Stock Campaign vs PWCG

[Stromboli]

I know PWCG gives a bigger variety of missions. But which Campaign do you think gives a more realistic view of the Eastern Front and why?

 

Thanks,

Stromboli

[PatrickAWlson]

So I am obviously biased, but ..  .  Limiting this to the topic of feeling like you are flying an eastern front campaign.

 

History:

I would say that the stock career does better with history than PWCG.  More newspapers and more backing information.  More information about the offensives in the battles happening in the moment.  So from that point of view I think it gives more of a feel for being on the eastern front.  

 

Both PWCG and the stock career offer the ability to move through the war.  PWCG offers faux Bagration and Berlin to get you to 1945.  More realistic because it goes to the end of the war or less realistic because it is faked?  You decide.

 

Mission Structure:

I think PWCG offers more realistic missions to fly.  AI flights in PWCG move without being spawned, which means they might come to you  and not just be triggered by you passing a spot on the map.  That means that tactical situations in PWCG missions are more likely to change in unexpected but perfectly realistic ways.  Getting bounced while you are otherwise engaged is a real possibility.  So I think PWCG missions generally produce a wider variety of realistic situations to deal with.

 

I think PWCG probably produces more action on the ground than the stock campaign.  When you are asked to interdict troops it is not just a bunch of targets waiting to be destroyed by your flight.  There is a battle going on underneath you with each side attacking the other.  Artillery is firing at targets.  Tanks are advancing.  Machine guns are shooting at each other.  Smoke is rising from the battlefield.  

 

The stock campaign offers transfer flights, which PWCG does not have at this point.  That gives you a better sense of movement in the stock career.

 

Out of Mission:

I'm not sure which offers more of a feel for behind the scenes.  Both will advance AI pilots, so taking care of AI pilots is a good thing.  PWCG implements supply lines from factory to depot to front line units.  It models temporary shortages.  PWCG also simulates activities outside of the mission, so a pilot can score a victory or be shot down outside of the mission you flew.  This way you don't feel like you are the only one doing anything.  Not sure how the stock career handles out of mission activities.

 

Realistic use of planes:

The stock career is definitely tighter in terms of historic use of planes.  But is it more realistic?   PWCG chooses to use the Stuka D at Moscow.  It should be Stuka B.  The stock career mode chooses not to use the Stuka at all at Moscow.  Is it more realistic to have Stukas but the wrong type or not to have Stukas at all?

 

The case of the Stuka is probably on the extreme end of things.  There are other cases where PWCG chooses to include a plane that the stock campaign does not where a substitute is more readily available.  PWCG includes the LaGG3 even though it is the wrong variant.  Unlike the Stuka, In this case there are other fighter types that are historically accurate that could be used. 

 

This one is a toss up as to what is or is not more realistic.  Choose to include a variant that is not historically accurate or choose to not use the type at all because you don't have the right variant.

 

Others will know far more about the stock career 

Edited September 8, 2020 by PatrickAWlson

[Stromboli]

Thanks Pat, Great info to chew on.

[twilson37]

I think Pat's comments are spot on, here are a few others I have noted

 

1.) The stock campaigns are easy to get started and allow you to jump right in, but PWCG allows you more variability in how the game is set up. If you take your time and set up the advanced settings the way you would like the missions seem far more variable and therefore realistic than the stock campaign 

 

2.)  In the stock campaigns you will tend to see the same number of fighters every time. For example if the setting is set to low you always have enemy opposition lower than the number of fighters you have, moderate about the same, and difficult the enemy will have numerical superiority. In my opinion this is not very realistic.

 

3.) In PWCG however the enemy can vary wildly, I remember one mission in Bodenplatte where my airbase was attacked by 4 different types of aircraft in varying numbers of aircraft all while aircraft of all Allied types were scrambling to take off.

