I am thinking of buying JA. It looks quite interesting. But I was recently looking at the Bear's Pit forums and I saw a post that terrified me. It was called something like 'Do you ever let your characters (Mercs) die?'. At least 90% of those answering, who seemed to be fairly experienced players, NEVER let them die, reloading every time one did die. Some ever reloaded as soon as any of their characters were injured! Is this game that hard? Is this reloading all the time usual for most players or were those who answered that post just the kind of player who must always win even if it means cheating in this ridiculous manner. I mean, what would be the purpose of playing a game in this way? What is going on here?

Also, what does IMP mean?

Thanks

The game has a fairly hard tactical combat, which does mean that occasionally (or often), your mercs will get injured, and some of them will eventually die. Depending on play style, the deaths may be more or less often, since attempting to go against armored enemies with pistols and knifes isn't the smartest of choices, and trying to steal their equipment (since they don't drop everything when they die) does carry a risk as well. So the question is, are you willing to accept the consequences of poor planning, or will you reload?
A tactical retreat is quite often needed in JA2, especially if something unexpected occurs (tanks? What do you mean there are tanks here?) Institute of Mercenary Profiling, though when the players refer to IMP they mean the mercenary you can create based on a quiz (or just stat modification for 1.13).

The game is quite hard and you will be punished for your mistakes, and may find that you are fighting an uphill struggle. So the first game should be considered a learning experience to learn the game. Then you quit after having played a few days (in-game time), restart, recruit Ivan and win.

Thanks for the information, all. I understand starting a new game frequently when you are new and if you have very bad luck when well into a game. But every time you lose a character? I am glad to see that this is not what all, or even most, players do.

thanks

When they say reload, they don't mean start a new game, but load the last saved game. Assume you make a save before a battle, and during said battle you lose 5 out of your 6 mercs. You can continue with the only survivor, or you can try the battle again. Losing one merc is usually acceptable (no, not Blood. How can I continue without Blood?), but losing the majority of them does make trying the fight again look quite good.

Either way, play the game however you like, and ignore the other that tell you that you are playing the game wrong ;)

JMICH, your last sentence should be stenciled on every game players forehead. There is no 'wrong' way to play a game, if you are having fun.

This post is about JA Unfinished Business.

My problem is that MY mercs MISS alot. They have the weapons, the stats, the position, but continually miss. The AI HITS. I had one merc behind a rock, prone and the AI merc hit him at long range twice in the same turn. My return fire, with a similar weapon wasn't even close(level 8 merc with Marksmanship of 98). JAUB seems to have an unbalanced AI favoring the computer in a big way. It's not strategy or getting better at the game. The AI is flawed.

I used a hex editor to hack the starting money in a new game save file (I saved before initial merc hire) and hired the BEST mercs on A.I.M. This did NOT help. The game just added MORE bad guys with better stuff. The HIT miss ratio stayed the same and I got very bored. This is not fun. I wanted it to be but it's not.

Yeah this game is hard, for both Unfinished Business or UB for short the vanilla JA2, as someone has already said it's about tactical planning, the case of enemies hitting your while you miss your shots are not unheard, in fact get used to it, played it for for almost 10 years now and i still loses sometimes, it's that unforgiving but hell it's also challenging.

Some tip: night battles are generally easier, if you can spot them before they spot you that is. For the poster above me, the unfairness in UB are most likely come from the fact that the enemies are more better equipped than you are, hence they shoot better than you, not only in weapon but also in other equipments. Best starting merc are not the most priced one in UB but IMO are Raven and Thor, since they start with a Mini-14, which is a blessing to have in early game and i do believe in harder difficulties the AI get bonus CtH (chance to hit) to their shots. But trust me it is possible to beat Expert difficulties with less or no casualties without abusing Save/Load, done that before.

Another general tip, try setting your merc on crossfire position as in there is always someone else covering other mercs and trust me with the Mod 1.13 the game got more and more complicated but more fun IMO (check bear's pit for update)