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[struggler_guts]

Welcome to Grand Chien
Grand Chien, a nation of rich natural resources and deep political divides, is thrown into chaos when the elected president goes missing and a paramilitary force known as “The Legion” seizes control of the countryside. Now, the President’s family has pulled together all their resources, including an arrangement with the powerful Adonis corporation, to hire a group of skilled mercenaries tasked with finding the President and bringing order back to the country.


Developer: Haemimont Games
Publisher: THQ Nordic
Release Date: July 14th, 2023
Genre: Strategy, Tactical, RPG
Systems: PC/Steam
Players: Single/Online Coop
Price: $44.99
Metacritic: 81

In this game you command your chosen soldiers either isometrically on variously sized maps in Tactical Mode, or on the overworld map in Satellite Mode. In tactical mode you take down enemies in x-com like combat, explore the world finding loot and rolling stat checks, and speak to locals making game changing decisions.


In Satellite Mode you manage your time moving your squads, tending to injuries and repairs, and performing a variety of missions. Do not waste your time or money though, as they are both precious here.



Choose between a huge cast of fully voiced, unique personalities!
They each come with a daily cost, but everybody's got to eat right? In conversations they'll have opinions and interjections, as well as opening new options in dialogue. Not to mention each one excels in combat in their own special way.



Or create one of your own!
You can take a quick personality quiz, or skip to the end and choose everything yourself. There are 6 preset looks, 13 traits, and 10 stats to look through there. Careful with your choices though, you are only able to make 1 create-a-character.



Now go out and explore Grand Chien as you meet new people, earn money, grow your team, and ultimately make your own decisions that will decide the country’s fate!

 

[struggler_guts]

Hope it isn't too gif heavy, found it the best way to show what the game was. This is my first jagged alliance and also my first OT

Played about 20 hours so far, but restarted twice as I learned the mechanics. This is the perfect hold over as I fiend for baldurs gate 3 as it has a lot of similarities but x-com which I also love. I freaking love Fidel and Kalyna, the dialog can be pretty silly sometimes

 

[Maiden Voyage]

Hope it isn't too gif heavy, found it the best way to show what the game was. This is my first jagged alliance and also my first OT

Played about 20 hours so far, but restarted twice as I learned the mechanics. This is the perfect hold over as I fiend for baldurs gate 3 as it has a lot of similarities but x-com which I also love. I freaking love Fidel and Kalyna, the dialog can be pretty silly sometimes

Congrats on your first OT <3

 

[struggler_guts]

Congrats on your first OT <3

Thanks for the help!

 

[Last Hearth]

Is there a button I can press to highlight things that my merc have discovered?

Twice I've had a merc say they found something, and then I had to move my mouse all over the screen until I can highlight what they found (herbs for medicine), the tab key is what other games of this type generally uses to highlight things but that's not it in this game.

 

[KaiserBecks]

Is there a button I can press to highlight things that my merc have discovered?

Twice I've had a merc say they found something, and then I had to move my mouse all over the screen until I can highlight what they found (herbs for medicine), the tab key is what other games of this type generally uses to highlight things but that's not it in this game.

Just press „alt“

 

[Punished Miku]

Paging Denton

 

[The Stig]

love this game. my first jagged alliance but i remember playing the wages of war. also i love the new xcoms

ive restarted a couple of times. got my first diamond mine yesterday.

 

[Edmund]

Fond memories of myself as a kid playing JA2 and waited for 24 years for the sequel. Already purchased and downloaded and gonna till I clear ff16 to start this!!

It's so unfortunate that none of my friends are interested in this game. =(

 

[Last Hearth]

The game is very good, it's very much in the spirit of the JA and JA2, I just wished they'd have added some more new Mercs to the pool of available mercs.

 

[Dr.Morris79]

Great OT Struggler

Anyone tried it on the Deck?

 

[Denton]

Paging Denton Denton

Thanks, happy to see an OT, thanks struggler_guts

Just doing a quest called Outbreak and it seems pretty hardcore, wonder what my outcome is gonna be.

Also just hired few more mercs for a second squad.

 

[Hero_Select]

I have taken interest in this game, it looks really cool and I like it aesthetically. Mulling it over on picking it up

 

[struggler_guts]

I have taken interest in this game, it looks really cool and I like it aesthetically. Mulling it over on picking it up

Can always try it for less than 2 hours and refund if you don't like it!

 

[Last Hearth]

Just wanted to make sure everyone that is playing knows that leadership is a hugely important stat. Not only does it affect the merc’s training speed of militias, your entire squad’s movement speed is determined by the highest leadership member of the squad, and time is money. If your squad is moving from sector to sector at double the speed, your saving so much money on your merc salaries.

 

[TwinB242]

oh boy....there's a twist in the story that gives way to a pretty significant difficulty spike. I thought I had a pretty good grasp of the combat but now im getting my ass handed to me.

