求翻译一篇神贴！据说是神贴！

szpole

There's something Drassen, Cambria and San Mona together with all the smaller locations around them have in common. Early in the game, on Day 1, they are all defended very poorly and you can sweep them all immediately, provided you choose right mercenaries and know of a few tricks. After you do this, you will have a very strong team of 6 mercenaries, a few free/cheaply hired mercs for defence/convoy tasks and will be able to defend from counter-attacks while cash accumulates and allows you to purchase weapons and armor to take heavier defended locations around Alma and Grumm.

Here goes:

1. Choose your team wisely. Some people, most JA2 veterans, go with just one elite mercenary like Raven able to headshot her way through most trouble, but this approach isn't suitable for a rush at three cities since there's only as much as poor Raven can carry. Most newbies go with three cheap mercenaries, choosing better or worse from among Fox, Grunty, MD, Igor, Malice, Barry and such. They start strong, but then their momentum disappears as they start encountering regulars.

Most vets of JABIA pick a 2-men team approach, allowing to pick two strong mercenaries with the starting money, able to heal and cover each other, which is a very solid compromise between the two above approaches. This guide and this rush are both meant for this last approach.

You can stare all you want at the list of the mercenaries, but the bottom line is that being outnumbered 5:1 means you need to pick good combat troops or you will perish. Against the starting enemies, hill-billies, you will fight in two ways. One is a fight at a medium or long range, where 5.56mm rifles and good Dexterity+Marksmanship plays the biggest role. And another is close quarter combat where it'll be up to quick shots from the hip using shotguns and SMGs to deal with enemy before he deals with you. Your starting pair of mercs should excel at both of those tasks!

But not just that. You are going to kill around 80 enemies before the first day ends, and each of them will be shooting back, you will be wounded, sometimes even gunned down, and having a medic is crucial in such cases. Your mercs need to be able to patch up each other, if not with the Medium Medkit (which removes injuries, requiring 50 medical), then at least with Bandage (which requires 40). Your guns will wear down and will start jamming around 100th enemy, so at least a basic mechanic will be priceless, he will also be able to fix the pistols you give to militia for a lot of free XP.

So... who do you pick? First look at shooting skills for mercenaries costing around 20k with equipment. Then look for those with good shooting skills. Then look at additional traits, looking for weapon expertise (assault, SMG, shotgun) and other useful traits (gunslinger, melee expert), and pick your pair.

Any pair of two chosen from the mercs below can do the sweep, I ranked them by versatility and overall strength, but really, they are all worth your cash, even if they drop out of the main team, they will be very strong defenders:

Wolf: Awesome with shotgun (in running stance!), medic and mechanic with solid combat skills and stats. Perfect for squad leader. Keep him at shotgun duty, he's the best merc in the game to kick a door in, but don't be shy to give him a rifle to switch to for longer range combat.

Thor: A proper medic (70 skill) with great base stats and good shooting skills. Bring him up to 80 Med quickly to be able to use largest medkits. You will need to replace his Desert Eagle with a rifle very quickly, after that he can double for a sniper throughout the first week.

Sidney: A cheap sniper with basic medical skills, and a very powerful Gunslinger trait and an awesome Enfield rifle. Perfect to cover Wolf's shotgun rushes, capable of headshots at medium range but also able to gun enemies down shooting rapidly from his hip. Versatile, powerful, and a gentleman.

Blood: Melee Expert, able to easily dispatch to god's kingdom any guy with an axe, even when hitting with the butt of his weapon, excellent stats, basic medical skills so he can patch your medic if your medic gets shot. No need to keep a knife on him, you can as well tell him to use his weapon as a club and he will slaughter easier enemies without much hassle. With a machete, as long as it's a 1vs1 fight, very few enemies can scratch him before they die, so don't hesitate to tell him to close down, just provide him some covering fire and... as soon as he gets close to the guy, there will be blood. His Runner trait is useful outside combat when you run from house to house ransacking them.

