As much as I appreciate Captain Dawson's effort in summarizing the current status of IL-2 Great Battles, as much I am afraid that I have to put back a few things into dimension.
BOX is so limited in scope (compared to 1946)
The comparison is slightly invalid.
IL-2 1946 didn't start with the wide scope we use to enjoy these days either, and an unmodded 1946 is still very limited in it's scope compared to what we enjoy here in terms of e.g. BAT.
IL-2 Great Battles is growing, as was 1946 when it was still actively developed by it's creators.
If you want to compare the two, compare and unmodded IL-2 Ace Expansions Pack to the current IL-2 Great Battles and you'll see that the scope difference isn't all that big anymore.
Moscow-that-you-cant-fly-over 
Explanation has been given when I've complained about the same thing over at il2sturmovik.com forums:
Currently the city is populated with stand-in buildings. While this looks great from the distance, it looks rather odd when you get closer.
Having cities that just-dont-look-right is something we're used to in 1946, but the IL-2 Great Battles Developers have higher standards so they keep Moscow as a distant thing to look at until the buildings are there and the game engine can handle them.
Kuban is certainly the most interesting map, but cities are pretty sparse.
The latter is what it is in that area, the first is correct but dangerous for less powerful game rigs: Mind you that Kuban is the most demanding map existing in IL-2 Great Battles at the moment.
Currently (IL-2 Great Battles version 2.012) you can expect a 20% FPS penalty over populated areas on the Kuban map at least, compared to similar areas on other (Moscow/Stalingrad) maps.
Nobody knows what the new version 3.001 will bring, but we know that the development team has been working on the viewing distance so I take it that the rendering engine got some updates too.
The game is definitely more oriented to multiplayer than 1946, and you can connect to servers in-game. Offline is unfortunately very limited, you have only a ROF style Quick Mission Builder, several nice single missions, and a few campaigns you can buy for more money.
Eh... no sir.
IL-2 Great Battles online functionality is much more user friendly than 1946 ever was, that much you're right.
The quick mission builder has a couple of differences from the 1946 one. In some regards it falls behind (big quick battles with lots of different planes), in others it's much better (guidance, training use, repeated fights etc.). It just doesn't really compare, that's it.
Battle of Stalingrad ships with two campaigns built in, Battle of Moscow with one. Each of them is much more intense, much more lengthy, much more historically correct and many other things more than anything we used to know from Stock IL-2 1946 campaigns.
Furthermore, you can currently purchase two additional commercial campaigns, where each of them is mind blowing, and there's a couple of user made "free to grab" campaigns available on the forums. This is quite like 1946.
The full Mission Editor has incredible features, but it's really just useless unless you have a huge amount of time on your hands to learn it.
And that's exactly like the 1946 FMD - lots of time necessary to learn it.
The main difference is that the IL-2 Great Battles Mission Editor is much more powerful, and these additional features need some additional learning steps.
Endless guides are available on Youtube, the assistance IMHO is much better than it ever was in 1946 where using the FMB was more like dark arts.
Coming from the 1946 FMB, the Mission Editor is incredibly over-complicated and time consuming.
The starting point is wrong already.
You cannot say "I'm the master of checkers, but learning chess is incredibly over-complicated and time consuming" either.
It's two different things.
Being a pro in one doesn't give you any better starting point in the other.
And it works vice versa as well: Someone being user to the IL-2 Great Battles Mission Editor could say just this: "Coming from IL-2 GB ME, 1946's FMB is incredibly over-complicated and time consuming - and lame".
Would just be as invalid as your statement is.
These 100 plane missions I've made in a couple hours in the FMB could take me weeks on end in the ME.
Looks like you have barely scratched ME's edge at best, otherwise you would know that the IL-2 Great Battles game engine isn't made for such 100 plane missions at all.
There is an infinite amount or errors you can get in scripting missions, and you may have to load/run the mission many times just to resolve one issue.
Just like 1946.
if you are an offline pilot, you will most likely find yourself eventually returning to 1946 now and then as many of us do
I don't think such generalization really has a point.
I for one play both IL-2 Great Battles and 1946 simply because the first is still "work in progress", while the latter is full-featured and matured already.
Yet the Great Battles part is growing, because that's the future of the genre.
The reasons why people still stick to 1946 in parallel to Great Battles are as many as there are users of both.
Blaming it on lack of offline capabilities falls short.
Multiplayer is great fun, but it's hardcore. If you don't have head tracking, you have a pretty substantial disadvantage to be honest.
Just like 1946.
If you play "closed cockpit" servers in 1946, you are in the very same situation.