 

[Last Hearth]

Still playing but I’m not making that much progress due to limited playing time. Finally cleared all of Ernie and I’m now able to go to the mainland to take my first mine.
My team is Fox as medic, Livewire as mechanic, Barry as explosives, Igor as all purpose grunt, and IMP custom as leader/damage dealer, I wanted to get Buns as sniper to complete the team, but she’s not available, so I went with Meltdown as the auto weapons expert, having her manning the machine gun was something, she just tears through the enemy with her over watches.

 

[Touch fuzZy. get BizZay]

Very interested but holding back on a buy just because I got way too many games on my plate right now.

Love turn based strategy and the vibe coming from this seems really good even though I have no experience with Jagged 2

 

[Krappadizzle]

Very interested but holding back on a buy just because I got way too many games on my plate right now.

Love turn based strategy and the vibe coming from this seems really good even though I have no experience with Jagged 2

Exactly where I'm at with it. No way I'd be able to give it the time it probably deserves with Baldur's Gate 3 coming out so soon.

 

[Stitch]

My team is Fox as medic, Livewire as mechanic, Barry as explosives, Igor as all purpose grunt, and IMP custom as leader/damage dealer, I wanted to get Buns as sniper to complete the team, but she’s not available, so I went with Meltdown as the auto weapons expert, having her manning the machine gun was something, she just tears through the enemy with her over watches.

Buns is a really good sniper, but she hates Fox, so I always have to pay her a bit more.

 

[Sentenza]

From the other JA3 thread:

I spent my gaming time in the last two weeks mostly playing this and I have to say I freaking love it.
It took 25 years but finally a worthy sequel to an all-timer classic.
I'm particularly impressed with environmental destruction. It's basically as good as the one in the old Silent Storm, which was the golden standard in the genre, and yet they barely ever bragged about it in the promotional material.

STILL

It doesn't come without problems and I think the developers will need to stay true to their recent promise and show this one some post-release support, because it's in dire need to some rebalance in few areas.
There are several minor problems, all eventually fixable with relative ease IF recognized by the devs, but the major one is that the approach "sniper rifles for everyone" at the moment is WAY too efficient.
It's the one that does the most damage per round, that works better both at short and long range AND that consumes the least amount of bullets (which can be a valuable and rare resource here, depending on the playstyle).

 

[Labadal]

I've been using mods, and having fun.

Active Pause mod has been helpful, and if I play the game more than once, this will always be installed.

The other mod I'm using, is the one where the damage for bursts isn't lowered by 50%.

 

[struggler_guts]

I've been using mods, and having fun.

Active Pause mod has been helpful, and if I play the game more than once, this will always be installed.

The other mod I'm using, is the one where the damage for bursts isn't lowered by 50%.

Oh man I forgot about mods, a pause is exactly what I've been wanting. Get caught too often just trying to set my team up for the first shot.

the major one is that the approach "sniper rifles for everyone" at the moment is WAY too efficient.
It's the one that does the most damage per round, that works better both at short and long range AND that consumes the least amount of bullets (which can be a valuable and rare resource here, depending on the playstyle).

Yeah I'm running buns, kalyna, and my self made character all on snipers and then fidel with a shotgun. It's gotten pretty easy to crush everything in my path

 

[Sentenza]

I need to try that autofire mod, just to check how the game looks like with it.
Currently auto-fire weapons are incredibly underwhelming in almost any scenario (which is funny, given that the devs halved their damage out of fear they would dominate the meta) with the sole exception of LMG used in overwatch, which conversely are super powerful but use an INANE amount of ammo per round.

Oh man I forgot about mods, a pause is exactly what I've been wanting. Get caught too often just trying to set my team up for the first shot.

Yeah I'm running buns, kalyna, and my self made character all on snipers and then fidel with a shotgun. It's gotten pretty easy to crush everything in my path

I have a feedback thread on Steam where I pointed some of the details I would change so far:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1084160/discussions/0/3809532960783709770/

 

[TwinB242]

Im just over 30 hours in and felt comfortable enough with my income that I hired a 2nd squad of mercs. Right now I have one team clearing out the northern part of the map, and the other clearing out the south with the goal to eventually have them meet towards the middle.



Probably the most annoying thing in this game is the stragglers that remain hidden during battles and don't confront your team, forcing you to spread out your mercs space by space turn by turn across the entire map until you eventually find them. I feel like I've wasted so much time during those battles. I think there needs to be a quality of life feature that automatically highlights those enemies after a period of time, or a specific number of turns (maybe 2-3) have passed.

 

[Last Hearth]

New patches are coming, they are making the mine depletion only 50% reduction in income in normal mode, and only on hard mode does it go down to 0% income.

Also apparently the OP machine guns are a bug and will be nerfed, also grenades damage is nerfed.

 

[struggler_guts]

New patches are coming, they are making the mine depletion only 50% reduction in income in normal mode, and only on hard mode does it go down to 0% income.

Also apparently the OP machine guns are a bug and will be nerfed, also grenades damage is nerfed.

Damn fidel loves his machine gun and grenada tho

I just reached a pivotal moment that seems impossible to beat though at the refugee camp...