The strategic war¶
While your mercs clear sectors one firefight at a time, Deidranna is playing the same
strategy game you are — with a real (if simple) AI making decisions on a clock, a
finite army to spend, and in 1.13 a second AI with its own bank account buying tanks
and helicopters. This page explains how the enemy fights the campaign as a whole, and
links to the pages that cover each piece in depth. Everything below is taken from the
current GitHub-era data files and source; the key numbers live in
TableData\DifficultySettings.xml and the [Strategic …] sections of
Ja2_Options.INI (see the options tour).
The Queen's side of the map¶
One army, three kinds of groups¶
The army you fight is drawn from a single pool of troops:
- Garrisons sit in fixed sectors — towns, SAM sites, key crossroads. What each
garrison contains (admin/troop/elite percentages, sizes, and a priority that decides
who gets reinforced first) is data:
TableData\Army\ArmyComposition.xmlandGarrisonGroups.xml. - Patrols roam predefined routes between waypoints, defined in
TableData\Army\PatrolGroups.xml. Destroy one and it stays gone for a grace period (16 days on Novice down to 2 on Insane) before the Queen may refill it from her reserve. - Attack groups are raised for a purpose — retaking a specific sector — and head there.
Behind all of them stands the reserve: the Queen starts the campaign with a pool
of troops (150/200/400 on Novice/Experienced/Expert; on Insane the pool is flagged
unlimited), part of which is placed on the map as garrisons and patrols at game start
(scaled by the initial garrison percentage, 70–200% by difficulty). Every
reinforcement she sends is deducted from the reserve — and she trains replacements:
with the stock data, whenever the reserve runs low it is refilled with a batch of new
recruits (60/120/180/240 soldiers by difficulty) and the strategic AI pauses briefly
while she trains them. (The XML also offers an alternative schema where the army
instead recruits a percentage of sector populations on a day interval —
QueenPoolIncrementDaysPerDifficultyLevel — but the shipped data uses the simple
one.) Kill her soldiers faster than she can train them and the army genuinely runs
dry. Who those soldiers are — admins, troops, elites, and their gear — is
covered on the know your enemy page.
The decision clock¶
The strategic AI works on a timer: the Queen makes one decision at a time, at an
interval set per difficulty in DifficultySettings.xml
(BaseDelayInMinutesBetweenEvaluations plus a random variance) — from a leisurely
8 ± 4 hours on Novice down to 90 ± 60 minutes on Insane. A decision might reinforce a
threatened garrison, refill a patrol, or order an attack.
Two things modify the tempo:
- Grace periods. After you take a sector, the Queen cannot decide to attack it
for a fixed time (
GracePeriodInHoursAfterSectorLiberation: 144 h on Novice, just 6 h on Insane). That window is your time to train militia. - Enemy generals. If the optional generals feature is on, every general still alive speeds up the Queen's decisions and her groups' travel. Hunting them down slows the whole war machine — see enemy generals.
The army also gets smarter as the war drags on: at higher difficulties and progress
levels the AI upgrades garrison and field admins to real troops
(UpgradeAdminsToTroops / UpgradeGarrisonsAdminsToTroops /
AlwaysUpGradeAdminsToTroopsProgress in DifficultySettings.xml), so the pushover
yellow-shirts disappear from the map over time.
Alertness¶
Each difficulty sets a starting alert level (5/20/60/80) — the chance that
garrisons near your operations notice and react. Certain events put the Queen into
full alert, during which nearby forces automatically join battles for a number of
enemy-initiated fights (NumAwareBattles, 1–4 by difficulty). On Expert and Insane
the Queen also wakes up immediately after your first battle
(StrategicAiActionWakeQueen) instead of dozing through your early game.
Counterattacks: she wants her towns back¶
Losing a town is not something the Queen shrugs off. Several layers control how hard
she hits back, all in [Strategic Event Settings] of Ja2_Options.INI:
| Setting | Default | Effect |
|---|---|---|
TRIGGER_MASSIVE_ENEMY_COUNTERATTACK_AT_DRASSEN |
TRUE |
The famous Drassen counterattack: after you liberate Drassen, four attack groups converge on it simultaneously. |
AGGRESSIVE_STRATEGIC_AI |
2 |
0: no city counterattacks. 1: counterattacks possible on all cities. 2: additionally, major offensives at high game progress. |
GAME_PROGRESS_OFFENSIVE_STAGE_1 / _2 |
65 / 85 |
Progress levels at which the Queen goes on the offensive ([Strategic Progress Settings]; requires AGGRESSIVE_STRATEGIC_AI = 2). |
Verified against the current source, this is what those mean in practice:
- City counterattacks. Liberating Drassen, Chitzena, Cambria, Alma, Grumm or
Balime triggers a counterattack on that town: four groups, each of the
per-difficulty counterattack size (6/10/15/24 soldiers — so 24 on Novice up to 96
on Insane), staging around the town and attacking together. Groups can include a
tank or jeep among the soldiers. With
AGGRESSIVE_STRATEGIC_AI = 0the non-Drassen counterattacks are downgraded to merely reinforcing a nearby SAM site. - Global offensives. The first time your progress reaches stage 1 (default 65%) and again at stage 2 (85%), the Queen orders a one-time simultaneous assault on every player-held city that she can raise groups against — deliberately timed so you cannot ferry one squad between the battles. The Cambria SAM site is a favorite target, precisely to ground your helicopter while the rest of the attacks land.
