Jagged Alliance - Back in Action's game mechanics aren't overly consistent in terms of time and space, which allows some kind of bug-usage in order to speed up travel times by an enormous factor.

I'lll first cover a little theory on this topic here - if you're not interested in background, feel free to skip over to the next section.

The flaw that I'm talking about could be put as a "lack of temporal continuity combined with existing spatial continuity". Or, in layman's terms, under certain circumstances time doesn't flow while space changes. Translated into real-world terms, imagine you enter a house and while you're walking around in it, not a second passes. The same applies to any activity of mercenaries while on a level map.

This mechanism of time standing still within levels is only one component, though. And, to be honest, I as a programmer would have implemented the game's time flow similarly: Imagine the time flow continuing in-game while in the middle of a battle. In the same time, numerous global troop movements could take place as well, simultaneous battles might not be avoidable in this case, and as a mediocre gamer who simply wants to enjoy a game, the time contiuity would pose a drastic rise in difficulty (because, seriously, you don't want to manage two or more battles in totally different areas simultaneously).

The part that "breaks" JA-BiA, though, is the continuity of space which comes with the discontinuity of time mentioned above. Said freezing time can still work pretty well when also space (mostly) stands still. The original, Jagged Alliance 2 (concerning game mechanics definitely the more thought-through game), did this: The world map was partitioned into small, "discrete" blocks - with "discrete" meaning that, although they were adjacent on the world map, they mostly weren't on the level map (with the exception of city tiles). When a troop of mercenaries left a level map towards a neighbouring field at one of its side borders, it would result in the same travel time on the world map as if the troop was positioned at the opposite side border of the level and ordered to advance to the aforementioned neighbouring field via world map.

Back in Action doesn't do that. Its level maps are perfectly adjacent and form a continous world surface. This not only results in an unrealistically small size of the country of Arulco (realistically a few square kilometers, about the size of a small real-world city state), it also allows a direct mapping of troop positions within a level map to a position on the world map. And JA-BiA does exactly that: if a troop of mercenaries moves within a level tile, the troop's position also changes on the world map, accordingly - see the two pictures below: on the first one, a troop is positioned somewhere near the middle of Cambria, as shown on the level map to the left and, correspondingly on the world map on the right side. After moving them into a level map corner, the world map position has changed significantly as well. And no time has passed between these movements.

Knowing these two factors - time standing still on level maps and troop positions changing on the world map when troop members move on a level map - the time-saving implications are pretty obvious: while traveling through a tile on the world map takes at least an hour for a troop of mercenaries, one can reduce the intra-level traveling time to exactly zero (0) minutes (in-game) by entering the area in which the troop currently is, selecting all the mercenaries and sending them to the tile border they are heading for.


Position the mercenaries as close to the desired exit border as possible, return to the world map and see how not a minute has passed while your troop has traveled aproximately half a kilometer. Also use the fact that the troop position mapping works bidirectionally: after a troop of mercenaries has been placed at a level map border, order them to move as little as possible into the direction of the desired neighbouring tile (this should usually take about 3-10 minutes of in-game time) and on arrival enter the area again. The troop will be positioned very close to the level border adjacent to the tile they came from, from where they can again cross the whole level map in no (in-game) time.

This method becomes especially effective when pausing the time flow on the world map (which is as simple as pressing space by default) before entering a level map: the world map time flow settings are preserved while moving troops on level maps, so when exiting back to the world map after a troop has crossed a level map, there's no hurry giving movement orders to the next tile. Practically, you can also move a lot of troops over quite large distances in-game-simultaneously this way - use a world map pause to move all your troops into position, then give them movement orders, have world time run for about ten minutes, pause again and repeat.

It really is as simple as that - and saves a lot of in-game time. Be aware though, that it does take a minute or two in the real world for a troop of mercenaries to cross a level map, so it's not that much of a real-world time saver, especially when ordering multiple troops - because one has to wait for each single troop to cross its level map, which cannot be done simultaneously.

Apart from not saving real-world time, this stretching of game mechanics isn't a real game-breaker, though. Interestingly, JA-BiA doesn't track time spent on a level map, but it DOES recognize that troops have moved and calculates fatigue in some way. So although you can save a lot of traveling time, mercenaries still need to rest after having marched through several tiles.
My tip: travel along paved roads, if possible - this minimizes travel time between tiles as well as the additional fatigue gathered by traveling on the world map.

The time saved by traveling "directly" still nets out positively, though, as mercenaries need to rest after long travels on the world map as well. Though in that case with the difference that several hours had been wasted for marching before.

However, getting the Blitz Revolution achievement is a no-brainer with this approach (getting the achievement is possible without using this method as well, but in that case requires much more advanced planning).
Having started to use this method on the third day, I got Deidranna killed on day seven, after having liberated all the rest of Arulco and completing every sidequest along the way.


Thank you for reading. I hope I could provide some interesting insights and have helped you to get another achievement (according to Steam's global stats it's a pretty rare one).