      For me I find the Bodenplatte stock campaign to be the least immersive. I have one Spitfire career that is like Groundhog day, I have flown 15 missions all ground troop cover, all being attacked by 6 190s while being defended by 12 Spitfires, 15 times in a row. That campaign sits there because I just got tired of the same mission over and over again. 

 

4.) I think in the end both are fun to play. I play the stock campaigns mainly because they are easy to get started and fly and I can jump to the next mission quickly. I play PWCG when I want to take the time to set up a proper campaign fly one mission at a time and enjoy the immersion each mission brings

 

Would be nice if would could get Pat on 1Cs payroll and help develop a much better in game campaign

[dburne]

14 hours ago, twilson37 said:

I think Pat's comments are spot on, here are a few others I have noted

 

1.) The stock campaigns are easy to get started and allow you to jump right in, but PWCG allows you more variability in how the game is set up. If you take your time and set up the advanced settings the way you would like the missions seem far more variable and therefore realistic than the stock campaign 

 

2.)  In the stock campaigns you will tend to see the same number of fighters every time. For example if the setting is set to low you always have enemy opposition lower than the number of fighters you have, moderate about the same, and difficult the enemy will have numerical superiority. In my opinion this is not very realistic.

 

3.) In PWCG however the enemy can vary wildly, I remember one mission in Bodenplatte where my airbase was attacked by 4 different types of aircraft in varying numbers of aircraft all while aircraft of all Allied types were scrambling to take off.

      For me I find the Bodenplatte stock campaign to be the least immersive. I have one Spitfire career that is like Groundhog day, I have flown 15 missions all ground troop cover, all being attacked by 6 190s while being defended by 12 Spitfires, 15 times in a row. That campaign sits there because I just got tired of the same mission over and over again. 

 

4.) I think in the end both are fun to play. I play the stock campaigns mainly because they are easy to get started and fly and I can jump to the next mission quickly. I play PWCG when I want to take the time to set up a proper campaign fly one mission at a time and enjoy the immersion each mission brings

 

Would be nice if would could get Pat on 1Cs payroll and help develop a much better in game campaign

 

Fully agree.

PWCG is awesome and so is the Career Mode in the game.

Both have their strengths and weaknesses and both are a blast to fly. They compliment each other nicely.

 

For me, the one thing I most love about PWCG that the Career does not offer is setting it to cold start and taxi to runway for the missions.

I absolutely love this option and always fly my PWCG campaigns with that enabled.

 

There are also some great scripted campaigns, I have some that I have not even done yet, going to have to get to them here pretty soon. 

I will likely do the Hell Hawks campaign here after the next update.

[istari6]

The stock campaigns offer you much more information on the actual squadrons.  Transfer flights are neat.

 

Beyond that, I think PWCG is a superior experience in every way.  The stock Career missions very quickly fall into a familiar rhythm, following a clearly visible template with minor variation.  You never have to worry about being bounced en route to a nav point, the enemy always appears near target waypoints, and the numbers are always a fixed ratio.  PWCG feels far more alive, far more dynamic.  As others have mentioned, you also have greater ability to adjust configuration settings to adjust it closer to your ideal experience (e.g. bumping up AI levels for fighters versus bombers).

[Burdokva]

Is there a reason why the features of PWCG aren't yet incorporated into the official campaign mode given that they compliment each other?

 

Thew way I understand it, is that while Career offers polished presentation, historical accuracy, and is, understandbly, easier and quicker to use, PWCG offers far more varied mission design and various features (non-spawning aircraft, ground battles, pilot experience, cold starts with taxiing, etc.) that are sorely missing from the Career mode.

 

For the me the two greatest drawbacks of Great Battles are the limited plane set and lackluster, repetitive Career - the latter being aggravated by the fact that I am not seeing all CE planes appearing in Career (at least as AI). 

 

It seems that Career mode has lower priority for the devs. While I can certainly understand this, there's already someone who put a lot of effort to improve it. Neither assuming it's easy or quick (I work in DevOps) but there must be a way to get Pat Wilson's work integrated into the main game.

