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First steps: Omerta and Drassen

This page walks you through the opening of a 1.13 campaign in full detail: hiring your first squad from the laptop, creating your IMP merc, landing in Omerta, meeting the rebels, and taking and holding Drassen — your first town and your first source of income.

Spoilers ahead

Like every walkthrough page, this one spoils quests, NPC locations and story events. If you'd rather discover things yourself, use the spoiler-light guided tutorial instead, and come back here when you're stuck.

If you haven't started a campaign yet, review the new game options first — choices like difficulty, NCTH and the inventory system shape everything that follows.

Day 1: the laptop

The campaign opens on your laptop. Before anyone sets foot in Arulco you hire a team, optionally create a custom merc, and manage your starting cash (which depends on the difficulty level you picked).

Hiring from A.I.M.

A.I.M. (Association of International Mercenaries) is the main hiring site. Mercs are hired on contracts — per day, per week or per two weeks — and most charge a medical deposit on top. In 1.13, hovering over a mercenary's portrait shows their skill traits, so browse before you buy.

The old 1.13 play guide suggests covering these roles in a starter team:

Role Examples
Medic (one or two) MD, Fox, Spider
Technician Vinny, Barry
Fighters Buns, Grizzly, Igor, Grunty, Meltdown
Stealthy approach Mouse, Igor
Night Ops Spider, Barry

Your maximum squad size is set at game start and depends on resolution: up to 6 at 640x480, 8 at 800x600, and 10 at 1024x768. There is more advice on early hires and tactics on the starter tips page.

M.E.R.C.

M.E.R.C. is the budget agency run by Speck. Instead of upfront contracts its mercenaries run up an outstanding balance that you pay off through the website — and if your debt gets too high, Speck starts complaining (by default at $5,000, the MERC_BANKRUPT_WARNING setting in Ja2_Options.INI). The mercs are cheap and of wildly varying quality, which is exactly what a tight early budget sometimes needs.

Creating your IMP

The I.M.P. website lets you create a custom mercenary for $3,000. This is one of the areas where 1.13 goes far beyond vanilla. In current releases (defaults from Ja2_Options.INI, all tweakable — see the options tour):

Setting Default What it does
IMP_PROFILE_COST 3000 Cost of creating one IMP character
IMP_INITIAL_POINTS 500 Total points to distribute over your attributes
IMP_MIN_ATTRIBUTE 35 Below this, an attribute drops straight to 0
IMP_MAX_ATTRIBUTE 85 Attribute ceiling at creation
IMP_BONUS_POINTS_FOR_ZERO_ATTRIBUTE 15 Points refunded for dumping an attribute to 0
IMP_BONUS_POINTS_FOR_DISABILITY 25 Bonus points for taking a disability
IMP_BONUS_POINTS_PER_SKILL_NOT_TAKEN 35 Bonus attribute points per skill trait you skip
DYNAMIC_IMP_PROFILE_COST FALSE If TRUE, each extra IMP costs progressively more

So IMP creation in 1.13 is a genuine point-buy system: you trade skill traits, disabilities and dumped attributes against raw stats. The IMP creation page walks through the whole process, and the traits page explains what every skill trait does. IMPs with expert traits can even receive different starting gear (EXPERTS_GET_DIFFERENT_CHOICES, backed by TableData\Inventory\IMPItemChoices.xml), and the optional ALTERNATIVE_IMP_CREATION setting ties the selectable merc backgrounds to your trait choices.

Multiple IMPs. Unlike vanilla, 1.13 supports more than one IMP character. The old r7609 stable had a "Max IMP Characters" (1–10) option on the New Game screen; that option was removed in r8622, and in current builds the number of IMP slots is defined by entries in MercProfiles.xml instead (any profile with <Type>6</Type> is an IMP slot). Adding more slots is a modding topic — see externalization. On a starting budget, remember each IMP costs $3,000: an IMP-heavy team is cheap per day but expensive up front.

Budgeting

Don't spend everything on hiring. You will soon want cash for militia training ($750 per session by default) and for equipment orders from Bobby Ray's once the Drassen airport is yours. Hire for one or two weeks rather than long contracts you can't yet sustain.

