ZeeraCamay

So in my previous game, I didn't go to the meeting, and the story progressed anyway. This time, I saw a squad leaving the nearby base, heading for the camp, so I sent my group to intercept, arriving at exactly the same time. Interestingly, while the attack had still taken place, instead of 'firestorm' weather, it was a clear day. Rather than go and speak to Faucheux (and ending up surrounded), I climbed the tower to the south of the map, and free-aimed one of the soldiers on the mesa, which kicked off the battle. Sniping them all at range was pretty straightforward, and I managed to pick up some sniper rifles and other gear I otherwise wouldn't have had. Give it a go - makes for a fun little workaround to what is normally a very difficult situation.

I'm just wondering how this will be handled in JA3. In JA1, there were no towns as such, you just captured sectors with Fallow trees, and assigned workers (which you were supposed to protect, but didn't often end up having to). In JA2, the main strategic boons were when you captured settlements (and their mines), with other things of secondary interest to be found in other sectors along the way. I'm presuming JA3 will do it the JA2 way, but maybe a bit of the old style from JA1 would work alongside this. Do we have any info on this currently?

In JA1 there was a much greater divide between mercs that were at all usable, and ones that were just awful (I'm looking at you, Wink E. Dickerson). As a result, my early-game merc preferences from JA1 carried over to JA2, perhaps illogically. Although nearly all battles are won because of a. marksmanship, and b. agility. Thus: Fidel - because 'Doggy doo'. Ice - bad ass, honky-tonk, jive-talkin' mutha-lover Ivan - who I find quite a boring character, but he can shoot After this, it's just a case of down scale for mules, side scale for mechanics and teachers, and upscale for better shots. These three were always my classic starting trio, though.

Bump - agree 100% with this.

I'm a bit torn about this. I've enjoyed having initiative as a stat in other games (e.g. Battle Brothers, Wasteland 2/3, Fallout 1/2 etc), but notably, I never missed it in JA1 or 2. Just wondering whether it would be a worthy inclusion in JA3? Anyone have any thoughts?

Ooh, PS - just thought: this woul;d never make it as an official JA3, but sometime, somewhere, it would be great to have a merc management version of JA, a al Battle Brothers/BattleTech/Wartales etc. Instead of being the contractor hiring the mercs, you're the manager of AIM. I think that'd make a SUPERB game.

Absolute minimum features? To be honest, I'd be overjoyed with a remake of JA2, just with better graphics, in a new setting. That said, top of the list is 'turn-based'. I can't even bring myself to Google the names of the real-time pause efforts of recent past - it just has to be turned based combat, end of story. Moving down the wishlist, yeah, I think the merc personalities should be a thing. Humour, and off-beat humour at that, should definitely stay. Building on the rivalry thing, in JA2, there were one or two rivalries you had to watch out for, otherwise one of them quit. This mechanism could stay, but be expanded upon - quitting doesn't have to be the final result. Other nerfs could be implemented to reflect inter-merc disagreements. Stealth mechanics in JA2 were ok, but could really be improved upon. Somehow related to this, I want to say something about martial arts - kind of implemented in JA2, but you could never use it - it was just weak. Some kind of character build with stealth/martial arts would be superb. There would need, though, to be a mechanism to prevent both stealth and martial arts being spammed. Or maybe not - I dunno. Next up, neither JA or JA2 really got the roster right, great as some of the characters were. In both games, a large proprotion of the availble mercs were useless at any point of the game, and nobody ever hired them, unless they really wanted a challenge. Put it this way - if you're hiring Pops McGillicutty because that's all you could afford, you might as well start a new game. The lower third of the entire roster in JA was junk, and much of the mid tier. I'm looking at you, Tex R. Colburn, Jimmy Upton, and Wink E. Dickerson - just no use, at all. In JA2, you at least had the likes of Bull, the cheapest Merc in the opening game, but at least he could open stuff for you - and he often survived to just do that, right to the end. Realistically balancing the economy with merc abilities should be key, with far less 'filler' mercs. Opening the game with Ice, Ivan, Fidel, and user-defined merc gets boring. Moving on - maybe a bit of randomisation of stats among the well known characters. One of the things that grew tiring, as replayable as JA2 was, was that everyone was exactly the same, every time. It would be interesting if stats were changed up each game, meaning that when you're looking at the AIM roster at the start, you really do have to look and evaluate each time. Reviewing each character's value (both practically and financially) would breathe new life into things. Stand/crouch/prone - say no more. Weapon customisation - yes. Strategy layer/tactical layer - yes. Free roam on the strategy layer, as opposition permits - yes. Resource procurement from captured sectors - yes. Fragments of mystery notes the player needs to figure out within a time limit (like JA) - hell yes. Voice-over descripton of objects with inappropriate amounts of reverb; 'A sausage - in good condition!' There's much, much more I could list as things I'd like as a minimum, but much of the above is really a wish list. If we ever even see this game, I'll be amazed.