You know, I've always viewed with skepticism sims that associate the player's performance directly with the final outcome of the campaign being played. Just seemed a bit "Hollywood" to equate one pilot and/or squadron with such a dominant effect on events that afterall dwarfed the impact of the individual, and tended to minimize the single soldier's personal struggle for success or survival. In KOE it seems we'll get two campaign formats, one where our performance will never change the overall outcome of the war, and another where events are much more dynamic.

Here's what the recent SimHQ interview revealed about the planned Authentic Campaign Mode:

In Authentic Mode, however, the campaign will deviate from strict historical events, but still in a plausible and authentic manner. Major battles may occur at other times and locations, and the outcome of the war will be unknown. The most important aspect is that your activities will influence the outcome of the war. No, you, as a single pilot, can’t directly or overtly determine the outcome of the war — that would be stupid and certainly not historically plausible — but your successes and failures will set a general tone for your side. In other words, a good player can fly for the Germans and actually have a chance to see the Central Powers defeat the Triple Entente.

Now how a "good player" can actually help change events in KOE is undefined, but there are ideas how this influence could plausibly come about. What first comes to mind, and something that has been discussed on many forums before, is the recognition that interferring with the enemy's ability to conduct the army-cooperation flights was the first priority of the fighting squadrons, and the primary purpose for their existence. Preventing the specialist aircraft from conducting reconnaissance or artillery spotting missions had the greatest impact on the course of events that unfolded on the battlefield below. However, there's one facet of the airwar that doesn't often get the due coverage I think it deserves.......the battle against the balloon, those "sausages" that hung along the front lines to collect intelligence and conduct artillery missions day in day out during the war.

The battle against the balloon would seem to me to present the most plausible method for determining the ebb and flow of success in any campaign reflecting the WWI air war. Besides offering a means to involve the ground war (thru the inclusion of AA units) with the mobile air war above, the balloon formations present what I see as an ideal "vehicle" for presenting the essence of what the struggle in the air war was all about..............eliminate the enemy's "eyes in the sky".

I surely hope that the challenging "battle against the balloon" finds itself into KOE in a big way, not that I look forward to braving the rings of Archie from below, or the patroling aircraft from above, but just because I think the results would be a real "gas"...............if you know what I mean!

Basically I'm a traditionalist, so the 'Authentic Mode' leaves me cold. The idea that a player can affect the outcome of the war, by extrapolating his performance to his 'sides' performance, is totally unrealistic and so holds no interest for me at all.

Nevertheless if it's included and so broadens the appeal of the sim then I won't complain.

But I especially like the idea of a very solid and difficult balloon battle. Archie should be so thick (and don't forget the Flaming Onions!!) that one could walk on it!

However, if a MMP game can be played on the dynamic scale, this will 'play out' what we mark down on score cards and declare a winner.

This is where the dynamic game would be welcomed.

I LIKE the idea of the authentic mode, because I like playing not knowing what the outcome of the war will be. A pilot of the time didn't KNOW how it would end, he either HOPED or had faith that his side would win, or despaired that it wouldn't. And it happened on both sides, both feelings, right up to the end of the war.

Sure, it's unrealistic to have one pilot determine the end of the war. But I'd argue that it's unrealistic to have the end of the war etched in stone.

And surely an exceptional pilot in some way contributed to the progress of the war. Perhaps by denying recon information, frustrating bombing attacks (or successfully prosecuting them), perhaps even more so by the morale boost his celebrity caused. Just as his death would have been a blow to morale.

Perhaps, for me, it would be ideal to randomize the end of the war with minimal or even no input from myself. Meaning, I could be an OUTSTANDING French pilot, and Germany might win the war anyway! Or an adequate German pilot, and Germany WIN anyway!

But I, for one, have a little trouble getting my motivation up for playing a WWII sim from the German perspective late in the war. My feeling is, "what's the point?"

WWI doesn't hit me quite this way, but having the option to 'uncage' the end of the war is something I like.

That is why I like to call this kind of sims Historics sims, and that the aproach that I really like,(Il2 Sturmovik for example). I dont want to chance the outcome of the war just for kiliing so many enemies in just a tiny sector of a huge front. but I do want to survive, earns medals, etc. all of this following historics battles, exacts dates.
Anyway, KOE will have both kinds of campaigns so everybody would be happy.

In the beginning of WWI there were no trenches. The German Army was advancing on Paris. One large unit was swinging around for a flank move, IIRC, and would probably have taken Paris except for being spotted from the air by a single reconaissance plane. The action of one avaitor triggered a major change in the entire war as the French army moved to block and the lines solidified. At least that's a synopsis of a section of history as I remember it.

You might not end the war but by gaining or denying Intel you can certainly influence entire battles in a big way. As the war progressed, the volume of effort by both sides to do that as well as bombing and infantry support/suppression... yeah it would tend to water down any one aviator or squadrons effect. But then without the Flying Circus, I doubt that Germany could have survived as long as they did! If it hadn't been for the attitudes of the ground commanders, the airwar would have been more hotly contested.

Anyone seen Hells' Angels and remember the last action where the brothers took out the major ammo dump, ended a German push and made an Allied attack possible (most likely to no real effect, but there was a chance)?


Neal