Landing in Omerta (A9)

Omerta is a small two-sector town (A9 and A10) in northern Arulco — the last holdout of the rebels fighting Queen Deidranna's regime, bombed into a husk before your arrival. Your squad drops into sector A9, and A9 remains the drop-off point for every merc that follows until you capture a SAM site.

The sector holds a detachment of Deidranna's soldiers left behind to starve out the rebels. Fight carefully: keep mercs in cover, use low stances (harder to see, harder to hit), and let mercs end their turn with spare AP to earn interrupts. Press F over a tile to check chance-to-hit, range and lighting — see the hotkey reference for more.

Fatima and the letter

Enrico Chivaldori has given you a letter for Miguel Cordona, leader of the rebels — the first quest of the game, and mandatory if you want to recruit any of the local rebel force.

Once A9 is clear, speak to Pacos, a little boy wandering the street. He runs off to a nearby house; follow him and you'll find his mother, Fatima. She doesn't believe Enrico sent you (most Arulcans think he's been dead for years) and will ignore you until you actually hand her the letter. Give it to her and she leads you into the next sector, A10, where the rebels hide.

The rebel hideout (A10)

Fatima brings you to Dimitri Guzzo, the guard outside the underground hideout in A10, and persuades him to let you pass. You're taken downstairs to meet Miguel Cordona, the rebel leader and former election candidate, and Fatima hands him the letter. Completing this scene:

  • makes Ira Smythe available as a recruit,
  • raises loyalty in Omerta,
  • starts the next quest: Rebels need food (see Father Walker below).

Recruiting Ira

Ira joins for free — like all the Omerta rebels, she costs no salary. Her base profile:

Merc HP AGI DEX STR WIS LDR MRK MEC EXP MED Lvl Skills
Ira Smythe 76 72 91 55 83 14 55 8 2 40 2 Teaching (Expert); with 1.13's new traits: Paramedic, Teaching, Scouting

She's a tolerable field medic, an expert teacher (great for training mercs and militia later), and her high wisdom means she improves quickly despite weak starting marksmanship. She also acts as a guide, commenting on most towns and locations you visit.

Keep Ira in the squad for now

Father Walker in Drassen will only cooperate with Ira or with a merc who has a high leadership score. Unless you hired a leader, you need her along to finish the food quest.

Never attack a rebel

All Omerta rebels (Ira, Dimitri, Miguel, Carlos) will defect and open fire if one of your non-rebel mercs deliberately attacks another rebel nearby.

Miguel and Carlos come later

Miguel himself (leadership 98, level 6, marksmanship 85 — one of the best recruitable NPCs in the game) and his advisor Carlos Dasouza won't join yet. In vanilla they only sign up after you have liberated several towns (five settlements, per the classic walkthroughs). 1.13 externalizes this: the EARLY_REBELS_RECRUITMENT setting in Ja2_Options.INI controls when they become available:

Value Miguel and Carlos join
1 Immediately after liberating Omerta
2 After 1–3 liberated towns, per the RPCs' .npc files
3 Vanilla behavior (default) — several towns including Omerta
4 After liberating Omerta and solving the food quest

With the new trait system Miguel comes with expert Squadleader, Melee and Night Ops. Story note: if Miguel is still alive at the end of the game, the ending changes — details on the recruitable NPCs page.

Scavenging Omerta

Omerta has no mine, no shops and (initially) barely any food, but don't leave empty handed: collect everything the dead soldiers dropped. How much they drop is governed by the DROP_ALL setting in Ja2_Options.INI (default 0 — enemies drop only some of their gear; set it before judging the early-game economy). Pistols, ammo and armor scavenged here are your Drassen assault kit.

The road to Drassen

Drassen lies southeast of Omerta and is the town the rebels point you toward. Move out on the strategic map — but expect contact: enemy patrols roam the sectors between Omerta and Drassen, and you may have to win several fights on the way. Before a fight, Shift+B drops your squad's backpacks (they cost AP), and Ctrl+Shift+F picks them all back up afterwards and sorts sector inventory.

