I think the Devs should take a trip to the 90's.

[gynoflyer]

I was cleaning out my closet and noticed some of my old titles (Microprose fanboy ahoy!)

Task Force 1942
1942: The Pacific Air War
European Air War
Falcon 4.0
B-17, The Mighty Eighth
Red Baron 3D, and a few other titles.

What a lot of these have in common were more in depth single player games that better immersed the playing in the character they were playing, gave them control over larger operations, or gave them a feeling that they were in some way making a difference.

Task Force, Pacific Air War, and European Air War allowed the player to stick with their own little ship/plane, or take control of larger elements like task forces, carrier groups, CAPs or their squadron. They could allow you to sit back and watch your units do their work, or jump into the cockpit and take direct control. If you had a particularly bad mission, you could expect the next one to have worse odds, and your men to have inferior replacements. On the other hand, if you did well, you could expect to be in a better position the next time you tangled with the enemy.

Menus, briefings, and maps were a lot more immersive, and the debriefings were actually useful or relevant to what just transpired. Campaigns were dynamic, and you could even change the date that certain events occurred given how well or poorly you did.

I know that with modern simulators, everything is more difficult, but to me, it seems that CLOD and undoubtedly the sequel are (going to be) missing a lot of heart, being too sterile, and basically giving the impression that this is a sterile sim, and not a war you are taking part in.

I don't know how much of this is feasable, but if the devs release some tools (other than a map maker) they would see that the most popular mods would be the ones that try and recapture some of the elements that made these classics, well, classics.