Guide for 100% Achievements in JA3 Story how I got 100%. My tips and tricks for hardest achievements + some general tips for the game. Mistakes I did and how I got away with them. Some tips for builds and mercs. Introduction I decided to create that guide after spending around 60h in the game (officialy 100h but tbh I kept the game running without playing for couple of nights which pumped out number of hours) and after getting 100% completion during that time. I wanted to share my experience from that great game, give you some tips and tricks how to get all achievements and make the game even more exciting to everyone. Spoiler alert: This guide contain spoilers aroung storyline, quests, mercs and other elements of the game. Please proceed only if you are fine with that! Summary As I wrote in the Introduction I spent around 60h in the game to get 100% completion but I was not entirely commited to get achievements only so that I can fully enjoy that great game. Obviously getting 100% completion can be done faster (and I will try to provide some guides on that as well). In order to have 100% completion it took me 3 full playthroughs + one ~15% playthrough + one old save usage to clean one achivement. I did following runs: 1st full playthrough: "To get familiar with the game, enjoy and explore the game" Difficulty: Commando (middle) Forgiving mode: No Achievements: 41/50 Comments: I focused on some quest related achievements + I hired dedicated merc to get "Natural Sprinter" Achievement and took advantage of situations to get some other achievements. Details in secion dedicated to that playthrough. Old save usage from 1st playthrough to clean missing "Diesel Power" (Solved the Diesel problem.) Achievement Achievements: 42/50 Comments: Obviously that could be done within first playthrough but for some reason achievement did not pop up to me even though I did finish that quest. Later on it turned out that specific ending has to be chosen in that quest in order to be granted achievement. Details is specific section. 15% playthrough to get "Psycho" (Chose a Psycho dialogue option 5 times) and "Say my name" (Did three morally bad things.) Achievements Difficulty: First Blood (lowest) Forgiving mode: Yes Achievements: 44/50 Comments: I started a new campaign to quickly wrap up those two achievements after I missed them in 1st playthrough as I didint have "Psycho perk" character early enough in the game and I missed some choices early game for "Say my name" achievement. Obviously could be done within 1st playthrough. 2nd full playthrough: "Lone wolf + Time is money achievements " Difficulty: First Blood (lowest) Forgiving mode: Yes Achievements: 49/50 Comments: I focused to make it in shortest possible time to get "Time is money" achievement (Finished the campaign before 1 MAY, 2001.) using only one merc (IVAN!) for "Lone Wolf" (Finished the campaign while having no more than one hired merc at the same time.). In that Playthrough I also did: "Pacifist" (Finished the campaign without killing any civilian.) - for some reason I didnt notice in 1st playthrouigh that I killed a civilian "Bullet proof" (Finished the campaign without a single merc dying or getting downed.) - for some reason I didnt notice in 1st playthrouigh that I got downed - maybe in autoresolve fight? Dynamic Duo (Finished the campaign while having no more than two hired mercs at the same time.) - completing Lone wolf automatically grant also this Achievement. 3rd full playthrough: "Ironman" Difficulty: Mission Impossible (highest) Forgiving mode: No Dead is Dead: Yes To The Bitter End: Yes Lethal Weapons: Yes Forgiving Mode: No Achievements: 50/50 Comments: Playthrough dedicated for "Ironman" Achievement (Finished the game on the highest difficulty settings: “Mission Impossible”, “Dead is Dead”, “To The Bitter End”, “Lethal Weapons” and no “Forgiving Mode”) General tips and trick for Jagged Alliance 3 Please find several information about the game, its mechanics that I find usefull on different stages of the game. Some of them are critically important to make it possible to finish some more difficult achievements like: "Lone Wolf", "Ironman" or "Time is Money". Game storyline has in fact 3 phases. Its important to understand them especially for "Ironman" Playthrough. Tutorial - Ernie island on the begining - you can stay there as long as you want without being bothered - but watch your cash ;) - was important for my "Ironman" playthrough. 