 

Note that I truly enjoy the airfield relocation missions that are part of the official Career mode, and I think they add a lot of immersion.

 

 

Edited September 9, 2020 by Burdokva
typos

[PatrickAWlson]

One other aspect of PWCG that people might not be aware of: more than one human controlled persona in a campaign.  This can play out in three different ways:

 

1. PWCG supports Coop.  The personas are controlled by different people.  You fly with or against your friends.  PWCG coop does not require all of the participants to be in the same unit or even on the same side.   You can mic and match any way you want.  Some in fighters, some in bombers, some on the other side, all in the same unit flying together or not as you wish.

 

2. PWCG supports creating a new persona when your existing persona dies.  This is something that a lot of people like.  They play iron man with their persona but start a new persona to take the place of the old one.  In PWCG the history of your dead persona live on.  If he was a top ace you would still see him on the boards.

 

3. PWCG supports having many personas, any side, all in the same campaign.  I like flying the Ju52 but I really prefer fighters.  I don't want a whole campaign of transport flying.  So if I want a break or if my fighter pilot is wounded I go do something else for a bit.  I can even fly for the other side for a bit.

 

All of these things are mix and match.  A single player can have multiple personas in a SP or Coop campaign.  You can set up a coop campaign where everybody has a persona on each side ... most people don't but you can.  One aspect of coop that has not yet seemed to gain traction is adversarial coop - people on opposite sides.  It's there.  You can fly competitively against your friends in a career setting.

[istari6]

Can wholeheartedly support the coop as a key feature of PWCG.  I've relied heavily upon it to help ease my two friends into flight simming.  My buddy and I started with a co-op campaign as Bf 109 F-4 pilots over Stalingrad.  He's not naturally an airplane guy, but really enjoyed the teamwork and camaraderie.  We then brought in another friend who was new to flight sims with a co-op campaign as P-38J Lightnings in Battle of Bodenplatte.  Now all three of us are flying S.E.5as near Arras in Flying Circus in co-op via PWCG, and we're having a great time.  It's been extremely helpful to have the fine control that PWCG offers, allowing me to turn down the AI skill while my friends are learning the basics of air combat.  

 

In a very real way, I can thank PWCG for helping bring two new people into our hobby who would have otherwise never entered flight simming.  

Edited September 10, 2020 by istari6

[Harlequin]

PWCG is awesome!  What I like about it most is that you can bump into the enemy at any point.  Keeps you on your toes for the whole flight.  Running air density low, ground density high on Stalingrad map and it really gives a feeling of being just one part of s much bigger campaign with lots going on.  Fantastic work Pat.  Thanks very much for your program :)

[twilson37]

I think the biggest problem with PWCG has nothing to do with it, but how restrictive the game is to it.  It would be nice to have PWCG interface into BoX the way DCG does with 1946 where I can start a career in game and switch to PWCG to edit the missions however I choose, rather than have to use the single mission approach  

[Varibraun]

While I definitely enjoy the Career Mode with all of the deep historical work it reflects, this screen in particular reflects why I personally play PWCG more often and why I don't miss a Career Mode in FC:

 

 

For anyone preferring more variety, PWCG allows you to create multiple pilots in different squadrons within the same campaign.  This screen (yellow dots) reflects my BoBp "player" pilots who made it to a top 10 "non-historical" ace by the end of April 1945.  Since I play "Iron Man," only one of my pilots has survived (red dots on the guys who didn't make it).  You can see above the yellow line that PWCG also gives you the option to view the aces compared to historical aces included in PWCG and aces by service. 

 

If I had picked the "Service" Aces screen you would see that my surviving player ace, Eddie Allen, was only one kill behind IRL ace Johnnie Johnson who also survived the war.   Also, you can open each of the aces logbook of victories/dates by clicking on the portrait tile to the right.

