Non Historical Mode

[deej]

One of my all time favorite games, Hearts of Iron IV, has historical mode and non-historical mode and a sandbox-like environment.

Would love to see a historical campaign mode that lets you experiemce the greatest battles, but includomg a non-historical mode that would pit you, on a larger map, against the AI would be really sweet.

I imagine it as a larger strategic map.that shows competing controlled areas, contested areas, etc... and you would get to pick out locations, use a mission planner, etc... to build out your own missions.  

It would give it a ton of replayability as it adds some randomization to combat areas, difficulty, support, etc.... I see it as more of a stretch goal after all the main components are out and playable, but would offer a really cool experience.

[Feldgrün]

A robust mission planner would be ideal in a game like this. I see even more opportunities for interesting missions in a Guadalcanal map with multiple airbases on neighboring islands.

[ZachariasX]

For combat sims, I think the single most important part (besides depicting the game world in a reasonably good manner) is a powerful editor.

The more powerful the editor, the better the game. Combat sims have a very special niche of players (combat sims themselves are not niche at all, they are shooters by design and only become niche if you raise the bar concerning their accessability) that is very creative and knowledgeable.

Jörg did the right thing by giving MSFS2024 a toolkit to edit scenery and airports and then bring them into the game. On top of that, AFAIK they also review these entries to replace their default in-game airports if a player made a better version. Thus, you can tap on the talent of your clients that improve your product for free if it wasn‘t for the overhead of reviewing entries.

What a combat sim is, is merely playpen and destuctible assets that can be placed such that they provide the structure for a game.

The ancient IL2:46 is still around only because prople can make of it what they want. It clearly shows that the quality of the depicted game world is not nearly as important as one might think, as opposed to giving the player to option to make of your sim what he likes it to be.

I‘d go as far as saying graphics are vastly overrated in games today compared to what is commonly invested in the game mechanics as such. Console games are clearly broken at this point, where GFX allows for „interactive movies“ that take a decade to make and put a terrabyte of data on your game box. (That heroines have to look like some kind of ugly men and the plot follows the logic of a ten year old doesn‘t help either.) I‘d say it would be better if the GFX department would be a bit more modest to allow for for some criteria that are more „global“ to the entire game be made in a functional way. In the sense of: I‘d rather have dynamic weather than grass that moves in the wind.

[Aapje]

One of the things that PWCG has that makes it nicer than the standard campaign is that is generates a greater diversity of missions, which is certainly not historically accurate, but is more fun than getting the same kind of mission 10 times in a row.

[CPT Crunch]

Trying to reproduce history on a PC game is a fools errand, it's never going to work out, too many missing environmental factors and cultural shifts since the events.  All you can do is try to match up the planes and weapons models as best as you can, and get a good virtual world to place them in, it's really up to the player base to do the rest.  Don't waste a bunch time on context nobody has any real familiarity with anyway.  Like anyone really knows and understands what was going through the average Imperial pilots head back in those days, and at what stage of the war because even that shifted. 

Tactics, strategy, and the making of an all new history should be up to us players.  No matter how hard you try to force history it'll still be merely fragments and modifications off the original blueprints, put the effort into the world and access to it, that's the best recipe for success.  History's not very entertaining and don't sell all that well, why its usually the smallest section in the book shop.  Most players tend to compare these WWII games to entertaining movies they've seen anyway, and there historical accuracy is usually the last concern.