Early game: securing the north¶

Full spoilers ahead

This page spoils quests, characters and plot triggers. If you want a gentler start, read How to use the walkthrough first. The previous stage — landing in Omerta and taking Drassen — is covered in First steps; the next stage is the mid game.

With Drassen taken, the early game has three jobs: survive the Drassen counterattack, add Chitzena as a second income, and milk San Mona — a mob-run town with no army garrison — for money, gear and quests. Along the way you can grab the two northern SAM sites and open up friendly airspace for Skyrider's helicopter.

The Drassen counterattack¶

What triggers it¶

Capturing all three Drassen sectors (B13, C13, D13) plays the "Meanwhile..." cutscene: Deidranna orders her best troops to retake the town. In the original game that was an empty threat — no special force was ever sent. In 1.13 the Queen means it. The old 1.13 wiki put it bluntly: "This effectively makes taking Drassen first suicide."

The event is controlled by a single switch in Data-1.13\Ja2_Options.INI, section [Strategic Event Settings], and it ships enabled:

; Can queen send troops to reinforce Drassen like she says she's going to in the Meanwhile...?
; NOTE: This will make the beginning of the game MUCH HARDER if enabled!
TRIGGER_MASSIVE_ENEMY_COUNTERATTACK_AT_DRASSEN = TRUE

How big it is¶

The counterattack is not one blob of enemies. The strategic AI creates four attack groups that set out from Alma (sector H13 — or from the AI's spawn sector if H13 happens to be empty), stage in the sectors around the Drassen mine (D12, E13 and D14), and then assault D13 together, with the fourth group following up as reinforcements. Group size comes from Data-1.13\TableData\DifficultySettings.xml:

Difficulty	Soldiers per group	Total force	Extra elites
Novice	6	24	—
Experienced	10	40	—
Expert	15	60	+25% of troops upgraded to elites
Insane	24	96	+50% of troops upgraded to elites, and the Queen's troop pool is unlimited

Because these numbers live in an XML file, mods (and you) can change them — the table shows the defaults shipped with current 1.13 releases. If you have turned on the optional "Arulco Special Division" strategic AI (ASD_ACTIVE, off by default), attack groups can even swap soldiers for tanks and jeeps.

Holding the mine¶

The groups need time to march north from Alma and stage — use that breathing space. The battle will land on D13, the mine sector, which is also where most of Drassen's flat-roofed buildings and junk piles are.

Build militia early. You can train or buy militia before you have captured the entire city — save cash for it, and keep training until the attack lands. See militia training and command.
Position militia deliberately. Keep them in the mine sector and the sector next to it, so they can join as reinforcements when the attack arrives — in 1.13, nearby friendly groups can reinforce an ongoing battle just like enemy groups can.
Dig in before compressing time. Put your mercs into cover in the tactical screen before you accelerate time to wait out the attack. Rooftops and building interiors in D13 give you interrupt-friendly positions.
Respect your weapon ranges. Do not expose anyone until they can get a good shot; let the enemy walk into your effective range, not the other way around. Suppressive fire drains attacker AP and is very effective against massed infantry.

More general combat advice for this stage of the game is in the starter tips.

Turning it off¶

No shame in the INI switch

Set TRIGGER_MASSIVE_ENEMY_COUNTERATTACK_AT_DRASSEN = FALSE in Data-1.13\Ja2_Options.INI to disable the counterattack entirely. This is the standing recommendation for a first 1.13 campaign — see recommended settings and the options tour.

Two related settings in the same file are worth knowing about while you are there:

AGGRESSIVE_STRATEGIC_AI (default 2) allows Drassen-style counterattacks against all cities (1), plus major progress-based offensives (2). Chitzena and every later town you take can get its own counterattack — see below.
NEW_AGGRESSIVE_AI (default FALSE) enables a strategic AI that assembles teams of several dozen enemies to attack important sectors simultaneously, "similar to the Drassen Counterattack event, except it happens to every city, possibly several times during the campaign", as the INI comment puts it.