Meltdown: She's an explosives expert, starting with a bazooka (don't sell it! missiles aren't that expensive since all grenade launchers, rocket rifles and LAWs in the game use the same ammo (lol)). She has good stats and is a solid shooter. She prefers to work alone (very good morale when alone in a squad), and is great at defending sectors after the initial rush is done because she can lay some minefields around, or just use her LAW to blow up the entire enemy unit. A very unpleasant lady, but noone kills groups of mobs faster than her.

Barry: Another explosives guy with good basic stats but a poor shooter, a lot of people pick him for their teams of three, but he can function in a pair just as well, so you can quickly catch up with his mechanical skills. Poor man's Wolf.

Malice: A very cheap mercenary with excellent shooting skills, good for covering fire, but not much else. Poor man's Sidney.

Fox: I know, I know. But she can Sneak very well, is a solid medic and an SMG expert, which means you can give her a silenced MP5 or UZI, tell her to sneak to flank enemies and then as your main merc attacks them, tell her to quickly stand up and start spraying them with cheap and common 9mm ammo from her hip, which makes short work of even bigger clusters of opponents. Improve her shooting skills or she won't be of much use against regular army.

2. Count every step. Time doesn't advance on tactical level, enemies get stronger as days pass so you want to do the first sweep in as short a time brack as humanly possible. If you don't want to meet any armored riflemen in the first three cities, you need to move quickly, especially that there will be a counter attack on Day 2 and you need to be back in Drassen by then or you might lose the mine and 10 grand of cash in incomes.

So when going to the world map, make sure on the tactical level you're as close to the edge of your future march's direction as possible. If you clear the airport, walk all the way to the south on the tactical level before going to the world map, and on the world map you'll immediately be in Drassen. Do this on all maps, especially Cambria.

3. Free order of the first day! When you clear the airport, don't go to the world map just yet. Open your laptop, go to Bobby Ray's and order some shotgun and 5.56mm ammo (those are most useful early on), maybe even a rifle if you can, and ask Bobby for an express delivery before checking out. Then go to the world map, and voila "order arrived!", immediately reload Drassen Airport map (right click) and you can restock your most needed ammunition for the rush, saving yourself an entire day of waiting for delivery.

4. Other freebie items. DLC rifles and armors can be all sold to purchase additional mercenaries. You can do it on Day 1 (will cost some time of the rush since they arrive at 4 AM), but allows for an easier hiring of a merc for sector defence in the east if you care). They aren't very good, and you'll quickly find good replacements (AK-47s, M-16s and whatnot) even if your mercenaries didn't start with good stuff. You will receive a diamond for freeing the mine, you will receive 50k for freeing San Mona. On The Farm west of Cambria you can find a crashed chopper with diamonds worth quite a pile of money as well as quite a few great rifles. On the Water Pump map there's a miners' building where even more expensive pile of diamonds is hidden. You need the last two diamonds for quests, but those quests don't reward you much, and you can as well buy those diamonds back later. Early on it's best to cash them in in stores of San Mona and Cambria to hire extra people.

5. Cities and locations.

- Drassen airport shouldn't be much of a problem provided you picked the right team for the job, make sure you walk out of it with a shotgun and a new set of armor if your mercenary didn't start with any decent equipment. Plunder and sell everything else so you can order ammo from Bobby's, best fight close range since all mercs only start with one clip of ammo. A melee expert like Blood can clear this map on his own, using buildings as cover and rushing enemies with his knife as they are missing cover of their buddies.

- Drassen itself doesn't pose much threat either, just walk from house to house, stay silent, try to take out enemies one by one and don't waste too much of your more precious shotgun and 5.56mm ammo at long range gun fights. Guys with pistols won't scratch you much, and if they do, you can heal and get XP as a reward, which is always useful.

