Walkthrough overview¶
This section walks you through the whole campaign: liberating Arulco town by town, solving the side quests, and recruiting every character who will join you along the way. It is written for 1.13, but because 1.13 keeps the original story and quests, almost everything here applies to vanilla Jagged Alliance 2 as well.
Spoilers ahead
Everything in the walkthrough section discusses quests, plot events, hidden locations, and character secrets openly. The rest of this documentation is kept spoiler-free on purpose — this section is not. If this is your first campaign and you want to discover Arulco yourself, read the guided tutorial and the starter tips instead; they get you safely through the opening days with minimal spoilers. This overview page itself stays spoiler-light: it names towns and facilities, but the deep spoilers live in the sub-pages.
The setting in one minute¶
Arulco is a small third-world nation with nine towns: Omerta, Drassen, Chitzena, San Mona, Cambria, Alma, Grumm, Balime, and Meduna. Meduna is the capital and the largest town. There are two airports (Drassen and Meduna), two hospitals (Cambria and Meduna), four SAM sites guarding the airspace, and a handful of gold and silver mines that keep the regime funded. Besides the towns there are three smaller locations of note: Estoni, Tixa, and Orta.
For roughly a decade the country has been ruled by Queen Deidranna Reitman, who turned Arulco into a dictatorship after her husband, King Enrico Chivaldori, was believed dead. The last rebel holdout, led by Miguel Cordona, is hiding in Omerta — and that is exactly where your mercenaries land.
How the walkthrough is organized¶
The campaign pages follow the order most players take the country in, plus three reference pages that cut across the whole map:
- First steps — the laptop, creating your IMP merc, hiring your first team, landing in Omerta, and taking Drassen, at a beginner's pace.
- Early game — surviving the Drassen counterattack, then Chitzena and San Mona.
- Mid game — Cambria, Alma, and Grumm.
- Late game — Estoni, Orta, Tixa, Balime, and the final assault on Meduna.
- Side quests — every side quest, town by town.
- NPCs and recruitment — who can join your team, where to find them, and the terrorists and other wanted characters.
- Secrets — hidden weapon caches, unique items, and easter eggs across the whole map.
A suggested campaign route¶
Jagged Alliance 2 is open-ended: after Omerta you can move on the map in almost any order. The route below is the classic one — it matches how the walkthrough pages are grouped, and it prioritizes income and supply lines early. One line per stop, spoilers saved for the sub-pages:
| Stop | Why go there |
|---|---|
| 1. Omerta | Your landing zone. Link up with the rebels for leads and help — there is no mine or militia here, so move on quickly. |
| 2. Drassen | An airport and a mine: your first steady income and the delivery point for Bobby Ray's online gun shop. |
| 3. Chitzena or San Mona | Chitzena adds Arulco's smallest mine as a quick second income; San Mona is neutral, mob-run ground — no army garrison to fight, and useful shopping. |
| 4. Cambria | A central crossroads with a silver mine and Arulco's only hospital outside the capital. |
| 5. Alma and Grumm | The army's headquarters and the industrial heart of Arulco — both hold mines, and Alma holds intel that reveals hidden locations. |
| 6. Estoni, Orta, Tixa | One-sector detours: a junkyard that makes a handy repair-and-refuel base, plus two hidden facilities worth finding. |
| 7. Balime | The last regular town before the capital — wealthy, loyal to the Queen, and without a mine, so expect a cold welcome. |
| 8. Meduna | The capital and Deidranna's seat of power. The final assault, complete with tanks. |
Militia everywhere you go
Whatever route you take, train militia in each town before moving on — otherwise the Queen's army simply takes it back while you are elsewhere. See militia training and command.
How 1.13 changes the campaign flow¶
The map, towns, and quests are the vanilla ones, but 1.13 changes how the strategic war plays. If you know vanilla JA2, expect these differences:
The Drassen counterattack¶
In the original game, capturing all of Drassen triggers a cutscene of Deidranna
ordering her best troops to retake the town — and then nothing happens. In 1.13
those troops actually show up: a massive counterattack that can make taking
Drassen first feel like suicide if you are not ready for it. Survival advice is in
the starter tips and the early game page.
If you would rather skip it, set TRIGGER_MASSIVE_ENEMY_COUNTERATTACK_AT_DRASSEN
to FALSE in Ja2_Options.INI — see
the options tour and the
recommended settings.
Militia are a real army now¶
Militia can be ordered around on the tactical map, can follow your squad and reinforce it when you attack a city sector, and roaming militia can patrol the countryside and intercept enemy patrols before they reach your towns. Veteran militia can be trained in city and SAM sectors. Details on the militia page.
A more aggressive, scaling enemy¶
- When you capture a town sector, enemies in neighboring sectors may come to
investigate, resulting in a near-immediate follow-up battle.
Ja2_Options.INIcan extend this to all sectors or disable it entirely. - Enemies can call in reinforcements from adjacent sectors during battle — and so can your militia.
- Patrol size, the number of elite troops in patrols, the chance of being
ambushed, and how many moves the Queen makes per day are all configurable in
Ja2_Options.INI. - Higher difficulty levels field larger garrisons and more elite troops, and the 1.13-exclusive INSANE difficulty gives the Queen unlimited reinforcements that keep attacking for the whole campaign.
- As the campaign's progress value rises, both you and the enemy get access to better equipment ("coolness" tiers). How fast that happens is set by the Progress Speed of Item Choices option when you start a game — see new game options.
The story is still vanilla¶
Reassurance for returning players and first-timers alike: 1.13 contains the original maps, story, and quests. Deidranna, the rebels, the mines, the terrorists, the recruitable townsfolk — all of it works the way it did in the original game, so a vanilla walkthrough remains broadly valid, and this walkthrough is equally useful if you ever play unmodded JA2. Where 1.13 changes the practical experience (the counterattack, militia, scaling enemies, new gear), the walkthrough pages call it out explicitly.
Sources¶
- Arulco on the Jagged Alliance Wiki (Fandom), plus its town and location pages (Omerta, Drassen, Chitzena, San Mona, Cambria, Alma, Grumm, Estoni, Orta, Tixa, Balime, Meduna), retrieved via the wiki's API.
- Features page of the old 1.13 pbworks wiki (2008–2012 era; saved copy) — Drassen counterattack, militia features, enemy AI and difficulty scaling.
- The previous 1.13 starter documentation and play guide (r8741 era) by tais and Yunotchi — INI setting name, progress/coolness, new game options.