- Alex Server is a mixed bag, quality wise. On one hand, the maps are well designed: there are no stupid flak zones or excessive amount of ground targets but the planesets are not balanced at all and some bases have airstarts, which sucks. Realism settings are non-arcade for the most part, but enemy icons are on and enemy views are allowed, which sucks big time. Sometimes, red and blue bases are too close to each other. The most interesting map is Kursk_Elba, as it pits US and Soviet Airforce planes against each other. Alas, proper historical maps are absent.
- Orel War has done away with ALL icons, including friendly ones, so watch out for friendly fire! The settings are comfortably realistic. Unfortunately, some of the maps have AI planes flying around and the maps have unnecessary ground targets. Worse, the map changes if one side destroys all the designated targets. Parts of the maps are locked away by flak zones - only a fool flies into them. Map voting doesn't work. If only some of the better maps went back into the rotation...
- Orel's Il-2 Server (only on during late euro evenings) is another decent server, with some bland maps.
The biggest drag all these three servers is not any setting in realism, but a poorly thought planeset (on some or many of the maps). Either it's boring (yet another 109/190 vs la5fn/p-39), not balanced (one side has superior models of superior fighters) or a huge missed opportunity: early war fighters are mixed with late war fighters with no rhyme or reason, as opposed to early vs early mid. What is A6M vs P-51 but a brain fart, I ask.
The rest of the (vanilla) servers are just junk.
As for BoS, it suffers from some horrible design and pricing policies (DCS, cough cough) while offering nothing new besides higher system requirements. Still, it's miles better than other fantasy games such as Aces High, the echo chamber of flight simulators and egos.
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