- Water Pump, Road Block, Mine, all of these are weakly defended by a bunch of hillbillies with pistols and axes and two good mercs can do a short work of them. You should leave each of those areas and come back to them immediately to equip spawned militia (even if it's just 2-3 of them) with looted pistols. Make sure you walk out with diamonds from the Mine and the Pump. Don't attack the SAM site yet, it has regular army defence and will cost a lot of ammo (they wear kevlar) and work.

- Cambria. Looks big, doesn't it, but it isn't hard and it will make you quite rich. Mobs are in three locations, Prison (can find a good Colt 5.56mm rifle here), General's house in the north of the map and the Bar. Sneak from corner to corner, then raise to running stance and use quick fire from the hip to win duels against enemies and you can clear this place under 5 minutes (Sidney or Wolf as Gunslingers excel here, but Blood with a machete or an axe will get bloody too). After you take it, remember no time progression on tactical level, ransack all houses (Wolf with lockpick becomes useful), especially the garage in the south, where you will find some toolkits to repair militia's guns for a lot of XP. Then walk to the north of the map to be able to immediately progress to the next map.

- Cambria Hostpital and University. This two locations are bunched together and can be done in one sweep. They test your close quarter combat skills like no other place. Remember, running stance, shooting from the hip, melee if you have an expert, and watch for guys with axes. Loot is good, a lot of medkits to pick up, you can buy a STEYR from one of students at the Uni, it's expensive though and you probably have a comparable 5.56mm rifle by now (Sidney's Enfield or the Colt from Cambria Prison) and you will soon loot some AKs and G41s. Guns you loot here should be used to arm militia in Cambria proper, this two locations won't get attacked. Don't talk to NPCs here and don't accept quests, both hospital quests have 30 day timeline and are very hard to pull of unless you rush your way through the entire game (want to finish under a month). Best take them when you've already met conditions (taken Grumm, secured all three SAM sites).

- The Farm west of Cambria. Priest from Drassen sends you to clear this den of redneck cannibalism and incest. They are hard, have Rugers and Shotguns and the last part (basement) will test all your close quarter skills, but they aren't armored and with enough tactical prowess (or reloads) every rifle/shotgun-armed player should be able to deal with them. Don't forget to loot the crashed chopper here and of course grab all the rifles you can carry from their underground arsenal (I take lighter guns for militia and for sale, leave AKs for Dimitri, Ira and Miguel when I hire them to defend sectors later in the game).

- Miguel's Hideout west of the Farm. Take quest to talk to the kingpin in Mona here, grab all the loot you can carry, admire his high-level professional army militia and head north.

- Kingpin's Mansion. South of Mona there's your future employer. He doesn't have much guard on Day 1, less than a dozen. Flank the door from a side and proceed slowly inside, this isn't a big fight and you can proceed to attacking the city itself right away without going to the world map (which you should do, or you'll be late to defend Drassen in the morning of Day 2).

- San Mona. This place is your final destination of the day. You will get access to two great stores here, get a lot of money and a great free mercenary (Iggy). Enemies should still be standard rednecks, although there's quite a few with shotguns, so don't rush it if you don't have to, watch out to not get outflanked near the big bar. After they are done (aim torso and keep your head low), pick up a quest from the bar to search for a lesbo magazine (it's in the brothel, but you might keep the one from Drassen airport if you care, to use here), hire Iggy (the only useful free merc) in the same bar and loot the entire city carrying everything to the store (can always rebuy later, nothing disappears so you won't loose any quest items). Depending on your starting mechanic, you will or won't be able to break into the main weapons arsenal (can return later with Magic or Trevor though), make sure you arm militia thoroughly, sell all the other crap you found.

- East of San Mona, the Farm, the Hideout. There are two places in the north which serve drug dealers, a pot farm and a small smuggler port. They are defended by a dozen of weak enemies each on Day 1, on further days they receive armored riflemen reinforcement and will be harder to deal with. If you decide to spend the rest of your day on clearing both, you will find yourself close to Drassen and able to intercept a counter-attack at that city or the mines, and also able to quickly pick up mercenaries you hired using all the cash looted in Mona. This is a very good move, bringing your main squad much closer to the frontlines.

