Some campaign related questions
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So I managed to complete and win a campaign for the first time (Tiger Spirit), which is great and I am unreasonably proud of myself, but I have some questions and observations that I gathered while playing it out over the past few days. I hope that the combination of the vast community knowledge and perhaps some devs’ input can answer these. Moving on-wards…
- It is very hard to find the main objectives on the 2D map. Some of the towns that have to be captured are just tiny villages basically. Per the manual:
TIGER SPIRIT
- RoK/US wins if Wonsan and P’yongyang, Onch’ang-ni, Hamju, Huich’on, Kaech’on and Taehung are controlled in less than 5 campaign days. Or,
- RoK/US wins if Wonsan and P’yongyang are controlled in less than 5 campaign days and DPRK strength is less than 1/10th that of Allies forces.
I fulfilled the first criteria by capturing/holding all of the above towns, but it’s a painstaking business. Is there some visible tracker of campaign objectives or is one planned for future release perhaps? Another very useful feature would be the ability to look up locations by entering a free text query and getting results from a database. Otherwise it’s a matter of long scrolling trough the Order of Battle listings, particularly for “political” objectives as those seem to have all of the towns. Also, a higher resolution map perhaps?
- I followed some of the useful advice I found online to take control of my squadron and plan all of the packages. The routine was to destroy SAM sites, then strike ground targets, all the while having strong air patrol presence. This worked really well, and by the end of the first day of the campaign, blue had a big advantage. By mid-2nd day, there was essentially nothing to do as red was reduced to no aircraft at all, and no ground vehicles anywhere near the front line. This is where I have a question. I didn’t see the ground troops make any kind of movement north towards the main objectives. Will HQ eventually get around to that?
I got tired of waiting and took control of a number of battalions and sent them to the main objective locations. Given that red had no defensive assets left, it was easy work. I actually stopped flying missions in the second day and just ran x64 time multiplication, directing the units. They accomplished the objectives towards the end of day 4 and the campaign clock stopped. Has anybody won a campaign just through HQ planning the ground offensive? I intend to replay the campaign from day two when I stopped flying missions, taking to the air this time, and leaving ground command to HQ. I just want to know that I won’t be wasting my time in case HQ is not capable of accomplishing the goal.
- Is there any detailed guide to how mission points are computed? I don’t understand how “Last Mis Pts” works. Per the manual, it’s supposed to be calibrated to the realism rating. I have the realism set to Ace, although I had the challenge rating set as Cadet. Is that the reason why I was getting relatively few points in the total score in comparison to “Last Mission Pts”?
- After doing some missions “in full”, ramp start/take-off/entire flight plan/landing, I started cutting back to save time. I would join a flight in progress on the way to the objectives and then take over from there all the way to landing. Then I cut out the landing as well. It seems that there is a certain level of involvement required from the player to get the full mission score. Does anyone know what is required? This is really helpful in order to save time and fly more missions, bypassing repetitive procedures that are not challenging.
Well, this is what I remember for now. I’ll add to the thread as I am sure there were a few more things I wanted to clarify.
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No special markers for objectives. It would be nice, but once you know what (and where) they are it’s no longer an issue. But for your first go I agree it would be helpful.
Landing your mission is part of your score, so at least start doing that if you want full credit. And aside from that, you just gotta land it
I think if you choose to let the computer handle your ground forces you will only have a chance at winning one stock campaign, Rolling Fire. Tiger Spirit and Iron Fortress being 5-day campaigns, I doubt the computer will get them there fast enough to win. So your decision to take control was the right one and the only way you would have achieved victory in that campaign. Maybe in rare circumstances the AI will get them there fast enough, but in my experience it’s unlikely.
I highly recommend changing your challenge rating to at least Vet if mission score and things like promotions and medals are desirable. Challenge rating was reworked in BMS to no longer affect force ratios (unless you edit your config to change it back to the old way). So the only effect it will have is in skill level.
Congrats on your victory too!
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Hi DBond,
Your excellent write up on the campaign (at simhq) definitely helped me to get going on mine. I had more time than usual in recent weeks so I was finally able to dedicate proper attention to Falcon. In the past when I attempted a campaign I just didn’t know what I was doing and the HQ-generated missions were impossible for me to accomplish. Part of it is of course that many HQ missions are suicidal, but also that while I knew the F16 systems in general, I had a lot of trouble putting it all together in combat situations. I also had no idea about campaign planning and how it’s supposed to progress.
I figured that HQ will generally not win a campaign on its own. As I mentioned, in my campaign blue had a huge advantage with red completely defenseless and HQ was doing nothing to push towards objectives. It makes for extra leg-work with directing all those ground battalions, but that’s fine. I got a lot deeper into mission planning now and I am spending as much time poring over the 2D map as in the cockpit. It would be nice if the UI was updated to something more intuitive and the campaign code polished up in general. It must have been basically left unfinished when the original Falcon was released given that there is not even a message to the user informing of the outcome. The logbook stat gets updated and that’s it. Having lots of background in software development I can picture those programmers cramming in last bits of code at the eleventh hour and praying that it just compiles successfully.
I started a new campaign in the Balkans theater this time and I did set the challenge rating to Veteran. There is a definite difference in pilot skill level as hostile craft frequently go radar silent while being bugged. It’s going fine though. By carefully fragging missions, it’s possible to succeed. I found that it’s worth it giving strike flights lots of escort. It’s better to have too many friendlies than too few! I am a few points away from the first promotion now, so no pressure.
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Glad you found it useful. Which Balkans campaign did you choose? The main issue I have with Balkans is the poor ATO defensive air fragging. There is virtually none. Otherwise it’s a great theater, and Balance of Power is near the top on my favorite campaigns list. You’ll face the same challenge locating objectives however
Ground unit behavior can be odd in that one. One BoP I played a year ago saw some blue mechanized units drive deep behind enemy lines along the eastern edge of the map. They reached Belgrade if you can believe it on day two and then promptly surrendered to air defense units. So it’s good to keep hands on with ground units in Balkans too I think.
