Completed Jagged Alliance.
Day 11. Capturing the last refinery was by far the easiest. I couldn’t believe my luck when I managed it on my 1st attempt with 3 mercenaries. The only issue now is that even with all refineries, I don’t generate enough revenue. I might need to either fire one of the mercs just to keep even at this rate. And I have no idea where the stolen totem is. At least now I have enough upgraded Spectral Shields for everyone.
Day 12. Mechanic with a lockpick is a must. I literally had to restart the day, because last enemy was behind a closed door, and the key was nowhere to be found. Also, at the “Santino peninsula” as I call it enemies carry ridiculous number of tear gas grenades. Gas masks are mandatory.
Day 13. Recovered the burned journal, and didn’t care to reload for it, since I’ve never got the quest in the first place.
Day 14. Some good news, the price for a tree actually went up. So now I can maintain more active mercs.
Capturing last sectors, Santino is surrounded. Since Magic and Spike, two of my best lock pickers, are healing, and Scully can’t pick most of the locks, I have to “knock”. If you fire at a door, enemies usually open it to look for you 🤡
Also, picked the headstones so natives don’t rebel. I don’t know what was to point of putting it on an island in the middle of nowhere, instead of some safe.
Day 15. I wanted to hire Mike, the best mercenary, before storming the compound. The problem is that I progressed too quickly and fired too many mercenaries, so he wouldn’t join until stats improve, which would mean just sitting there 🤡
Even with the best mercenaries, this last sector is so much not fun I’m surprised I ever finished it. Luckily I’ve read that the enemies are almost endless (basically Santino can deploy all his guards), so I didn’t try to ambush them like in other sectors.
Santino talks about the fallow sapling that he’s gonna blow, but nobody ever mentioned it or its importance before.
Also, I felt like in this area all the weapons jam more often. And if it isn’t enough, the game can get stuck mid-mission, probably due to too many enemies.
But I must say I’m very proud of myself for coming up with an idea to use two bombs to blow the wall enough for my entire team to sneak behind the bushes. This, and semiofficial way to save the sapling by Kelly jumping through a hole in the wall Santino left.
The game is deeply flawed, and I don’t use that term often. The sneaking mechanic is basically non-existent, the jamming is unpredictable, and so is visibilty and hits. But it is still incredibly engaging, mostly due to its handcrafted nature.
 