And vice versa, if you play "normal" difficulty servers in IL-2 Great Battles, you don't need no head tracking at all.
It's plain simply, exactly just the same thing.
snap rolling, which is very deadly in dogfights here
Yes because the simulation depth of IL-2 Great Battles goes way beyond what we used to - or ever will - have in 1946.
And that's
great.
You just have to learn it and get used to it.
If you jump into the Great Battles game, thinking "hey I'm the CFS pro, I will rule this game" and are unwilling to relearn your basics, then you will not get happy with it.
But in that case, you won't get happy with any other title of the CFS genre ever.
With the addition of the 109G6 and La5FN, you're mostly going to get seal-clubbed unless you buy the same aircraft
Sorry to say, but that's complete nonsense.
Buy the Yak1b or La-5FN collector's plane if you're going to do multiplayer; with an altitude advantage, BF109 and FW190 don't stand a chance against you.
Complete nonsense again.
I smell a certain degree of Luftwhining here.
The Bf 109 F-4 is the most competitive plane of the current set, hands down.
The Yak-1b, if at all, is the only one which, when being in it's own regime (turnfights at low to medium altitudes) can stand a chance in a 1-on-1 dogfight against a 109 F-4 with pilots of the same skill.
Nobody flew a La-5FN in IL-2 Great Battles yet, so what you claim here simply lacks any substance.
The Yak-1b, that much is for sure, can easily be countered by Bf 109 and Fw 190 pilots, if only they remember where the strengths of their planes are.
Don't buy it only for the P-40 or Spitfire, they are pretty heavily outclassed and quite underpowered in this sim.
Not correct.
They're just much more difficult to fly than most other fighters.
And that's historically correct.
The key to success is to read the plane's specs, checklists etc. and fly them for purpose.
The P-40 was a lame duck in reality, it's just overdone in 1946, so what you feel here is a comparative feeling coming from an incorrectly uber-capable P-40 in 1946.
The Spitfire is a great kite in IL-2 Great Battles, it's just that people don't bother to adhere to it's specs, instead they run the plane like they did in 1946, full power all the time, and then wonder when they have a charbroiled engine when the fight starts.
MiG-3 and I-16 are rockets compared to P-40
Simply not correct.
Try again and next time read the P-40 checklist before you jump the pilot seat.
A lot of people think it is not accurately modeled in comparison to the Russian/German planes. P-40 is almost useless in multiplayer, you may as well be going against Me-262s, speed difference is so much.
A lot of flies think that shit is tasty. Doesn't make me believe they're right.
There are people flying the P-40 quite successfully on multiplayer servers.
The difference to the vast majority who can barely get off the ground with it is: They did read the checklists.
Even with Russian planes, unless you can draw a 109 or 190 into a close in dogfight, you aren't going to catch them unless they throw away their advantages.
Didn't you just say that a 109 and 190 stand no chance against a Yak-1b before?
Sorry but... that's somewhat contradictory.
AI is pretty disappointing compared to 1946.
Currently: Yes.
But here again you have to compare it with 1946's AI of the "Ace Expansion Pack"'s time.
And then it's rather on the same level.
IL-2 Great Battles Developers said that they will focus on offline capabilities a lot more, and this naturally includes AI behaviour.
I guess there's much more to come in this regard.
especially vehicle AI are superb. Vehicles can hide in trees/buildings and avoid your attacks. If you are interested in lifelike graphics and realism, this game is sure to please.
That's correct. 1946 vehicles probably will never have the capability to act as natural as IL-2 Great Battles ones do already.
Don't buy it from Steam, buy it from the IL-2 Sturmovik site. 2 benefits to this: 1. You are supporting the IL-2 developers instead of Steam, and 2. You don't have to deal with Steam's ridiculous program, accounts, and ads. (If you buy from Steam, you also have to buy content in a certain order due to their whole "DLC" thing.) CloD requires Steam, BOX fortunately doesn't.
Even if you buy IL-2 Great Battles from Steam, you don't have to start up Steam a single time after purchase.
And you don't need to buy content in any specific order either.
That's simply nonsense.
Bottom line is: IL-2 Great Battles is the future of the WW2 Combat Flight Simulation genre, if it has any that is.
It's not matured yet like 1946, but nobody can expect it to be right now.
It's being actively developed by the original creators, there's no end in sight, and new stuff is coming continuously.
You can decide to give it a try, or just stick to 1946 and watch a dying game - sorry to say but that's what it is.
Cheers!
Mike
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Topic: IL-2 Great Battles Sales (Read 8846 times)