Taking Drassen

Drassen spans three sectors from north to south: the airport (B13), the residential center (C13) and the mine (D13). It has everything a young liberation army needs: an airstrip for Bobby Ray's deliveries, a helicopter, and your first mine income.

B13 — Drassen airport

The airport lets you ship in goods from Bobby Ray's and serves as home base for the helicopter (Waldo Zimmer, the helicopter repairman, lives here). Expect a sizable garrison, though mostly yellow-shirted administrators and police.

Approach options:

  • From the north: very effective — it puts you behind most of the defenders — but you must first cross two forest sectors to get into position.
  • From the west: the offices offer cover and windows to shoot through, but you need wire cutters to get through the chain-link fence around the airfield.
  • From the south: the only opening in the fence is here, so that's where most guards are posted, and attackers get little cover.

A few enemies usually wait near the aircraft in the northeast. After the fight, check the lockers in the ACA building in the southeast for spare equipment.

1.13 extra: mercs can be assigned to work at the airport facility, which trains their strength over time.

C13 — residential Drassen

The town center. Enemies here are typically poorly trained and armed, but the sector is open with little cover — attack from the west or south where buildings and rooftops help, or approach near the old airfield where trees offer refuge.

C13 contains a sweatshop that employs children, run by Doreen Harrows (the Doreen is cruel to kids quest). You can resolve it violently or talk her down with a high-leadership merc, which also earns town loyalty — details on the side quests page. Father Walker sometimes drinks in Herve's bar here when he's not at his church.

D13 — the Drassen mine

Most of Drassen's population lives here, and the flat rooftops and junk piles make decent cover. Enemy resistance is similar to the other sectors, but in 1.13 be especially wary of reinforcements: nearby patrols will join the battle, often bringing better-armed red- and black-shirted troops.

Once the sector is clear:

  • Talk to the head miner in the southwest to get the mine — your first daily income — working for you.
  • Father Walker is usually in the church in the center of this sector during the day.
  • The small bar in the northeast sometimes hosts traveling traders: Micky O'Brien (animal furs) can start the campaign here, and Devin Connell (explosives) passes through on his daily rounds. The head-hunter Carmen Dancio makes his rounds through the bars in C13, San Mona and Cambria instead.

Father Walker and the food quest

The Rebels need food quest was given to you by Miguel: the rebels in Omerta are starving, and Father John Walker in Drassen can arrange a supply line.

  1. Find Father Walker during the daytime — in the church in D13, or in the bar in C13. He's nowhere to be found at night, and the game may move him between the two sectors each morning — if he's missing, check the other sector or let a day pass.
  2. Talk to him with Ira in your squad (he has a soft spot for her) or with a high-leadership merc. Nobody else can persuade him.
  3. The supplies take 24 hours to arrive. Then return to Omerta and speak to Miguel.

Rewards: Dimitri Guzzo becomes recruitable, and loyalty rises in both Drassen and Omerta. If you play with Rebel Command enabled (it is off by default), delivering the food also unlocks the rebels' A.R.C. website on your laptop.

Flavor note: Father Walker likes a drink. Buy him alcohol from the bar and, once a pink glass appears next to his portrait, talk to him in a friendly way — he'll share his honest opinion of Deidranna's regime and hint darkly at missing corpses (foreshadowing that matters in Sci-Fi mode).

Recruiting Dimitri

Dimitri joins for free once the food supply is secured:

Merc HP AGI DEX STR WIS LDR MRK MEC EXP MED Lvl Skills
Dimitri Guzzo 75 73 51 71 56 21 77 71 12 17 1 Throwing (Expert); with 1.13's new traits: Throwing, Stealthy

He's initially a better shot than Ira and useful for repairs (mechanical 71), though he comes with no toolkit — hand him one. His low wisdom means slow growth, and he has a quirk of forgetting orders in real-time movement (never in combat or travel). He starts with a Desert Eagle, throwing knives, a steel helmet and a flak jacket.

Pablo and your shipments

At the airport (B13), Pablo Greco runs cargo handling — and he sometimes steals from your Bobby Ray's shipments. If a merc opens a crate and comments that something is missing, Pablo took it.

