My 2 cents.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Julhelm

I don't see how completely ignoring player actions in the campaign is "just like real life". For instance, it is possible to sneak into Tokyo Bay early in 1942 and sinking a whole lot of battleships and carriers and if this had been done IRL such an action would have massively impacted future events like Midway or Coral Sea, but all that happens in SH4 is another Yamato or Akagi is randomly spawned later as if they come off a never-ending supplyline. Is that really more true to real life?

That's a good point, and true. I would counter-argue that sneaking into Tokyo bay is as unrealstic as you can get, being impossible. I do agree that ships should not respawn. Supposedly that was fixed in SH5.

At the end of the day I don't really care much for "realism" if it negatively impacts the fun factor by turning the game into a meaningless grind. Sure you can spend hours sneaking into this or that harbor and doing all kinds of daredevil, beat-the-odds attacks or sink 15 Yamatos but the only noticeable impact it has on the game is your personal tonnage.

I guess I've been playing subsims so long that the "meaningless grind" is what appeals to me. Unfortunately the only raid on a major naval base was Prien's expedition to Scapa Flow, and that required prior planning at the highest levels. That you can sneak into a base that has battleships and carriers at all is something I find most annoying in these games. It wasn't done because it couldn't be done.

This is why I've always preferred the dynamic campaign as it was done in Red Storm Rising where you can readily lose the war if you are not careful and events can be unpredictable. Strike Fighters does this too and its campaigns have lot more replayability than SH4.

As I've said elsewhere, in LucasArts' Their Finest Hour: The Battle Of Britain you could play the German side and actually end up with a successful invasion. I'm not saying it couldn't have happened that way, but replayability? I did it twice and ended up bored. For me a campaign like AOD/SH3/SH4 is just about perfect.