- West of San Mona there's a junkyard defended by a few snipers and a minefield. If you picked one of explosives guys and if you feel lucky (do you, punk?), you can attempt to clear this place, but it'll be a chore for just two mercs and Iggy, even if you picked the good ones. It's doable (I can do it:-p), you should at least try before you head back east. If you win here, you will most likely get a Dragunov or at least a Vintorez and will prevent a counter-attack on Mona on Day 2, so you'll be able to take Iggy back with you rather than leaving him to help militia defend the city.

6. Strategy advice:

- Grumm, Estoni, Alma. All those cities get proper defence right away and can't be rushed, you should regroup and rearm after the above rush is done. Buy scopes, buy at least one (better two) solid sniper rifle (m29, barrett, ares), upgrade your squad to 7.62mm rifles, and on experts make sure to have secondary weapons of their preference (shotguns, SMGs, melee). Also don't be shy to give them all some grenades (always handy), restock medkits and toolkits, equip some defuse devices (minefields are common from this point on) and of course order a few crates worth of ammo for all your guns. At this point you need to create a proper assault team of 6 great mercenaries as your main squad, and they better like each other, they will fight against regular troops from now on, and a lot of them at once.

- Unlike in JA2, you want to post cheaper and free mercs in cities to defend them alongside militia. There's no wages here, you can pick up guns from the ground and hire new militia with them right after combat (not doable if it's autoresolved), and of course you'll always be certain to win. To defend you can use free mercs who are a tad crappy otherwise (Miguel, Dimitri, Ira, Maddog), leave Iggy behind, or hire smaller squads of cheaper mercs who like each other to ensure good morale, it's good to pick basic mechanics for this jobs. Or alternatively, you can hire Meltdown and Fidel, who are Loners and can lay an infinite amount of devastation with their mines, grenades and bazookas to protect San Mona and Cambria.

7. Tactics advice.

- Don't go "all sniper", don't always use scopes (take them off when fighting at medium range aiming torsos), don't always prone. When you are close to an enemy, time to aim becomes more important than anything, so assume running stance and shoot from the hip (gunslingers and gun experts are very accurate at that so pick their weapons accordingly) and don't be afraid to go around a corner and blast the enemy in the face. Pay attention to "Time to Aim" in different stances.

- Don't overextend. Grumm and Alma, Estoni and SAM sites (everything basically I didn't mention above) and such, all have proper army defence and you need to rearm to heavier rifles and fill your team before you attempt to take them. You can easily hold the towns you took as long as you left someone to protect them, so don't worry about them much.

- As soon as enemies get armor, you want to be using 7.62mm rifles, shotguns (great at destroying armor) and caseless ammo SMGs (P90!). Forget 9mm guns, they are cool but they shoot needles. Also quickly give up on 5.56mm guns if you can, they don't offer enough penetration.

- In defence enemies will always attack the same spot (Bar in Cambria), you can mine their route there (Meltdown, Fidel, Barry), or you can post a cheaper sniper on a nearby roof to take pot shots at them while they are busy dealing with militia (Malice for example). If you pick one of cheaper mechanics, he can run around fix everyone's weapons after a fight for XP, or your main squad can visit every once in a while to do the same. Always repair guns before you give them to militia, bastards jam and a "red" pistol is as good as a fist. You get XP and you get better militia.

- Don't be afraid to sell junk, and don't purchase too much guns. You will find a pile of rifles in every location from now on, enough to arm some heavy militia (they are best with assault rifles and shotguns) and new mercs (7.62mm NATO or WP rifles are my preference for solo guys). It takes ages for a merc to get to Arulco, so it's better to hire him earlier rather than later.

- Make sure there's no "red" locations around your main money-making spots, loyalty grows faster when neighbouring only green sectors and this means more money from the mines, farms and cities. After the rush you want to go back and clean up sectors around your cities for that very reason.

If you have doubts, just ask here. Good luck. :-)