Quote:
Originally Posted by Julhelm
Maybe we should bite the bullet and just include tactical nukes for 68. Feel free to use them, but if you do, so will the Soviets.
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The employment of tactical nukes opens the door to the use of strategic ones, and that's game over. It's Pandora's box. While you could implement them, once the player starts using them and the Soviets respond in kind, realism would demand the possibility their use spreads to the land war, and the campaign ends randomly and abruptly with a strategic nuclear exchange not too long after. Everybody loses. Not a bad lesson, if grim, but I get the feeling people will complain they can't use nuclear torpedoes with impunity.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MBot
After having finished my 1968 Permit campaign and going back to 1984, I was shocked how easy 1984 is. The Mk-48 is a death ray. Complete invasion fleets went down in a matter of minutes without much effort. So while the 1968 suffers a bit from lacking diversity of enemy classes (historical), I think it has superior gameplay.
The campaign needs a readjustment of attitude though. Do not expect to sink every ship you encounter. Consider escorts as ships that protect your primary target, not as mere additional targets. In fact do not expect to sink many warships at all. Every Mk-37 shot I took at a warship was merely to buy me time to escape. The few hits I actual achieved against warships were simply a nice surprise. Subs are primary defeated by maneuvering to a close position in their baffles. The actual killing Mk-37 shot is then just the final step of the engagement.
Also do not expect to win every mission. Do not shy from disengaging if the circumstances are not favorable. I think the decision when to engage and when not to is one of the most important tactical decisions to make for a commander, so it fits perfectly to the scope of the game.
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I understand what you're saying, but there's still improvements to be made, as I've mentioned earlier, in order to prevent the experience from becoming too dull or repetitive. Playing exclusively on Realistic, I might lose every other mission, if the strategic context doesn't cooperate and I can't reach the target area in time. Coupled with medals requiring you to be a killing machine like in 1984, I often feel like I'm getting nowhere. Especially since I try not to reload a savegame when confronted with a loss.
The ideal scenario to defeat a sub might be to get in its baffles, close in and finish them off, sure, but that takes
ages (more so considering the baffles torp detection issue) and sub-to-sub engagements are fairly common. It's faster and sometimes more reckless to bait them, since otherwise you might spend plenty of time looking for them, and then charge. Stealth is not much of an option when you have such a sub-par sonar. And I tend to resort to those methods precisely due to the aforementioned context: the need to get ahead and the reality that I'm spending a lot of time getting nowhere otherwise.
It's fine that the 1968 campaign requires a different approach and attitude, but right now the resulting experience becomes a fairly monotonous grind after a while. I was excited when I first discovered the possibility of taking torpedoes back to their owners, but it eventually became cheesy and annoying that I had to resort to that if I wanted to resolve engagements in a timely manner. And on most every mission, I've to settle with accomplishing the minimum requirements (sink one of two subs, half an invasion force, etc.), which feels like I'm barely doing my job as it is.