1st half where Legion is your main enemy - its time to acumulate cash that will be used in second half (was especially important for my Ironman playthrough) 2nd half where Army is you main enemy and you loses majority of mines and cities. You are leaving Tutorial when you take 1st Outpost in H4. You are triggering 2nd phase of the game by eighter: Entering Refuge camp after the "incident" - be carefull you cannot retreat from entering there and fight is quite though! But can be skipped by... Getting close to Eagle nest sector (A20). Entering any sector closer than 3 sectors from A20 will trigger second phase. There are three main storyline battles which are more difficult than others: A20 Major battle - tough one especially in Lone Wolf playthrough K16 Colonel battle - tough one especially in Lone Wolf playthrough H4 Final battle - relatively easy especially that there seems to be some bug that most of enemies do not leave final room whatever is happening. There are some fights that can be skipped but are more difficult than others (I would suggest ot avoid them in Ironman and Lone Wolf playthroughs): A8 Biff rescue E8 Refugee camp after "incident" H8 Smiley quest Barry if very good merc! Relatively cheap, great explosives expertise and incredible special: he generates 2 very powerfull grenades every week. They saved me several times on my Ironman playthrough when things went bad or I made a mistake. He was essential for that Playthrough success. Merc friendship factor - some mercs like other mercs, some hates particular ones. This factor affects not only ability to hire particular mercs but also their morale therefore AP point in tactical fights. E.g. Wolf likes Fox and Fox likes Wolf. If you have thoise two mercs in one squad both have +1 AP. You can find detailed desription of that factor here: https://commonsensegamer.com/jagged-alliance-3-merc-relationships-and-affinities-full-guide/ or https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3006312456 Thing that I did not know (or just didn`t notice) before I started my Ironman playthrough: Silent one-shot kills can be done not only in real time part of tactical game but also in turn based part of them. You can always go into hidden mode and if enemy doest see you you can kill them silently with one shot. It was very important for my Ironman playthrough as silently killing enemies can turn off turn based part and therefore you are free to have fresh ironman save when turn based fight will be triggered again. This mean you dont have to repeat whole sector if things goes bad. Some loots in sectors are generated when you first enter the tactical map of a sector. E.g. G11 has a fridge where Winchester rifle (one of the best sniper rifle) can be generated. You can save scamm it by: 1. making autosave when you arrive in the sector. 2. Entering the sector. 3. Check loot. 4. Quick load if you didint get what you wanted. 5. Repeat. Doing that was important for my Lone Wolf achievement run. It was relatively easy for me to complete everything using following weapons (I know there are better but some of those better are very rare): Winchester - one of the best Sniper rifle in the game (of course when modded). Proper mods and perks on merc almost guarantee you two kills each turn. Dragunov - its nice as it uses different ammo (not NATO) which reduces problems with that ammo on 1st half of the story. Gewer - silenced version of that was used til the end by half of my squad on Ironman playthorugh. Its your main rifle for first 30% of the game especially on Lone wolf and Ironman playthrough. Barry grenades - very powerfull greades for free (2 each week). Stick grenades - long distance, relatively big damage. RPK 74 - nice automatic rifle especialy to deal with Hyenas - I used it twice on my Lone wolf playthroughs. Shotguns - was essential for Lone Wolf playthrough. With Perks like: Breach and Clear and Frogleaping are really OP. You can kill enemy with one shot using 3 AP. Move for free to next one, kill, move kill. With Ivan you can get for each kill 3 AP which makes it... kills for free without using AP! 1st full playthrough: "To get familiar with the game, enjoy and explore the game" (part 1) In first playthrough for fun I did 41 Achievements: New Kid On The Block Created an I.M.P. merc. - nothing to write about. Its alwas good to have merc for on time fee of 7000 USD. Suggestions for Ironman run: I created merc with 0 in mechnical, explosived and medical. Maximum 85 in everything but Markmanship. 40 there but its easily trainable using "Train merc" operation and/or by just shooting. Different Ways To Die Killed an enemy with 5 different weapon types. - self explanable. Possible weapons: Handgun Shotgun SMG Assault Rifle Sniper Rifle Grenade Molotov Gas Grenade Melee Weapon Machine Gun Grenade Launcher Mortal Missile Launcher (RPG-7) Bullseye Killed 25 enemies with a headshot. - it comes as you play. Field Training Defended a sector with the help of militia without autoresolve. - you can do it even in tutorial on Ernie H2 sector. Just train some militia there and defend first couter attack from enemy by entering Tactical map fight. Hot Diamonds Ambushed a diamond shipment and got the case. - just intercept "suitcase" enemy unit. Grab the diamonds and got Achiv. Breaking The Wall Killed an enemy