- Attrition limit. The Queen eventually gives up on towns that keep costing her:
she stops attacking a town sector after taking-and-losing it a number of times
(
QueenAttackLosingControlOfSector: 4/8/12 by difficulty — but never on Insane).
Two further switches in [Strategic Enemy AI Settings] are off by default:
| Setting | Default | Effect |
|---|---|---|
NEW_AGGRESSIVE_AI |
FALSE |
Alternative attack logic that assembles teams of several dozen enemies, with reinforcements, to hit important sectors simultaneously — "like the Drassen counterattack, except it happens to every city, possibly several times during the campaign" (the INI's own warning). |
ENEMY_INVESTIGATE_SECTOR |
FALSE |
Enemies in adjacent city sectors come to investigate when you take a city sector (only while you stay in tactical view). Disabled in the original game. |
REASSIGN_PENDING_REINFORCEMENTS |
FALSE |
Vanilla behavior that dumbed down the AI: cancel enemy reinforcements already en route once you take their target sector. Leave it off for a smarter enemy. |
On top of the strategic layer, enemies in adjacent sectors can reinforce a battle
in progress — they arrive at the map edge a few turns in (enabled per difficulty in
DifficultySettings.xml; delays and sizes are tunable via
MIN/RND_DELAY_ENEMY_REINFORCEMENTS and MIN/RND_ENTER_ENEMY_REINFORCEMENTS in
[Strategic Gameplay Settings]). Militia can do the
same for you.
The Drassen counterattack
The counterattack a new player actually has to survive is the first one. The
starter tips page has a battle
plan; turning TRIGGER_MASSIVE_ENEMY_COUNTERATTACK_AT_DRASSEN off is the
no-shame alternative.
SAM sites: the war for the skies¶
Four surface-to-air missile sites divide up Arulco's airspace. Their locations and
coverage are data (TableData\Map\SamSites.xml): sectors D2 (northwest, near
Chitzena), D15 (northeast, near Drassen), I8 (center, near Cambria) and
N4 (south, near Meduna). All four start hidden on the strategic map in the
current data — Skyrider will point them out once you fly with him.
While a SAM site is enemy-controlled, flying through its covered sectors is expensive and dangerous: Skyrider charges ten times his normal rate there and risks being shot at. Capture the site and its airspace flips to you. Details — costs, hit chances, helicopter damage and repair — are on the vehicles page; the mid-game walkthrough covers the SAM campaign sector by sector.
1.13 specifics worth knowing, straight from the data file:
- Coverage is a flagmask, and the default map overlaps. The stock 1.13 coverage
table differs from vanilla (the old table is still in
SamSites.xml, commented out): central Arulco is covered by two or three SAMs at once, so clearing the middle of the map means taking multiple sites, while parts of the far south and southeast are uncovered entirely. - Each site has a control terminal in its sector. Destroying the terminal knocks the SAM out without capturing it; enemy elites can repair it if they retake the site, and you can repair a damaged site from the strategic map.
- Your SAMs shoot back. Captured SAM sites automatically fire on known enemy helicopters in their airspace — but only if the site is staffed by mercs or militia. An empty SAM site defends nothing.
The Arulco Special Division (ASD)¶
The ASD is 1.13's second strategic AI ([Strategic Additional Enemy AI Settings]),
and the reason late-campaign patrols can show up with armor. It is off by
default (ASD_ACTIVE = FALSE, also a toggle on the
new-game options screen) and the INI explicitly does not
recommend it for new players.