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I chose Balance of Power actually. It’s very large in scale and I am just getting my bearings. Per readme for the theater:
Balance of Power
• Balance of Power takes about 20 to 30 campaign days to complete.
• In order for Blue to win the BOP campaign, they have to take Zagreb, Zadar, Banja Luka, Split, Mostar, Tuzla, Osijek, Sarajevo, Gornji Vakuf and Bihac.
• For Red to win, they have to take Rijeka, Kranj, and Ljubljana.I am assuming there is no time limit then?
So far I flew a few standard missions to take out SAM sites, take out airfields, and attrition enemy aircraft. I’ll have to look at what the ground units are doing eventually. There seems to be a lot of activity from the get-go.
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Gornji Vakuf. That bugger’s tough to find
I think it’s a 30 day limit, but I usually finish in 4, so I don’t know really!
Beware the SA-6. We don’t like each other.
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Gornji Vakuf. That bugger’s tough to find
Thankfully all the towns are listed under ‘political’ objectives. I struggled with the Korean towns because their names are so mnemonically challenging so I had to go back and forth between campaign goals description and the game. It’s easier with a Slavic language. I also got an idea to flag them as PPTs or STPT lines in the future.
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I think it’s time to increase the overall difficulty
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Cue Jaws theme music
I’ve been bumping difficulty with the ‘old’ challenge rating setting. Does wonders really.
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I think it’s time to increase the overall difficulty
You mean we should release the bear? There would be too many losses. The casualties would be too high. They didn’t want that.
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@Nick:
You mean we should release the bear? There would be too many losses. The casualties would be too high. They didn’t want that.
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Thread’s not dead Zed. Just derailed, and oddly cryptically at that. Was there more you wanted to talk about?
How’s your BoP going? Zadar, Bihac and Zagreb can be tough nuts to crack, but once captured things can start rolling on the ground. In my past two BoPs, Zadar held out well past the other two, creating a long exposed right flank for the forces moving on from Bihac. That forced me to really concentrate on that sector so that the line could be shortened. And then it happened again at Split. At some point there is usually a big Red ground reinforcement. Normally this isn’t great for campaign progress. But it almost always results in the reinforcements being placed directly on top of themselves, so that an attack results in kills of 4 or 5 different units. A string of CBU can really clean up when this happens. The area around Split and Kastela is often a gold mine in my campaigns.
Keep an eye on the Adriatic as well. The FRY’s strong naval tradition will make itself felt :shock:
(I know you’re not called Zed, just sort of a Pulp Fiction thing)
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Thread’s not dead Zed. Just derailed, and oddly cryptically at that. Was there more you wanted to talk about? (I know you’re not called Zed, just sort of a Pulp Fiction thing)
Big fan of Pulp Fiction. In my imagination, I am always Winston Wolf
How’s your BoP going? Zadar, Bihac and Zagreb can be tough nuts to crack, but once captured things can start rolling on the ground. In my past two BoPs, Zadar held out well past the other two, creating a long exposed right flank for the forces moving on from Bihac. That forced me to really concentrate on that sector so that the line could be shortened. And then it happened again at Split. At some point there is usually a big Red ground reinforcement. Normally this isn’t great for campaign progress. But it almost always results in the reinforcements being placed directly on top of themselves, so that an attack results in kills of 4 or 5 different units. A string of CBU can really clean up when this happens. The area around Split and Kastela is often a gold mine in my campaigns.
Keep an eye on the Adriatic as well. The FRY’s strong naval tradition will make itself felt :shock:
Going alright. I did capture Zadar at this point as I really focused on taking out everything alive in this region. Given that this campaign allows 2-3 weeks of game time, I am going to proceed slowly but steadily. Blue has definite air superiority at this point, but I did not account for possible major reinforcements, so we will see how it goes.
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That’s thirty minutes away. I’ll be there in ten.
Capturing Zadar is key, good job. Now you can roll up the flank to Split, assuming that’s where the Reds are making their next stand.
You’ll have no trouble maintaining air superiority in BoP. Blue has massive mobilization. Watch out for Su-39s though. Wolves in sheep’s clothing I tell ya.
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How do you move ground units? Is there something about drawing a line from the unit to the objective?
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Confirm the map display is set to Ground Units>Battalions. Right click on any one and choose Status and uncheck (un-highlight) the Set by HQ box. Now left click on the unit and a waypoint circle should appear. Drag that circle to the desired destination and the unit should head off to capture it. I say ‘should’ because frankly it’s quirky. The unit doesn’t always listen and sometimes they decide to go off in a completely different direction than where you ordered.
It’s important to clear the way for units you assign objectives to. You don’t want them involved in any ground combat if you can avoid it. So assign interdictions along the roads they will travel on and try to clear the Reds out of the way. The A-10 is ideally suited to fly these missions, but of course that depends on the theater/campaign you are playing.
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…And once they’ve reached their destination (if the Falcon Gods have ordained it) it’s a good idea to reassign them to HQ control. This may cause them to head off cross-theater, but it may be preferable to having them static. Depends on what you’re trying to achieve I suppose.
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DB, really appreciate the information, very helpful! Thx
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You’re welcome. I find this is virtually a necessity if you want fast victories. Taking control of ground units has allowed me to win the ‘new’ Iron Fortress on day 2 and Balance of Power and Rolling Fire in 4 days. That’s not going to happen if the computer is left to handle it.
And like I said earlier, in five-day campaigns you’d need to be lucky to get a win without doing this I reckon.
‘New’ Iron Fortress on Ace