with a shot through an obstacle. Shot enemy through an obstacle - some walls cannot be penetrated but light obstacles can - e.g. some iron fences. Sniper rifle can do the job. Silent and Deadly Killed 7 enemies in one sector without triggering combat. Stay hidden in sneak mode (H). Shoot separated enemies (that are not in line o sight of other ones) in the head using sniper rifle or use good character to kill using knife in close combat. As long as you dont trigger a combat they count. Not every sector make it possible as is some of them there are no 7 separated enemies. Some suggestion: Mfumu's Mine Overwatchmen Made 10 overwatch shots in one turn. It can be done on multiple occasions. All you need is bigger number of enemies stacked together (5 should be more than enough). Put all you mercs (5-6 should be there) on overwatch towards enemies and "End turn" each time enemy will move you merc will do Overwatch attack. If only you dont kill enemies to fast they should manage to do 10 overwatch shots. I did it on one of the outposts where at some point "reinforcments are sent". The one with fake major vel "Eliot". Born Killer Killed 5 enemies in one turn with a single merc. - there are multiple easy ways to get this one. e.g.: good grenade on pack of Hyenas (Barry grenade is extremely good. Nive number of hyenas can be found close to each other in C20 sector. Ivan with shotgun and Breach and Clear and Frogleaping perks. Sabotage Reduced all defense shields of an Outpost. - Each outpost has "red shields: visible on Satelite map. By speaking with NPCs around or by doing "Recon" operation on Satelite map you can reveal what you need to do to soften the defence there. Usually its some quests, cleaning some sectors nearby or so. When you do all of them for one Outpost achiv will pop. If you clean Ernie Island during Tutorial properly this outpost may already give you achiv. All Your Base Are Belong To Us Controlled 5 sectors with an Outpost. - just take over all 5 outposts within one playthough. Be aware to train some militia as they may be taken over in the meantime. Also be carefull not to trigger 2nd phase of storyline as you will have more to do to make that achievement. Flawless Victory Conquered an Outpost without losing HP. this one is much easier if you soften the defence in outpost. Then use silent kills as much as possible. With a little quick saving and loading, sooner or later you will get it. Tactician Controlled at least 50 sectors. You will get it without even trying unless you rush the game (e.g. my Lone Wolf + Time is Money run). Living Legend Hired a Legendary merc. - sooner or later you will be able to hire legendary merc. if you dont need any use quicksave - hire - quickload method just to get achiv. Gritty Dozen Have at least 12 hired mercs. - wait til you have enough money. Quicksave. Hire enough cheap mercs. Quickload. Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner Chicken murderer. When you find a chicken just kill it using manual attack. e.g. Sector L18. Unlockdown Found a cure for the Red Rabies. Thats a long quest related achivement. I took advantage of following guide for it: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3007360203 Liberator Earned at least 75 Loyalty in 5 towns. - just train militia in each city, do quests, be nice and you will get it. Friendly Fire Hurt your own merc with the bullet that killed an enemy. whenever you have low hp enemy (or full hp Hyena) put a merc in front of that enemy and shoot enemy with other merc (while targeting there should be blue icon indicating there is your ally on shooting line). if only your bullet hit your merc and kill enemy achiv is granted. Prizefighter Defeated all fighters in the Night Club. you need to win fist battle with each fighter in Night club in sector B13. Please note that fights are only carried out during the night and if you want to enter the club you need to visit B12 first and talk with Sigfrid (Diesel Power questline). Ready, Woody! Hired Gus. - normally you cannot hire Gus as he is retired. But if you hire either Len or Scully then he will agree to join you. Two Birds One Stone Killed two enemies with a single shot. You have to do it using gun. Cannot be done using greanes or explosives. Easier to do it on Hyenas. Sniper rifle + 2 hyenas standing one behind another. And voila. Just A Flesh Wound Taken 300 damage in a single turn without any merc dying or getting downed. Not that easy to get in regular play but there is an easy way to cheese it. Hire 12 mercs (e.g. for other achiv) go with both squads into battle. Start battle having all 12 mercs together. Start throwing greades on them. Eventually you will get 300 damage and no deaths. Lethal Weapons Killed 10 enemies in a single turn. There are multiple ways to do it: You can do it easily in C20 with hyenas and MGL - 3 shots (4AP each) will kill 3 packs easily. You