The design is economic: the ASD has its own money budget and must buy, ship, fuel and maintain everything it fields. Verified in the current source: it starts the campaign with $200,000, and the daily income of every mine not under your control is paid into its account — one more reason mines matter (see the economy page). Assets ordered from abroad take real time to arrive:
| Asset | Cost (ASD_COST_*) |
Delivery (ASD_TIME_*) |
Fuel to deploy (ASD_FUEL_REQUIRED_*) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fuel (1 unit) | $10 | 480 min | — |
| Jeep | $20,000 | 720 min | 20 |
| Robot | $25,000 | 720 min | 0 |
| Helicopter | $30,000 | 1200 min | refuelled at base |
| Tank | $50,000 | 1440 min | 100 |
With ASD_ASSIGNS_TANKS / ASD_ASSIGNS_JEEPS / ASD_ASSIGNS_ROBOTS (all TRUE
once ASD is on), those assets join patrols and attack groups. Enemy helicopters
(ENEMYHELI_ACTIVE = TRUE, but inert without ASD) ferry up to six elites per bird to
raid lightly defended targets; verified in the current code, the raid planner scores
targets by value — roads, then farms (if the militia volunteer pool is on), towns,
mines, and above all your SAM sites — and skips anything defended well enough
to look like a killing field, or any route with too many active hostile SAMs
(ENEMYHELI_TOLERATED_HOSTILE_SAMSECTORS = 4). What jeeps, tanks, robots and helis
are like in combat, and how to shoot helicopters down with SAMs and MANPADS, is on
the know your enemy page.
Because it all runs on money and fuel, the ASD is attackable as a system: shoot
down its helicopters, destroy them on the ground at their base, steal fuel
deliveries, take mines away — every dollar it spends replacing assets is a dollar
not spent attacking you. Sector specifics for these features live in
Mod_Settings.ini.
Availability also scales with campaign progress ([Strategic Gameplay Settings]):
jeeps from JEEP_MINIMUM_PROGRESS = 30, robots from ROBOT_MINIMUM_PROGRESS = 45,
tanks from TANK_MINIMUM_PROGRESS = 60. Enemy helicopters unlock when the AI learns
of your own helicopter use, or at ENEMYHELI_DEFINITE_UNLOCK_AT_PROGRESS = 30 (in
[Enemy Helicopter Settings]) at the latest.
Supply convoys: strategic transport groups¶
With STRATEGIC_TRANSPORT_GROUPS_ENABLED = TRUE (default FALSE, in
[Strategic Gameplay Settings]; also a toggle on the
new-game 1.13 features screen), the army runs transport
groups — supply convoys, a third kind of enemy group besides patrols and attack
groups. The source describes them frankly as "a loot piñata for the player": convoy
members are flagged to drop everything they carry regardless of your drop
settings, plus extra supplies — but convoys travel behind enemy lines, so you must
go hunting. Verified in the current source (Strategic Transport Groups.cpp, a
GitHub-era feature by rftr):
- Route. Convoys spawn at the Queen's staging sector (P3 in Meduna on the
standard map;
STRATEGIC_AI_SPAWN_SECTOR_X/YinMod_Settings.ini) and drive to an enemy-held town with a working, enemy-controlled mine — no mining towns left to the enemy, no convoys. On Expert and Insane only towns fully under enemy control qualify. At the destination the convoy pauses about six hours, then returns home; on Expert/Insane its arrival also deals a small country-wide loyalty hit. - How many at once. At most
MAX_SIMULTANEOUS_STRATEGIC_TRANSPORT_GROUPS = 5run simultaneously, further capped by the number of qualifying destination towns — and every convoy you destroyed in the last 7 days lowers the cap by one. - They are part of the reserve. Convoy escorts are deducted from the Queen's troop reserve when they deploy. A convoy that makes it home pays the army back with interest: the reserve grows (+10/+15/+40 troops on Experienced/Expert/Insane), the ASD — if active — receives a cash-and-fuel injection, and the Queen immediately gets an extra strategic decision. Intercepting convoys is therefore both profit and sabotage; letting them run feeds the whole enemy war machine. (On Novice all of these rewards are zero — convoys are pure loot with no downside.)
- The loot. If the convoy has a jeep, the jeep is the treasure chest: several
guns each with a pile of ammo, launchers with rockets or grenades, medical kits,
first-aid kits, toolkits, gas cans, camouflage kits, weapon attachments and thrown
grenades. Foot escorts carry ammo boxes — deliberately only in calibers your mercs
actually use — plus backpacks and small extras. Modders tag which items may appear
in convoy manifests per item in
Items.xml(<TransportGroupMinProgress>/<TransportGroupMaxProgress>). - Escalation. Escort strength scales with campaign progress and difficulty, can include ASD jeeps, tanks and robots past their usual progress thresholds, and each interception in the last 7 days makes the next convoys stronger. Convoy raiding stays profitable, but never becomes free.
- Finding them. A merc with the Scouting trait reveals convoys within 1 sector, an awake radio operator with a working set within 3. A covert operative gathering intel in an enemy town — or enough turncoats stationed there — flags that town when a convoy is inbound, and turncoats traveling inside a convoy give its position away. Located convoys and destinations are highlighted on the strategic map ("Transport group" / "Transport group en route").
- Or bring them to you. The Rebel Command agent mission Forge Transport Orders plants a bogus supply request that orders a convoy to your agent's sector. The mission is only offered while transport groups are enabled, and requires one of your own mercs as the agent.
