400% speed)

 

[bjon045]

I wasn't referring to that though. I was referring to the stream where they logged a bug that the UI was showing 10/8 AP required to perform an action and it wouldn't let them do it. That is correct as it is showing they do not have enough AP. If they had enough AP it would have shown something like 4/8 i.e. the action will take half your AP remaining. As I said it was just a general comment that they didn't seem to know much about how the systems/UI of the game actually works.

I did watch your video when it first came out (I subscribe to your channel) so I do know how Leadership works

They also didn't seem to understand how OP machine guns are etc

 

[Kordanor]

Ah, alright. I didnt pay too much attention with the AP thing as I also encountered a bug there and just though its kinda related. The ability which lets you run towards the enemy and use all AP to attack in melee will actually tell you that it will do like 5 attacks...but these 5 attacks are based on the AP you have. Then you use the ability, run towards the enemy...and...well...nothing. You spent all the AP for running