can do it with solo Ivan with shotgun and Breach and Clear and Frogleaping percs. Final battle is also good opportunity but not that easy as previous two. Blood Rain Dealt 1000 damage to enemies in one turn. This one is a little bit tricky as you need to have really big number of enemies to make 1k damage in one turn. I personally did it in Refugee camp after the "incident". I`m pretty sure that last chamber of final fight is also a good place to try. Some suggestions: explosives (Barry`s grenades!), Ivan with shotgun and Breach and Clear and Frogleaping perks. Other mercs with same perks. Or just a brute force way: 2 squads (12 mercs). Saw It Coming... Story related - visit Refugee camp after incident. Gather some evidences and achievement pop. A Long Shot Killed an enemy at extreme range. Easy way to do it is to use Rocket launcher. Still it has to be over 40 quares distance to get the achievement. So usually severa tries required. 1st full playthrough: "To get familiar with the game, enjoy and explore the game" (part 2) Twelve Chairs Found Madam Lecoq's diamond necklace. There is a quest to examine 12 chairs in different places in the JA3 World. In order to get the mission in the first place, you will need to talk to Lalee Leewaylender in Fleatown (H9) and ask him for information. He will agree to provide it in exchange for one Tiny Diamond per piece of info. To start the necklace mission, ask him how to get rich and he will offer you a deal. Chairs can be found here: Flag Hill (I1) Fleatown (H9) Rimville (I9) Diamond Red (A2) Camp Grand Prix (D10) Pantagruel (D8) Camp Savane (F7) Camp La Barriere (G10) Fosse Noire Mine (C7U) Jungle River Bank (G11) Sanatorium (H12) Drachenberg Mine (B12) A Fistful Of Diamonds Controlled all sectors with mines. - You need to take control over all mines. Please note that at least one mide require to go through questline (B12 mine). X Marks the Spot Found Lucky Veinard's secret treasures. Quest related. You need to find at least 3 treasure before the chicken appear in K18. Basic treasure locations: H7 E14 C3 J11 After finding 3 of those go to K18 to finish quest. Truest Detective Caught the Teddy Bear killer. Quest related. You need to kill the killer. he can be on one of those sectors: K17, K18 or K19 Green Diamond Obtained the Green Diamond. The easiest way to get achiv is to Save game. Go to A8 to "Rescue" Biff. Kill him "manually" before enemies come. Loot Diamond. Reload save. ;) Rehab Helped Larry overcome his addiction. Larry can be found is sector: F7. In order to get the achiv you need to (in any order): Take over hospital in H12 (both on the ground as well as underground map) Give metaviron to Larry in F7 (metaviron can be found in H12, but also looted as rare drop or received from loot bought from Lalee Leewaylender in Fleatown (H9) for tiny diamonds. Recruit Larry Take him to H12 and do Operation "Cure addiction" on him Love Cats Made Maman and Chimurenga get together. Quest related. In order to make Chimurenga get with Maman you need to do the quests for him, defeat him and posess 100 loyalty with his city. Modding Expert Installed 7 mods on a single weapon. Straightforward achievement but for some reason I did not receive the achiv after modding first 3 weapons like that. Achievement popped for me after... I removed one of the mods from one of the weapons... Martial Artiste Conquered an Outpost without using firearms. Similarly to previous one this achievement did not pop up for me on first try. So it seems it might be bugged sometimes unless... throwing knife is counted as "using firearms ;) " On second try where I used only knifes to stab it was ok. Natural Sprinter Moved a merc 35 tiles away in a single turn. A lot of peope are suggesting to use Ivan due to his +3 AP after kill. I tried and failed. However it might be beneficial to try this with MGL and C20 sector where where are 3 Hyenas packs close to each other. Taking out them will cost 12 AP (3x4AP) and might get up to 33 AP back... so having 14 AP at start or a turn should be enough. I personally did it different way. My guide on that achiv can be found here: https://truesteamachievements.com/a2564882/natural-sprinter-achievement#oSolutions There is obviously yet another way: Ivan + Shotgun + Breach and Clear and Frogleaping perks or even other merc with same perks. Ivan would probably be easier as he might get another +3AP for each kill. True Crit Made 10 critical hits in one turn. Some suggestion: machinegun with critical chance ammo (Hollow points) + burst attack. 