Jagged Alliance 3 (2023) Released today with mod tools and support!

[andrewfiu]

Can we have a forum section made for this historically epic game???

[Pantheress]

Why?
At this time, it doesn't have even half the features of JA2 1.13.

[bjornk]

10 hours ago, Pantheress said:

At this time, it doesn't have even half the features of JA2 1.13.

It's worse than vanilla JA2, not even comparable to 1.13. No fan of JA2 can accept this game as a worthy successor. It's more like a meh quality XCom 2 total conversion mod, rather than a JA game, if you're okay with the incredible levels of dumbing down, which means you're new to the series, you might enjoy it, I can't. This video addresses some of the dumbed down or removed features but there's much more to it. JA2 is still the best in JA series despite the multitude of poor quality sequels.

 

 

[bjornk]

By the way, 1.13 isn't a mod in the traditional sense. 1.13 was built upon the source code of JA2 1.12 (the last official patch) when it became public. The original source code was partially rewritten in such a way that the game can read most built-in variables from externalized XML and INI files which can easily be modified by a text editor, the code was improved, a lot of vanilla bugs were fixed, many new systems were added (a new CTH system, new inventory and attachment systems etc.) and was recompiled in C++ .NET. Which is why it's more like an unofficial patch on top of 1.12 with enhanced/extended features. This is the most recent guide I was able to find on how to install 1.13 with working download links and all. There was an SVN server for live builds, from which you were able to download the newest build using a SVN client, which was shut down relatively recently, and a few other repositories and FTP backups in the past, but a lot of them unfortunately closed down in the past decade or so. 1.13 was discussed and developed on The Bear's Pit and this was the official site for downloads in the past. For a full JA2 experience I would recommend 1.13, however if you're new to JA, the complexity may be overwhelming. You don't need to play the original Jagged Alliance (1994) and there's enough info about it in JA2 1.12 and 1.13. The most recent build of 1.13 can be downloaded from the GitHub page.

 

JA2 Stracciatella is another patch (source code modification) for JA2, but it tries to keep the game as vanilla as possible without adding new stuff. For people who's never played JA2 and don't want to be overwhelmed by the complexity of 1.13, this is probably a better starting point.

 

In case anyone is interested in how JA2 was here's a couple of playthroughs for vanillia and 1.13.

 

- A relatively recent JA2 Vanilla PT with Stracciatella. Link
- A somewhat old but very detailed PT of a relatively old version of 1.13. Link

 

 

 

Edited July 18, 2023 by bjornk