SamF7

Man, there are days it sure feels that way. It was probably over 20-30 games before one of my campaign pilots FINALLY used his "draw card" ability to ACTUALLY DRAW A YELLOW (usable) CARD! On SEVERAL occasions I've watched the AI, with 0 cards remaining, draw ONE free card, to magically pull that ACE card, to cancel MY ACE card, and save his bacon. However, I've also noticed that sometimes the AI seems to have no luck, also. Last night I popped the AI's leader, with my wingie (4 cards), first turn, with the "You're Dead" card (burst 2: Plane destroyed or something like that). AI had 8 cards, drew an EXTRA card....and he still went down in flames. Har har. What goes around, comes around bucko.....eventually. SamF7

Hi Joe ! I second this motion. Don't get me wrong - I LOVE the campaigns and can really appreciate the hard work that went into them, but I would estimate that almost half the pilots have over 100 XP with associated goodies! Some campagins with significantly fewer uber-pilots would be appreciated. Better yet if you actually get to GROW these same pilots THROUGH several campaigns! SamF7

Thanks SO; Roughly; what's the ratio of Spoiled Attack/Fire&Hvy Fire/Null ?? My guess is common/common/rare...although bombers DO seem to spit out the "Heavy Fire" quite a bit. Kudo's to the Bomber Attacking AI : I've noticed that AI is very timid about attacking bombers once they only have a hit or two left....they WILL attack at times, but only when they seem to have an "evade-type" card to go with their attack.

Okay, maybe I'm a dummy, but I just can't figure out how to do this: * Campaign Game - start of mission. The screen comes up that shows me all of the skills of the pilots involved. I get pencil and paper to start writing these down (to plan my grand strategy, of course!), but then I find out that the combat has already begun! Oh Noes! * I get to the battle screen, and quickly hit the pause. The game stops, but now I can't seem to Alt-Tab back to the "pre-battle" screen that lists the pilots and their attributes! * I can't find anyway within the battle screen to see or list the pilot attributes. What's my problem? In a campaign mission, what's the common method of analyzing the various pilots skills? My current method isn't very good ("oh #$@, he has Evasion"). BTW - Corsairs in "The Solomons" campaign are just evil; ton-o-skill muthers..... SamF7

I've never played the board game. I'm having a hard time figuring out the "cards" that the bombers are playing....what they are...how they work....what "ratios" the cards come in (avoiding fire versus firing back). In order to plan better, I would like to get a feel for these cards. Anyone care to chime in? I saw a NASTY bomber "return-fire" type of card last night that had a "target destroyed" attribute. Ouch. Fortunately, it was my bomber.... SamF7

Granted, I know I'm kinda new to the community and all, but this is one of the MAIN reasons I think DiF just CRIES for ability to : 1) Chain a series of Campaigns together. We'll call this "A War" 2) "Grow" and develop a set of pilots (your squadron) during the various campaigns of the War. The beauty of it is that at the end of the linked group of campaigns - "The War", that's it, your surviving group of pilots get retired to the hi score table with their accomplishments forever. Time to start a new "War" with a fresh squadron, trying to exceed yours (and everyone else's) previous hi scores for the War. The hardest design aspect is in balancing the campaigns and in trying to figure out how to do all of this in a fair and balanced multiplayer environment. My 10 cents? Hoohey - make a war just a single player experience. Store the squadron on a server to guarantee the integrity of the hi score table, but make the full war a single player only experience. Have a player create their initial roster, maybe assign a few "freebie" XP points, and off you go to campaign mission #1 of the war. You can even have the specific campaign 'branch' depending on the success/failure of the previous campaign. Give the player the option after a campaign to decide his next "front" (east front/west front/Mediterranian/Pacific, etc). In many ways, it's EXACTLY what "Panzer General" did in their campaign with the growth of your core assets (Level 15 Combat Engineer, anyone?). SamF7

Heh - I wish "I" could corner the "Luck" market! A friend of mine writes computer games. A few months ago, I was playing a beta of his game. My character couldn't seem to do anything - it failed every roll - every enemy hit me with every shot. It became VERY frustrating. Eventually he told me that he put in some "special" code that ran only when it detected a character with 'Sam' in his name !! "That was 'Very Funny'" I told him..."HarHar". I'm getting that same feeling with DiF....I've been saving my BEST pilot's XP to purchase the "High Performance" Skill for his first skill. Last night he died at 59XP. There's just no justice. You SURE DiF isn't coded to look for 'Sam' ? 'Sam'

This game is such a kick....I just keep wondering if there isn't any 'special' code just for us Demo Players to provide "incentive" to get us to buy the full package. That's a joke, of course, but this is getting scary..... Quite a few of my pilots have bought the ability to "draw a card". Almost all of them. I have YET to draw a playble card when I'm desparate. Never. Not once. I've even had a few "Redraw's". Nope, never a yellow card - even when pulling a handful of new cards. I was showing the game to a couple of friends of mine yesterday. When they asked what the "Draw Card" button was for, I explained it, and then said that it was the "irritation" button to force you to buy the full game since it had YET to save my Bacon....they never got a yellow card either! Will my "luck" suddenly improve with the full version? :-P SamF7

Hi bartbert! Thanks for the replies! Well, I put in my order tonight...and promptly played until 3:30AM. Wow, you mean in a few days I'll get to fly and fight in something OTHER than Emils, Spit I's, P40's, and the Tony? :-P I understand the issues with letting the players grow and develop their pilots through a campaign (or even a string of campaigns) - balance will ALWAYS be an issue. I'm glad other pilots have expressed a desire for this, however. Defintely tack my name on the list! For what it's worth, even making these types of campaigns "single player only" would still just REALLY rock and alleviate a lot of the design headaches, I'm sure. Heh, for balancing purposes, consider letting the AI ALSO grow and develop his pilot's skills through the campaign....the added fun of having the AI ALSO develop some hi-XP pilots would really add an interesting element to the campaign. "Certain" AI pilots would certainly start to be dreaded by the human player! SamF7

Thanks Six! That makes sense. I'll probably get the full version this weekend. * Can I install it on more than one computer? I travel a lot, and I would love to have a copy of this on my work laptop in addition to my home game-computer. I did a search on the forums and help and I just couldn't quite tell if I could or not, especially based on the new "registration" section that was added. * I just did a look through of the rules: When a plane changes altitude and an advantaged enemy follows, do they gain/lose cards due to the altitude change? There are times I have to discard two cards, and I'm assuming that because the enemy played the Vertical Roll card to climb (climb: -1 card, Vertical roll: -1 card). If he used the vertical roll card to dive would that be a net gain of 0 cards if I followed? * I played a couple of sessions of the Dunkirk campaign last night. Quick question, are there plans to be able to play and build up pilots through a series of campaigns? I read a lot on the forums last night, and I understand the balance issues involved, but it would still be fun to be able to "grow" and "build" pilots through a series of campaigns. I sure wouldn't have sent up my poor exhausted Spits on turn 3 last night in Dunkirk to essentially "suicide themselves" to bring down the JU-87's. Heh, it worked, but it was brutal (lost all four spits but 'won' the battle, and thus, the campaign). Thanks.

Hi Folks ! Still trying the demo out. I have a few questions : * In a Campaign Game, how exactly do patrol missions work? I assume it's the one with the "plane" icon and a 0/0. * What is LB=1.00x MB=1.00x HB=0.75x Thanx. SamF7