2-4 attacks and achiv should be on your list. In order to make it in one turn probably its good to have two such mercs/guns/ammo. Apocalypse Later Hired the Major. MISSABLE This one is tricky as it requires to make proper decisions through full playthrough. (part below is taken from Siris guide available here: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3008044784) You need high reputation (75) to recruit the Major. Reputation gains: Time penalty: -5 or -10 (Defeat the major within 1 or 2 months) Take down outpost: 5/outpost (max 35) Kill Graaf: 10 Kill Bastien: 5 Recruit Pierre: 25 (or Kill Pierre: 10) Kill/Jail Elliot: 5 Complete right hand man: 5 Kill DrKronenberg: 5 Kill Chimurenga: 5 Kill Jackhammer: 10 Kill/Recruit Beast: 5 Kill/Recruit Flay: 5 Kill Colonel: 10 Defeat Corazon: 20 You were a merc like us, Spike: 5 (Hire Len/Gus/Ivan) Your Legion could have performed better: 10 (Leadership >= 70) Proven Innocent Gathered enough evidence to clear your name. MISSABLE Similarly to one above you need to meet some criteria to get that one. Again explanation taken from Siris guide (bold ones are the one I did on my playthrough): You need to find more than 4 evidences to get this achievement. There are 6 evidences in the game: The Hermit (Rescue Ghost) Rescue Biff Refugee camp incident Major (You need to have 50 reputation to gain evidence from the Major and select correct conversation with him to get the evidence) The evidence for correspondence between Corazon and Colonel (Fort Brigand) The truth from Corazon (Ernie Fort) 10 Out Of 10 Have a Level 10 merc. Straight forward. On my 1st playtrough withj 6 mercs my highest merc was 8 lvl before final battle so I travelled across the map a little and autoresolve some battles to hit lvl 9+. On final battle I got lvl 10. During my Lone Wolf run my only merc hit 10 without any issues before final battle. Old save usage from 1st playthrough to clean missing "Diesel Power" (Solved the Diesel problem.) Achievement After my first playthrough I was missing some achievements I thought I will get. Like the one for not killing any civilian or not getting downed. There was also one quest related achievement that I tried to get but for some reason it did not pop up to me. I thought its bugged therefore I left it for later. It was Diesel Power achievement. After finishing the campaing I get back to it as I had save just before it. I quickly found out that a certain outcome has to be chosen for achievement to pop up. But to have everything in one place: Talk to Siegfried in B12 to start the Quest. You can go to Mole in B13 and give him 5000$ or fight Bonecrusher (which is needed for another achievement). You can fight him during a night in Night Club. Recover Diesel Get at least 6 out of 11 cliues: Siegfried’s notes on his table B12 Fuel tank near the mine B12 Miner diary in miner’s barrack B12 Nightclub laptop on second floor B13 Hack control in left watchtower near Landsbach dock B13 Van near Travis Use medical merc to talk with Sieg’s guard B12 Talk to male village near fighting pit in Nightclub B13 Sneak and hear Legion talk about Diesel Fuel tank in D10 Lelee in Fleatown After finding required evidence, go back to Siegfried. And here was a tricky part to get achievement. You need to conversate with him in such a way that you will have to fight both Sigfrieds guards as well as Bounce people. After killing all you can get achiv. Its hardest way to finish that quest as you need to fight quite a number of enemies. 15% playthrough to get "Psycho" (Chose a Psycho dialogue option 5 times) and "Say my name" (Did three morally bad things.) Achi There are two achievement for which I decided to do a new short, not full run: Psycho Chose a Psycho dialogue option 5 times. You need to have a merc with Psycho perk. I took Meltdown for that run. There are following options to use Psycho dialogue option (in order of appereance). I did the one in Bold as they were relatively easy and fast to get and I combined them with Say my name achievement. Bastien I1: Why not just shoot you Herman I3: Get out of here (Legion retreat) (+XP) Hyena C5: You should be afraid of us Flay B4 or C6: Why not hunt the Legion instead? Bastien E9: We’re here to check on you Lalee H9: What is the meaning of life? (+2 tiny diamond) Gran Granny K9: ♥♥♥♥ you! (+5 loyalty) Bounce B13: The good old "break and enter" Beast: No, we enjoy killing just like you do Tim D8: Open the clinic NOW (Must destroy rebels) King F19: Yes, this is an inspection or Yes. Back to your shack, maggot Colonel K16: ♥♥♥♥ you! Corazon H4: You are not talking your way out of this Say My Name Did three morally bad things. There are only 4 actions considered as "bad" things in the game: Hire Graaf as a mine foreman Kill Lurch and take his shotgun (If coffee bean's members see your actions, they will attack you) Meet Bastien in Refugee Camp and make him give you money Completed Right Hand Mand and side with Boss Blaubert What I did was to: go immediately to E9 Refugee camp to talk with Bastien (I combined it with one Psycho dialogue). go to A2 Red diamond mine to Hire Graff go to Port Cacao Docks,to kill Lurch and take Shotgun 2nd full playthrough: "Lone wolf + Time is money achievements" On my 