The campaign action in F4:AF is spectacular. One way to experience first-hand a lot of snippets of action occurring across the theater is to use the “Action Camera” (Shift ~) which will jump you around to where the cool stuff is happening. You’ll be amazed at just how many things are going on. Well, it is a war after all!
I adjusted the campaign challenge level to “Veteran” in my settings and perhaps that was a bit optimistic for someone just getting back into Falcon after some time off. The 2010 forces of Serbia and their allies are very impressive. In just the first few hours of the campaign they managed to crater and put out of action several of our key NATO bases in Italy, much to my surprise.
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Not only were the enemy OCA missions highly effective, their defensive counter-air was incredibly vicious. Very few of our lead off flights came back unscathed. In some cases, squadrons took devastating losses. After 4 hours and only 2 sorties, the F-16 squadron at Palese Macchie was left with only 2 aircraft with 5 losses. One squadron of British Tornados flying out of Gioa Del Colle had lost so many aircraft on their OCA strikes that they were not mission capable after the first round of sorties!
So we’ve established that the enemy AI is smart, aggressive and they aren’t going to be sitting ducks on their side of Adriatic Sea. Enemy ground forces seemed to show similar mettle. An interesting thing that LP added on the planning map is the depiction of the Forward Line of Troops (FLOT) which basically marks the front lines between the warring nations. The FLOT line updates in real time as enemy units advance or retreat and gives a good idea of how the tide is running. There can be some interesting “jags” in the FLOT and I’m not sure how the data points are created. Often enemy units are on the wrong side of the FLOT, but it could be that the FLOT is updated via geographic objectives, not necessarily unit positions.
A very nice feature of F4:AF is the ability to control your ground forces if you are so inclined (and competent) to do so. Previous versions of F4 allowed for this, but often it was an exercise in futility and it felt more like you were herding sheep than directing battle hardened units. Units that I ordered to move did so expeditiously and directly. In this example I moved a Mechanized Brigade to engage some enemy armor. The nicest feature is that you can elect to handoff control of the unit once again to the HQ at the termination of the move, or at any time between. Thus you don’t have to remember to keep managing units that you’ve manipulated.
Related Posts:
Related posts:
Falcon 4.0: Allied Force
Falcon 4.0: Allied Force – Part 4 Page 8
Falcon 4.0: Allied Force Page 7
Falcon 4.0: Allied Force Part 5 Page 2
Lead Pursuit’s Falcon 4: Allied Force Page 5
Tom’s HiTiles for Falcon 4: Allied Force Page 2
Tom’s HiTiles for Falcon 4: Allied Force Page 3
Tom’s HiTiles for Falcon 4: Allied Force Page 4