Chitzena¶

Chitzena, in the far northwest, is Arulco's smallest town: the ancient ruins in A2 and the miners' village with the mine in B2. The mine is the smallest in the country — a base rate of $2,000 a day at full loyalty, though each campaign randomly hands out production bonuses that can roughly double that — but it is a quick, cheap conquest and a stepping stone to the western map.

Sector	What's there
A2	The Chitzena ruins — a walled historic site, plus Yanni Nomigotta and the Kulba tourists
B2	Miners' huts and the Chitzena mine

Taking the town¶

A2 (ruins): the ruins are ringed by a long stone wall that gives defenders directly behind it excellent cover, so rooting out the enemies here is tougher than the small garrison suggests. There is a break in the wall — the entrance on the west side — so you can flank while keeping your heads down.
B2 (mine): sparse infrastructure; fight it like a farm or countryside sector. Thickets of jungle foliage provide cover everywhere, which makes moving between fire positions easy — for both sides.

People to meet¶

NPC	Where	Why they matter
Yanni Nomigotta	A2, by the ruins entrance	Town elder and tour guide; starts the Chalice of Chance quest
John and Mary Kulba	A2	American tourists who booked Aruba and got Arulco; escort quest
Jasmin "T-Rex" Rexall	B2 (random)	One of the terrorists Carmen Dancio pays bounties for — see NPCs and recruitment

Quest: the Chalice of Chance¶

Talk to Yanni with Friendly or Direct dialogue options until he tells the story of the diamond-encrusted golden Chalice of Chance, looted from the ruins by Deidranna and now displayed in the museum in Balime (L12) for the benefit of the rich. Yanni asks you to bring it home.

Kingpin in San Mona wants the same chalice and pays $20,000 for it, which makes this a quest with a choice:

Return it to Yanni: a 20-point loyalty bonus in Chitzena plus a 10-point loyalty bonus in every town — each scaled by the town's rebel sentiment, which in pro-rebel Chitzena adds up to roughly half the loyalty bar. The everywhere-bonus is what later makes militia training possible in Queen-friendly Balime.
Sell it to Kingpin: $20,000 cash.

The heist itself happens in Balime, deep in enemy territory, so this quest usually sits open until the late game. The full museum walkthrough — the alarm, the guard Eldin Fiddes, and how to appease both quest-givers — is on the side quests page.

Quest: escort John and Mary Kulba¶

Talking to John eventually prompts the couple to ask for an escort to Drassen airport. Walk both of them into the fenced-off airport area in B13 and Mary hands over $2,000 in vacation money, while John mails you two Automag III pistols with ammo — they arrive at the Drassen airport like a Bobby Ray's shipment, roughly two days later. You get nothing if either of them dies on the way.

1.13 extra: with RECRUITABLE_JOHN_KULBA = TRUE in Ja2_Options.INI (the default), John himself turns up on the M.E.R.C. website as a hireable merc 14 days after the escort quest (tunable via RECRUITABLE_JOHN_KULBA_DELAY).

After the fight¶

Chitzena is a normal town: train militia here before you leave, or the Queen simply takes it back. And in 1.13 she may do more than send patrols — with AGGRESSIVE_STRATEGIC_AI at its default of 2, Chitzena can receive its own Drassen-style counterattack: four groups staged from the Grumm area (H3) that assault B2 through the neighboring sectors (B1, C2, B3). A militia garrison plus the ruins' stone wall go a long way; see militia.

San Mona¶

San Mona (sectors C5, C6, D4, D5) is the Las Vegas of Arulco, and all of it belongs to one man: Peter "Kingpin" Klauss. He has an arrangement with the Queen — her army stays out of town (the abandoned mine sector D4 is the exception), her off-duty soldiers relax there, and his people quietly remove anyone the Queen wants removed.