2nd full run I decided to combine "Lone wolf" with "Time is money" achievement which might sound crazy but honestly it didin`t change much. Still you are very much limited by the money as you dont have time to claim more than 1 (maybe 2) mines on the way. So probably if you are trying to get Time is Money achievement alone you shouldn`t count on more than 3 mercs including IMP. Honestly speaking I was following combined guides described here (but on easiest difficulty): https://www.reddit.com/r/JaggedAlliance/comments/158n19z/i_did_it_solo_time_is_money_on_hardest_difficulty/ https://www.reddit.com/r/JaggedAlliance/comments/15c2mgg/mission_impossible_lone_wolf_time_is_money/ I have followed following route: I1 -> I2 (Gewehr) -> H2 -> H4 -> J8 -> H8 -> G10 (RPK) -> G11 (Winchester) -> F13 -> D17 -> D18 -> C20 -> A20 -> C20 -> D18 -> H16 -> K16 -> K9 -> H2 -> H4 Merc: Ivan with Breach and Clear and Frogleaping perks for shotgun + Silenced sniper rifle. I was using whenever I can knife kills to save ammo. Especially NATO ammo for Gewehr was quite short til midgame. I had to create it once. I had to rest around 3 times across the run. Problems to be solved across the run: With Ivan as merc - no possibility to repair items. Save scamm required on G11 entry to get Winchester rifle. Save scamm on modding weapons (a lot of failures due to low mechanical skill) required quickloading. Inventory space. You have to focus to carry only necessary items as one merc inventory is very small space. Thoughest battle: K16 Colonel Enemies with rocket launchers (RPG) The only things that changed for me during the run: I got lucky and got some extra Gewehr rifle from enemy loot so I didnt have to worry abot main issue duing such run: lack of Ivan mechanical skills - so no possiblity to repair items. I finished whole campaign on 23rd April. I finished A20 battle on 16th April. I used in fact only modded: Winchester, Gewehr G98, Shotgun + RPK once or twice on Hyenas. During that run I also did following achievements almost automatically: Pacifist Finished the campaign without killing any civilian. Bullet Proof Finished the campaign without a single merc dying or getting downed. Dynamic Duo Finished the campaign while having no more than two hired mercs at the same time. 3rd full playthrough: "Ironman" "Ironman" achievement sounds difficult but in reality I managed to do it on first attempt. However you need to realize that there are some mistakes that can lock you behind single "Save slot" without possibility to get back and if you dont get away with that you have to start over again. In that description of my Playthrough I will try to point out places where such mistakes can occur (or where I did fail) and what to focus on. SQUAD Before I started I had following plan for my final Squad: IMP Merc - I have created merc with 0 in explosives, mechanical, medicine, 85 in everything but Markmanship which was 40 at the beginning (bumped up to 65+ before leaving tutorial island). Tactical perks for close meele combat: Hand to hand + Martial Arts - honestly it was very handy during Tutorial but I almost didn`t use it later in the game so worth reconsidering. Barry - taken for explosives expertise and his great unique perk that creates two strong grenades every ingame week - those grenades saved me 2-3 times during hard moments of the run. Cheap merc. Plus he has relatively good Markmanship, Dexterity and Agility. Wolf - taken because I always like him :) and due to his mechanical skills and bond with Fox which gives both +1 AP. + relatively cheap and good Markmanship, Dexterity and Agility. Fox - taken as main squad medic and due to bond with Wolf which gives both +1 AP + relatively cheap and good Markmanship, Dexterity and Agility. Igor - taken due to his bond with Ivan, relatively cheap and good Markmanship, Dexterity and Agility. Ivan - because he is OP. However finally I did not hire Ivan because he was not available for hiring for whole run... so I took Shadow instead. Ironman Playthrough I started only with IMP merc. Cleaning first 3 sectors using knife, silent kills and hand to hand perk (ending Turn with merc standing close to living enemy triggering overwatch knife attack). This saved me some money and gave him all experience. Then I hired Barry (so that he can start generating his grenades early on playthrough) and Kalyna. I trained my IMP merc and Barry markmanship stat using Kalyna. I think I hired her for like 2 x 2 weeks as you need to watch your money during early game. In the meantime Barry created like 6-8 grenades which get usefull soon. I cleaned all sectors/quests in the initial Island before going to H4 outpost. Before entering H4 Kalyna contract ended and I hired Wolf and Fox. Such approach reduced outpost defence, got me tons of experience, additional Barrys grenades and quite a lot medicaments which are generally issue later