[tater]

I actually partially agree on the dynamic campaign stuff overly influenced by players. The real key to a realistic online experience is context.

DF maps try (and largely fail due to no fault on their part) to provide context. Real battles were mission based, and the pilots were not cats to be herded. they did what they were told.

Flying as a group is pretty much required.

Even coops will become boring as you play the same one over and over, though. That's really the point of a dynamic campaign. To try and provide a realistic context for missions that vary over time. You need to see the forest, and not the trees, though. Yes, the front may move too much, but what matters is not winning the war, but the answers to specific querstions:

"Are the missions so generated plausible?"

"Do the players have to chose a realisitc plane set to achieve their mission goals?"

That sort of thing.

Regarding the tactical nature of the sim (vs heavies), I'd argue that il-2 is really ONLY a fighter sim. The DMs for ground targets are poor. The AI for ground units (ships in particular) is nonexistent. CAS aircraft, IMO, are window dressing in il-2. When seen from the perspective of a fighter pilot, they provide targets, and a context for the air to air battles. Once inside a ground attack plane, you are in an "arcade game" IMO.

The usual response is that "it's a flight sim, not a tank/ship/infantry/etc sim!" That is true up until the point you attack a target on the ground.

Certainly, the DMs for ground targets can be simplified in many cases. Ships, OTOH, no. If a ship is any less complicated than the most complicated plane in terms of AI/DM, it's a cartoon IMO. Two flights of player B-25s can do to a convoy like the one in the Battle of the Bismark Sea what took hundreds of RL sorties to do. One sunk ship for every push of the pickle.

Or there is the massive damage done by bombs to the cities, a couple bombs will flatten many blocks. All and all, the ground battles are an abstration that is only good to provide context for dogfights, IMO. CAS is 2d rate (odd given the title of the game).

tater