I'm a big fan of the original JA and wanted to test JA2 + addons/mods on Win7. Finding out which mod supports which JA2 version and how to properly install everything turned out to be a nightmare though (; .

Let me describe what I've learned so far:

First, the games.

There's the original JA2, which can be patched to v1.07 according to patches-scrolls.

Then there's JA2 Unfinished Business, which is a stand-alone expansion. This game can be patched to v1.01, according to patches-scrolls. This game seems to be much shorter (less levels/maps) than JA2, and it seems it's not possible to play original JA2 levels/maps in JA2UB.

Next in line is JA2 Gold, where everything starts to get complicated. This version implements "improvements from JA2UB" according to Wikipedia. I presume this version contains maps/levels from both JA2 and JA2UB, plus some changes/updates to the original code. Latest patch is v1.12, again according to patches-scrolls.

Then we have JA2 Wildfire. This seems to be a "mod-turned-official", and was released with source code (!). This version doesn't alter the basic game engine and controls but instead focusses on new environments and items, and stronger enemies. This version is also referred to as "WF5", and seems to be quite buggy. Only "minor hotfixes" were released according to Wikipedia. It seems there's no patches for this release on patches-scrolls however.
Then, another version of JA2 Wildfire, which is referred to as "WF6", was released. This version has a updated game engine, which allows for higher resolutions, and has some other game-related changes. This version can be patched to v6.06, but patches-scrolls only has v6.06 patches for the german and russian version. The latest patch on patches-scrolls for the english version is v6.04. The patches for WF6 can't be applied to WF5.

Already confused? There's more to come. (;

From what I've found, there's two major "mods" for JA2.

One is "JA2 v1.13", which seems to implement major changes in the game engine. This mod/engine update is designed to make the game more mod-friendly, by using XML files for item definition, for instance. The projects website only talks about JA2 however, not about JA2UB or WF5/6.

And finally, there's the "Stracciatella" mod with its horribly uninformative website. From what I gather this is a port of the original JA2 engine to SDL, with some small-ish fixes. The main focus of this mod seems to be to make the game multi-platform. It doesn't look like this mod implements any major changes to the game engine, I'm not even sure it supports higher resolutions.

Another interesting find is that all of those games, except JA2 Gold, have been released on GOG, though I couldn't find out which versions GOG is using, and if they're using any of the mods/engine updates in their releases.

So far, so good. If any if this is incorrect please don't hesitate to educate me (; .

I'd like to be able to play the "best" version of the game in Windows 7 x64. If possible, I'd like to play campaigns from all the JA2 games - JA2, JA2UB and WF5/6. As a start, I'd like to play the game in its original form ("original rules"), but with a modern/updated engine if possible (higher res, fixes, etc.). I guess in theory "JA2 v1.13" would be the version to use here. I couldn't find out if "JA2 v1.13" can be configured to work like the original game however. Also, I couldn't figure out if WF5/6 has to be considered a "separate" game from JA2/JA2UB, meaning it can't be played with the mods/engine updates mentioned above.

Any help/information is welcome.