on. I also got from underground sector three Gewehr G98 rifles which kinda make the game a breeze. Of course make silencers for each one. I had to use some grenades to clean enemies within "Herman quest" in sector I3. H4 Outpost battle was relatively easy with all those Gewehr rifles. Sneaking through minefield (Barry can act as Saper) going up killing silently guys at the back of Outpost and triggering turn based combat by silently killing guy with Rocket launcher. My squad was waiting for enemies on the stairs close to Rocketman. I used additional Barrys grenades to deal with Pierre and his bodyguard. My next objective was to take ASAP some mines so that finally I will generate money instead of spending them. At this moment I was so short of money that I had to prolong some contracts only for a week instead of 14 days. At the begining you want to take 3 mines ASAP to make enough money to pay your mercs, hire additional ones and pay for militia training etc. (Finally I took five out of seven mines (A2, B12, C7, D18, I18) as they dont require going through any additional questlines). In each mine I trained militia. I also took over as many outposts as possible to reduce number of attacks on mines and therefore make it possibile to acumulate money. During that time I made first mistake triggering Smiley quest fight in sector H8 while having not the best squad gahtered inside the church. They overwhelmed me and I had to restart fight several times. Finally I took them off using combination of Barrys granades, shotguns and Gewehr shots but it was harder than I expected. At this stage (while having two mines) I hired MD merc with teacher trait to use him as militia trainer. A little bit later when money allowed I hired Igor. I played with such 5 merc squad til I got to D17 sector and was ready to go for A20 battle. When I control the map (mines and outposts) I placed my MD in G10 outpost. He was staying there training militia and constantly repealling enemies attacks on that sector (there are only two sectors that are attacked if you control all outposts G10 and D17) My main Squad was staing for quite long time in sector D17. Staying there longer allowed me to: Acumulate enough money before going to A20 battle so that I can affort my full squad til end of game without taking back all mines from Army. This is IMPORTANT NOTE: do not trigger second phase of a game without having enough money. I spent aroud 100k USD between going to A20 and finishing the game but to be on safe side I stayed in D17 til I have 300k USD. Acumulate enough money to hire last merc - I tool legendary Shadow. Got tons of experience from Autoresolved attacks (just dont use weapons as you might get out of ammo). When I had around 300k USD I actually make a second mistake. I wanted to move my MD merc to another sector and I didn`t realize that his way was through Refugee camp. When he entered that sector I coudnt retret, I had to enter it got killed and second phase of game was triggered. After triggering next phase I was forced to move to A20 battle with my squad. Of course I did in through the same path as for Lone wolf achiv so: C20, sneak to underground grotto, elevator to B20 -> A20 A20 battle was not that hard as I thought. I killed around 4-5 enemies silently using sniper rifles. Then I triggered turn based battle while all my mercs were stacked together at the bottom of the mountain with president. All enemies were coming, combination of grenades, shotgun and sniper rifles did a trick. Next point was to get to K16. I strongly suggest to go the same way back to D17: A20 -> B20 -> C20 -> D18 -> D17. Them go to H16 and take underground tunnel to K16. Its important as it will let you get inside the building and close to Colonel. Go upstairs silently and kill Colonel. Clean up enemies coming. It will take some time.Dont hurry not to get overwhelmed. Go to K9. Take a boat to H2. Clean H2, H3. Goto H4. Here I made third mistake that was almost fatal... while on the ground I went with Barry only to clean minefield. All other mercs stayed above minefield. And someone spotted Barry triggering combat. That was very unfortunate. I put barry under the ladder so that enemies co H4 underground was a easy as pie. General hints for Ironman run Keep your eye on money - you wont be able to reload previous save Keep all your mercs together just in case you accidentaly trigger combat and update the "Save" Have always some grenades/explosives to "save the day" in case things go messy. Whenever you can keep your mercs close to extraction zone - you can always Retreat Be caruful with triggering second phase of story - its kinda "point of no return" Take perks/weapon mods that allow you to make more attacks (less AP, first fully precise shot, etc) or more damage. Be carefull with Hyenas whey have tons of AP and hits hard. In the same time they are weak so kill them first.