end game

[GoldenRivet]

What is the criteria for winning the war? what i mean is, what conditions must be met? is it a certain tonnage must be met, certain number of completed missions? number of days?

i ask because i have played through the 1984 campaign specifically several times. Sometimes i complete a hand full of missions and sink some ships and the campaign is won in a relatively short time... other times i sink ships, i succeed at missions, and the campaign just seems to drag on with both sides trading real estate with no end in sight

[XenonSurf]

Good question. You must pay attention to the messages you get after a mission that you succeed / fail as well as the occupation situation on the global map. Your objective is to push the Soviets back, out of Europe. At some point you get a 'special' final mission (I don't spoil it here) which is different than others. Succeed this one and you - most likely - will win the war and the campaign.

Fail more contact missions and you will step back in the campaign, eventually the Soviets will regain control of the waters and re-occupy European territory, and you are go to make again several successful missions before getting back on track. Again, messages with pictures will inform you about this, the messages will be the same at some point.

In Red Storm Rising it was easier to judge because there was a 'progress bar' showing the war status, but not so in Cold Waters. This makes it more of a suspense I think :)

[EDIT]
To know EXACTLY, just analyse the 'event' triggers in campaign_data.txt.

[GoldenRivet]

I see.

my most recent final mission...

find and sink a ballistic missile submarine with several escorts heading under the polar ice caps to strike the North American Continent, sounded pretty gloomy too because "fail this one, and you may not have a base to come back to." was the context.

wow... sounds pretty important

thing is i received that mission, succeeded and received the victory screens after only a hand full of missions in the campaign. time at war was something on the order of a couple of weeks.

my last campaign prior to that, consisted of many many missions and went on if i remember correctly, well into the summer of 1986 - considering the campaign starts in the winter of 1984, thats a year and half, myself, being used to the quick wrap up of a few weeks at war i am used to - was wondering what i may have done wrong.

[XenonSurf]

There is a limited nr. of different missions that you can get, and my guess is that some of them, like destroying tankers and tenders, are more decisive for advancing in the campaign than other mission types. This, and because the type of regular missions you get is random makes for a longer or shorter campaign.
By looking at the event triggers, I see that a campaign can also end in a stalemate; it never happened to me, and I will not open the specific event file in order not to spoil myself...

All this, plus the fact that you are thrown back everytime you fail a mission can make a campaign *endless* I think, unless CW has a code to end the campaign after time x or a nr. of missions y, I don't know.