For you this means two unusual rules:

Nobody attacks you on sight. There is no garrison to clear and the town never counts as enemy territory — you can walk in on day one.
You cannot train militia here, and you never need to defend it. San Mona is a place to shop, earn and quest, not to hold.

Keep the safety on

Kingpin's mobsters are everywhere in C5 and D5, they are heavily armed for this stage of the game, and they retaliate as one. Threatening people, taking weapons from houses where mobsters live, or opening fire turns the whole faction — and every Kingpin-loyal NPC — violently hostile.

Sector	What's there
C5	Hans Vanderkilt's XXX shop (with Tony's hidden gun room), Kyle Lemmons' tattoo parlor, the Shady Lady brothel, Frank's Whipping Post bar
C6	The presentable side of town: a bar (Alberto Santos) and Angel DaSilva's leather shop
D4	The abandoned San Mona mine — and Kingpin's money stash below it
D5	Kingpin's boxing club (north) and his guarded manor (south)

Kingpin¶

Kingpin runs San Mona from a manor at the south tip of D5, guarded by his personal bodyguard Damon Warrick, who cannot be talked, bribed or plied past. Forcing or picking the door gets you shot. The intended way to meet him is the boxing ring: Kingpin attends every match, and after your mercs win three matches he invites you to his house. There he offers the Chalice of Chance job — $20,000 for stealing the chalice from the Balime museum (the wiki notes your spokesperson needs Leadership of at least 50 to get the conversation this far). Kingpin himself carries $20,000 in cash, which matters if you ever decide to take him on.

The boxing ring¶

Darren van Haussen — Kingpin's right hand and the club's night manager — runs an "extreme boxing" competition in the club on the north side of D5:

Spike, the doorman, only lets mercs with Leadership 45+ into the club. Darren is only there at night.
Darren takes a bet of $1,000–$5,000 that your merc beats one of the club's fighters bare-handed. After the bell, the first merc to jump over the ropes is your fighter.
Bare fists only, with one exception the code explicitly tolerates: knuckle dusters (brass knuckles). Hitting your opponent with a knife or any other melee weapon gets you disqualified on the spot; attacking with anything deadlier ends the show and starts a real fight.
Win by knockout — the loser is whoever stays floored for two turns (or dies). The winner collects double the bet.
Win three matches total and Kingpin invites you over. The three ringside opponents get progressively harder (and toughen up between sessions): the second knows hand-to-hand fighting and the third is a martial artist.

Boxing as a business

Send a martial artist or a high-strength brawler with knuckle dusters — throwing marbles to knock the opponent down works too. You can fight up to three bouts a night, every other night, for up to $15,000 per session. But leave the sector between sessions: if you idle in the bar, the club fighters never heal (and if Darren keeps returning your money without starting a bout, exit the sector and re-enter). Firing any weapon from ringside ends the game show and starts a real fight with the entire club.

Kingpin's money¶

Several people — Angel, and Joey Graham if you meet him — hint at a cash stash in the abandoned mine in D4. It is real: keep descending until you can exit to the next level and you reach a room full of chests holding a massive amount of money, next to a ladder that leads up into Kingpin's manor (the room above is riddled with alarms).

Taking the money has consequences. Kingpin emails you a demand: return it within 72 hours, plus a 25% "service fee", delivered in person to his house. Miss the deadline and he starts sending hitmen — Jim Perry, Ray Baker, Olaf Helinski, Olga Statova, Tyrone Banks and Jack Remington — disguised as ordinary civilians, with high stats and heavy weapons. San Mona turns hostile, which also complicates shopping at Tony's. Darren refuses to run boxing matches while you owe Kingpin money, so finish your boxing career first, and note that killing Kingpin ends the extortion — he keeps his own $20,000 (and the chalice reward, if pending) on his body.

