Is anyone a fan of this one? I really like it.

You manage a team of mercenaries trying to liberate a south american republic from control by a dictator. You have to conduct raids, defend your holdings, equip militia, and otherwise kick ass and take names. The game is done in real time, but with the ability to stop time and issue orders. If you stop and play it becomes like a turn based strategy.

Yes, I must say that I'm a fan of this game specially after patch 1.13 which allows to play with Fog of War. In previous versions you didn't have the "Fog of War" (you would instantly see all enemies on the map) which isn't realitic at all and frankly it's a bit "stupid" and makes the game too easy. This was my major complain regarding this game with pre-1.13 versions, thankfully this was solved with patch 1.13

Nevertheless I still prefer the older Jagged Alliance 2 because it had more features such as having a Helicopters (and/or later on a Jeep as well) to transport your mercs around the strategic map and you had more weapon slots where you could attach more stuff besides sights such as laser sight/pointer, bipods, grenade launchers, etc...
IMO, Jagged Alliance Back in Action is better than the older Jagged Alliance 2 in terms of graphics (obviously!) and I also prefer the real time with pause (of Jagged Alliance Back in Action) to the turn-base gameplay (of Jagged Alliance 2).

I'm in the midst of taking cambria university and hospital. I took the university last night. I used two teams. Team 1 secured the perimeter by eliminating the guards outside the compound. They then took a defensive position in the parking lot to prevent reinforcement from the hospital and to prevent guards inside the compound from exiting. A sniper from team 1 then took out a pair of guards on the roof. Team 2 then snuck up on the roof. Using careful positioning they were able to eliminate the remaining guards outside the buildings by attacking them from on the roof. Once that was completed they descended and entered the building (which by this point had only three remaining guards holed up inside. Team 2 switched to silenced MP5SD's and were able to induce the enemy to leave their defensible position, at which point they were eliminated.

Tonight I hope to clear the hospital. It looks to be a tougher nut to crack. Once I have liberated that I will probably liberate the SAM site and Cambria itself from the clutches of the evil dictator.

AAR! AAR! AAR! Write one, please! With pics, maybe?

We will see. Maybe.

I played for over 2 hours just to liberate the university. It looks to be the easier of the two.

One trick I found that works really well for clearing buildings is to find a side with lots of windows, crawl your team members below each window, turn their field of fire to face inside, then have them stand up in the gun ready position. You instantly have 3 or 4 shooters at one or two targets, its very effective, and can often take them by surprise.

If you think that taking Cambria is hard (and inded it is) wait until you take Grumm!

In Grumm there's something like 50 plus enemy soldiers defending the Industrial Park area (which is a rather small area BTW) and 25 or so soldiers defending the town itself (with a total of almost 80 soldiers defending Grumm). And to reach Grumm you should either take a supply depot (located in the Grumm outskirts east of Grumm Industrial Park) which is guarded by something like 30 enemy soldiers or take a road block (located in the Grumm outskirts east of Grumm town) which is only guarded by 10 soldiers. Either way in the end you should take both of these 2 locations.
In my game I already took almost every major town/cities in Arulco with the sole exception of the capital city of Meduna (there's also some other "minor" sectors still occupied by the enemy) and so far and by far the hardest town to take was definitly Grumm! It took me almost an entire REAL LIFE DAY just to occupy both the Industrial Park and the town of Grumm. I took Grumm with 1 squad of very well equiped (with some of the best weapons and armour in the game) and now well experienced mercs and the results that one of my mercs ended up severly wounded with only a small bar of remaining health (I had to order this merc had to abandon combat) and all others were either considerably injured and/or had their body armour completly worn out!

I just can't imagine how it will be when I start taking Meduna!

I moved on to the hospital last night. After taking the university I had team 1 in the compound of the university, in the main building, and Team 2 outside, in the parking lot providing containment. I had team 2 reposition so that they could contain hostiles exiting the main doors of the hospital. Over the course of an hour or so of play I took out more than 8 enemies from that position. I had a single sniper (PSG1 w/ 12x), a designated marksman (FAL w/ 12x) and three support soldiers (2x Tavor w/ reflex or EoTech, 1x AKM w/EoTech). In those exchanges one of the support soldiers was seriously injured and withdrew away to a safe location.

Simultaneously I crawled Team 1 around the east side of the hospital (eliminating a single sniper in the process). I left one support soldier (HK G53 w/12x) and a designated marksmen (VVS Vinatorrez w/ 12x) in front of windows to cover internal hallways.

the remaining three, which included a pair of snipers (1x PSG w/12x, 1x Dragunov w/12x) snuck onto the roof with the intention of clearing the roof. In the process they engaged three targets through a sunroof, eliminating them, though one of my snipers was heavily wounded and forced to withdraw. Two of the three roof top guards were also eliminated. This engagement sparked several guards from inside the facility to exit from the cargo door. Each was quickly eliminated from accurate fire from the roof.

I continue the liberation tonight (fingers crossed). There are three remaining guards in the main hallway of the hospital. My cover team should be able to eliminate them. There is one barricaded in a back room. There are multiple bad guys left in the extended wing of the hospital (10+ I think). So far I have 2 severely WIA from my two teams (5 per team). There are over 30+ enemy KIA.

I took the hospital with few more wrinkles. Once I had those two sectors I consolidated and moved on the SAM site. I used two teams of 6 to assault. One from the north, one from the east. All were equipped with sniper type weapons (except for one or two support elements per team). The team from the east engaged first with a surprise attack on two targets. This riled the enemies guarding the south and west who abandoned their fortified positions to move to the fortified positions to the east side of the site. That proved a crucial error as my team from the north attacked them while they moved through the open. The full assault lasted less than 5 minutes with 11 enemy KIA and no injured mercs.

I then moved on to Cambria. I took the east side of the main street after some significant gun battles. Again I had a 6 man team from the east and a 6 man team from the north. The north team occupied a position along the main north/south road, and when enemy sought to engage my team sweeping the east side they engaged and caused significant losses. I've since moved west, but I still have two large enclaves to take. Hopefully by this time tomorrow Cambria will be liberated from the clutches of the evil Diedriana.

I played it for probably 20-30 hours right after release, and pretty much enjoyed it despite the early issues. Until it got too hard for me to do much with.

Hog, if you want to make it easier, the best way is to simply change one file to make everything an enemy KIA has in their possession fall on their death (no more looking through hundreds of "cases" to find a single weapon), lots of weapons, which can be sold for more money.