  • Pay Pablo $20 and he'll keep your deliveries safe.
  • If he already stole something, one bare-handed punch makes him squeal; come back the next day and you'll get your item back (plus some random extras), and he won't steal again. Don't shoot him to intimidate him — any militia in the sector will kill him.

Do not kill Pablo

Killing him costs Drassen loyalty, and his replacement, Salvatore Lappus, can lose entire shipments through sheer incompetence.

Note that Bobby Ray's itself occasionally misdirects shipments or sends them incomplete. If nothing is missing from an opened crate, it's not Pablo's fault, and punching him only gets you yelled at. If you'd rather skip this minigame entirely, 1.13 can turn shipment theft off: set STEALING_FROM_SHIPMENTS_DISABLED = TRUE in Ja2_Options.INI (default FALSE).

Training your first militia

You can't babysit Drassen forever. Put a high-leadership merc (or Ira — teaching helps) on the Train Militia assignment in each town sector. The 1.13 defaults (all from Ja2_Options.INI; the militia feature page covers the full system):

Setting Default Meaning
MILITIA_BASE_TRAINING_COST 750 Cost per training session (green militia)
NUM_MILITIA_TRAINED_PER_SESSION 10 Militia produced per completed session
MAX_MILITIA_PER_SECTOR 20 Cap per sector
MIN_LOYALTY_TO_TRAIN_MILITIA 20 Town loyalty (%) required to train
ALLOW_TRAINING_ELITE_MILITIA FALSE Elite (dark-blue) training disabled by default
DAILY_MILITIA_UPKEEP_TOWN_GREEN/REGULAR/ELITE 10 / 20 / 30 Daily wage per militiaman
RPC_BONUS_TO_MILITIA_TRAINING_RATE 10 RPCs like Ira and Miguel train militia faster (%)

Two things differ from what vanilla veterans expect:

  • You do not need to hold the whole town first — you can train (given 20% loyalty) as soon as you hold a sector, and it's wise to start before the town is fully yours.
  • 1.13 militia charge daily upkeep, paid at midnight. If you can't pay, some or all of them walk. Only militia in your service for at least 24 hours are paid.

Train all three Drassen sectors toward the cap before you move on.

Setting up income

  • The mine (D13) generates daily income once liberated — talk to the head miner. The rate is scaled by MINE_INCOME_PERCENTAGE in Ja2_Options.INI (default 100, i.e. normal JA2 profits).
  • Loyalty grows from quests: the food quest raises loyalty in both Drassen and Omerta, and resolving the Doreen quest peacefully adds more. Loyalty gates militia training, so it is worth the detours.
  • Bobby Ray's opens up as a supply line once the airport is yours — order wire cutters, toolkits, and (if you use NCTH) 2x scopes early, and remember to pay Pablo.

What the enemy does: a short primer

The Queen's army is not a static obstacle course:

  • Patrols roam between towns — the Omerta–Drassen corridor sees regular traffic, and on higher difficulties patrols are bigger, contain more elites, and are more likely to ambush you.
  • Reinforcements: in 1.13, nearby enemy groups can join an ongoing battle, as you'll likely see at the Drassen mine.
  • Counterattacks: current 1.13 releases ship with TRIGGER_MASSIVE_ENEMY_COUNTERATTACK_AT_DRASSEN = TRUE — after you take Drassen, the Queen sends a massive force to retake it, exactly as she threatens in the "Meanwhile..." cutscene. The default AGGRESSIVE_STRATEGIC_AI = 2 additionally allows counterattacks against every city plus progress-based offensives. Both settings are discussed on the recommended settings page.

The Drassen counterattack

This battle can end a young campaign. How to prepare for it — and how to turn it off if you'd rather not deal with it — is covered on the early game page.

Where to go next

With Drassen held, militia trained and income flowing, the map opens up: Chitzena and San Mona are the usual next stops — continue with the early game. Drassen also starts the Find the helicopter pilot quest, covered on the side quests page. For general combat advice see the starter tips, and for every recruitable local, the NPC recruitment page.

Sources