Tony the arms dealer¶

The best gun shop of the early game hides in a back room of Hans Vanderkilt's XXX shop in C5:

Hans won't talk business while Brenda Drake is loitering in his store. Find the videotape — in a chest in the northeastern-most house of the sector, or on a side table in the Shady Lady's reception — and Brenda leaves.
A merc with a little Leadership (the wiki cites roughly 15–25) then gets waved through to Tony.
Tony trades 24 hours a day, buys and sells guns, knives, grenades and weapon accessories, and holds $15,000 in cash that refreshes every 24 hours. Sometimes he has "stepped out" to restock — come back a day or two later.

1.13 notes: Tony's inventory is substantially bigger than in vanilla, and Tony and Hans have no chance of turning hostile unless directly attacked. The option CHANCE_TONY_AVAILABLE in Ja2_Options.INI (default 80, the vanilla odds) can be raised to 100 so Tony is always home — see the options tour.

The Shady Lady and Maria's rescue¶

The Shady Lady brothel in C5 is run by Madame Layla with her bouncer Billy GoonBall at the door; only male mercs are allowed in as customers. One of the women working there is Maria DaSilva — and she is not there by choice.

Her brother Angel DaSilva runs the Skin Tyte leather shop in C6. When you first meet him he offers a one-time deal on a kevlar-treated leather jacket for $950; talk further and he begs you to free Maria from the brothel — quietly, because the Shady Lady belongs to Kingpin.

The short version: get a male merc past Billy, find Maria in the room at the end of the main corridor, deal with the locked and alarmed back doors (the alarm switch and key are in a room marked "Do Not Enter"), avoid the patrolling bouncer, and walk Maria straight to Angel's shop in C6 without any Kingpin goon seeing her on the street — otherwise they open fire on you and her, and Angel counts the quest failed. Full step-by-step detail is on the side quests page.

Rewards: the deed to Angel's shop — which Kyle Lemmons, the tattoo artist in C5 who has always dreamed of owning a leather shop, buys off you for $10,000 — plus the kevlar leather jacket for free if you didn't buy it earlier (make sure a merc is inside the shop when Maria arrives, or the handover can glitch).

Other people worth finding¶

Frank tends the Whipping Post bar in C5 and sells drinks; he is a Kingpin loyalist.
Joey Graham, the runaway kid from the Cambria quest Find Joey, turns up in C5 or in the mine sublevel under D4 — details in the mid game.
Micky O'Brien, ex-gunrunner turned animal-parts dealer, drinks in northern bars (including San Mona's) and buys bloodcat pelts, teeth and claws.
Devin Connell sells explosives — TNT up to C-4, mines, grenades and detonators — in the same rotation of bars, and can be recruited later in the campaign (buy his stock first; it disappears when he joins).
Carmen Dancio, the bounty hunter who pays for terrorist heads, also passes through — see NPCs and recruitment.
Igmus "Iggy" Palkov, a deserter from the Queen's army, appears in the C5 bar after you have taken five towns and hires on for $1,950/day.

Loot highlights¶

Kingpin's stash in D4 is the single biggest pile of cash in the early game — if you are prepared for the fallout described above.
The mob's guns: Kingpin's people carry assault rifles and kevlar at a point in the campaign where you may still be fielding pistols. Wiping out the mob is a real (if drastic) gearing-up strategy — in 1.13, Tony and Hans stay neutral through it unless you attack them directly.
Tony's shelves stock rare items you cannot buy elsewhere, and his cash drawer makes him the best fence for captured weapons.
The deed ($10,000 from Kyle) and Angel's kevlar leather jacket round out the Maria quest.

The northern SAM sites¶

Four SAM sites guard Arulco's airspace — D2, D15, I8 and N4 — and any red sector on the map's airspace view (press A on the strategic map) is a no-fly zone where Skyrider's helicopter gets shot up. Two of the four are early-game targets:

D15, just east of Drassen, sits next to your first town and your airport.
D2, in the same map column as Chitzena two sectors south of the town, covers the northwest.