Bandits and other opportunists¶
Not every threat on the map answers to the Queen. With the optional raid features
on, bandits, bloodcats or zombies attack poorly defended player towns and SAM
sites at night (RAID_BANDITS / RAID_BLOODCATS / RAID_ZOMBIES, all FALSE by
default). Raiders don't hold territory, but they kill loyalty-giving civilians and
fight in autoresolve, so an unguarded sector can be lost overnight. Details and
settings are on the know your enemy
page.
Reading the map¶
By default in current 1.13, you only see enemy groups that your militia spot
(NO_ENEMY_DETECTION_WITHOUT_RECON = TRUE in [Strategic Gameplay Settings]) — the
vanilla behavior of every explored sector reporting a red "?" forever is gone unless
you switch it back. Garrisoned militia double as your radar network. Interrogating
prisoners yields intel too, including general locations, and a
covert operative can scout enemy sectors from the inside.
How difficulty and progress scale the war¶
Difficulty mostly sets the tempo and depth of the enemy war effort — the values
below are from the current DifficultySettings.xml (garrison sizes, group sizes and
the troop pool are in the table on the know your enemy page):
| Novice | Experienced | Expert | Insane | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Queen's decision interval | 8 h ± 4 h | 6 h ± 3 h | 3 h ± 2 h | 1.5 h ± 1 h |
| Grace period after you take a sector | 144 h | 96 h | 48 h | 6 h |
| Destroyed patrol stays gone for | 16 days | 12 days | 8 days | 2 days |
| Reserve refill batch when the pool runs low | 60 | 120 | 180 | 240 |
| Starting alert level | 5 | 20 | 60 | 80 |
| Kills needed per progress point | 7 | 10 | 15 | 60 |
| Queen wakes after your first battle | no | no | yes | yes |
| Queen prefers attack over defense | no | no | no | yes |
| Gives up on a much-contested town after | 4 losses | 8 losses | 12 losses | never |
Game progress is the other throttle. By default
(ALTERNATE_PROGRESS_CALCULATION = TRUE in [Strategic Progress Settings]) your
progress equals the strongest of your kill count, sector control and mine income
scores — so a wealthy turtle and a bloodthirsty sprinter both advance the campaign.
Progress drives what the enemy fields against you: better gear (see
Bobby Ray's & item progression), jeeps at 30%, robots at 45%, Mike at
50%, tanks in mobile groups at 60%, the stage-1 offensive at 65%, Iggy at 70%, and
the stage-2 offensive at 85%.
Fighting the strategic war: advice¶
- Use the grace period. The clock to the counterattack starts when you take the town. Train militia immediately, and keep a merc squad within reinforcing distance for the first days.
- Kill patrols on your terms. Ambushing patrols in open terrain of your choosing drains the reserve at little risk — and each dead patrol stays gone for days.
- Take the Cambria SAM early and staff it. It is the lynchpin of the default overlapping coverage, the key to cheap helicopter logistics, and the AI's favorite target for exactly that reason.
- Starve the enemy's economy. Every mine you take is income moved from the ASD's budget to yours; with ASD on, that is the single most effective anti-armor weapon you have.
- Watch your progress. If you are pushing toward 65% progress with
AGGRESSIVE_STRATEGIC_AI = 2, expect the map to erupt — don't let it catch your towns garrisoned by three green militia. - Hunt the leadership. With generals enabled, every one you kill or capture slows the Queen's decisions and movement for the rest of the game.
Sources¶
Ja2_Options.INIfrom 1dot13/gamedir:[Strategic Event Settings],[Strategic Progress Settings],[Strategic Gameplay Settings],[Strategic Enemy AI Settings],[Strategic Additional Enemy AI Settings],[Enemy Helicopter Settings],[Raid Settings]TableData\DifficultySettings.xml,TableData\Map\SamSites.xml,TableData\Army\ArmyComposition.xml/GarrisonGroups.xml/PatrolGroups.xmlfrom 1dot13/gamedir- Source files from 1dot13/source, used to verify
behavior:
Strategic/Strategic AI.cpp(counterattacks, global offensives, new aggressive AI),Strategic/Meanwhile.cpp(counterattack triggers on liberation),Tactical/Campaign.cpp(progress-triggered offensive stages),Strategic/ASD.cpp(ASD budget and helicopter raid targeting),Strategic/Strategic Mines.cpp(enemy mine income feeding the ASD),Strategic/Strategic Transport Groups.cpp(convoy routes, reserve/ASD rewards, loot generation, interception escalation, detection),Strategic/Rebel Command.cpp(Forge Transport Orders),Strategic/Map Screen Interface Map.cpp(convoy map highlights),Tactical/XML_Items.cpp(theTransportGroupMin/MaxProgressitem tags),Ja2/GameSettings.cpp(INI reading;Mod_Settings.inistaging-sector default)