 

This is a good reflection of the variety it allows a player within the same campaign since you can set it up to fly all nationalities and aircraft.  Plus, you can transfer between squadrons.  Since PWCG is dynamic within the squadrons (every AI pilot is persistent and being tracked & each squadron records its own full history), I often will transfer a new player ace to another squadron that may be struggling with losses to hopefully help their kill ratio and survival to ultimately build that squadron's pilot experience level.  If I have been beating up on one side too long, I will switch to the opposition for a few missions.  In the screen above you can see that over the course of this campaign I had 4 top 10 aces on the Non-Historical Board: two German aces, one American, and one British.

 

For anyone who cares, here is how I play SP PWCG ( @PatrickAWlson offers many different ways to play, including Coop):

 

-Iron Man

Dead is dead, no exceptions, no replays, no matter what.  So, even if my computer crashes and my pilot dies, that is how the report goes into PWCG.  My view is this reflects IRL accidents, engine failures, etc.  Even if you question the ability of the AI to compete with your skill, surviving the war becomes its own challenge if you play unforgiving Iron Man.  However, PWCG ensures that the war and squadron pilots survive your pilot's death/capture/disability.  This adds another dimension in tracking your pilots throughout the war.  For me, it also illustrates the amazing skill, luck, survival and scoring of the Experten.  (Just try creating a German pilot in BoM and see how far you can take him following this rule).

-Multiple Pilots/Squadrons/Aircraft

I typically will create 4 pilots at the beginning of a campaign and alternate between them as the weeks go by.  I use my own naming scheme to keep track as they meet their fate:

First Name = Nationality (i.e. A = American, C = Canadian, E/B = English/British, G/D = German/Deutsche, R/U = Russian/USSR, etc.).  I keep the same first name throughout the campaign for that nationality.

Last Name = Alphabetical by each new pilot with that first name (A = 1st, B = 2nd, etc.). 

For example, in the aces screen above, "Eddie Allen" was my first British pilot and he somehow managed to survive the campaign/war (I am sure flying the Tempest helped).  "Abe Dickenson" was my 4th American pilot and was KIA after his 22nd victory.  (He was a P-38 jockey).  My 4th & 7th German pilot also made the top 10.

-Mission #s Per Flight

PWCG allows you to set how many missions you want to count for each actual player flight.  I have been setting this to "5" so that each time I fly, that pilot is credited with 5 missions.  Since most (but not all), PWCG missions have combat, increasing this setting lets you simulate "no contact" flights.  It also helps account for times you are off flying your other pilots.  This feature helps to keep the scoring within a somewhat historically accurate perspective.  I flew "Eddie Allen" on 18 actual missions resulting in the 90 reflected on the board, making his score of 33 at least closer to reasonable for a top ace. 

-Squadron Team Work Philosophy

 Since your squadrons AI pilots persist throughout the campaign, keeping them alive matters.  PWCG will allow you to forgo victory claims and then they will then typically be assigned to a squadron member flying with you.  Occasionally doing this, and also watching your AI mates' 6 during fights, builds the squadron's effectiveness as the AI pilot's levels advance.  I find it rewarding to work with the squadron AI to try to create a squadron of aces. 

-Transfer

You can also transfer to a struggling squadron if you want to see if you can help make a difference.  PWCG allows you to see the rosters of other squadrons, so when you see that a squadron is being led by a 1stLt, it might make sense to transfer your ace Captain to take command (especially if your current squadron is being led by historical ace Major George Preddy).

-Take Leave

I normally take a couple weeks leave for a pilot after an award or promotion.  Minor wounds will also put a pilot out of action for a few days, which will give you the choice switch pilots for a few days or to take leave until recovery.  Taking leave will help the campaign advance, much like the option to accelerate time in the Career mode. 

 

Simply put - PWCG, VR and SimShaker brings GB alive for me in the SP world.  I hope this helps someone see PWCG and/or GB the same way I do...  to anyone who made it this far! 

Edited October 28, 2020 by Varibraun