Worth knowing:

Once you capture your first site, Skyrider tells you where the rest are and they are marked on your map (found him yet? The Find the helicopter pilot quest is on the side quests page).
SAM sites are well guarded for the early game, but the guards drop better-than-average gear — a deliberate reason to hit them early.
Every SAM sector hides trapped chests in a locked room; disarm the traps or shoot the locks rather than picking them.
Destroying the SAM control computer in tactical mode disables the site without holding the sector — temporarily, since the army repairs it when they retake it.
The army actively tries to recapture SAM sites, so train militia there — in 1.13, SAM sectors support militia training up to veterans, and mobile militia can intercept the attackers. See militia.

Where to go next¶

With Drassen held against the counterattack, Chitzena's mine running, San Mona's quests done and the northern SAMs flying your flag, the north is yours. The campaign now moves to the center of the country: Cambria, Alma and Grumm — continue with the mid game.

Sources¶

San Mona, Chitzena, Drassen, SAM Site and Arulco Mines on the Jagged Alliance Wiki (Fandom), retrieved via the wiki's API.
Fandom character and quest pages: Peter "Kingpin" Klaus, Darren van Haussen, Spike, Damon Warrick, Tony, Hans Vanderkilt, Kyle Lemmons, Madame Layla, Angel DaSilva, Maria DaSilva, Rescuing Angel's sister Maria, Chalice of Chance, Yanni Nomigotta, John Kulba, Frank, Micky O'Brien, Devin Connell, Igmus "Iggy" Palkov.
Ja2_Options.INI from the 1dot13/gamedir repository (current master) — TRIGGER_MASSIVE_ENEMY_COUNTERATTACK_AT_DRASSEN, AGGRESSIVE_STRATEGIC_AI, NEW_AGGRESSIVE_AI, CHANCE_TONY_AVAILABLE, ASD_ACTIVE and their comments.
Data-1.13\TableData\DifficultySettings.xml from the 1dot13/gamedir repository — counterattack group sizes, elite bonuses and troop pools per difficulty.
Strategic AI.cpp and Strategic Mines.cpp from the 1dot13/source repository — counterattack group creation, staging and target sectors for Drassen and Chitzena; mine locations.
Tactical/Boxing.cpp, Tactical/Overhead.cpp, Tactical/Soldier Control.cpp and Tactical/Interface Dialogue.cpp from the 1dot13/source repository — boxing rules (brass-knuckles exemption, disqualification vs. open war, two-turn knockout, three boxers and their skills, double-the-bet payout), Kyle's $10,000 for the deed, John Kulba's Automag III shipment.
Data-1.13\TableData\MercProfiles.xml from the 1dot13/gamedir repository — NPC names (Kingpin's hitmen, "Klauss"), Iggy's $1,950 salary, civilian groups showing Tony and Hans outside Kingpin's faction.
Data-1.13\TableData\NPCInventory\Merchants.xml from the same repository — Tony's $15,000 cash drawer and daily refresh.
Data-1.13\TableData\Map\SamSites.xml and SectorNames.xml from the same repository — SAM site sectors D2/D15/I8/N4 (all hidden at game start, terminal repairable by elites) and town sector designations.
Data-1.13\Scripts\initmines.lua and StrategicEventHandler.lua from the same repository — Chitzena's $500-per-period base production plus random production bonuses; Tony's availability roll; Devin's and Carmen's daily bar rounds; Darren's $15,000 daily bankroll.
Data-1.13\Scripts\StrategicTownLoyalty.lua from the same repository — chalice loyalty bonuses (+20 Chitzena, +10 everywhere, sentiment-scaled).
Features page of the old 1.13 pbworks wiki (2008–2012 era; saved copy) — Drassen counterattack description.
Jagged Alliance 2 v1.13 Play Guide (previous starter documentation, r8741 era) — counterattack defense tips.