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Why not the Mediterranean Theater next?
All the talk on the forums seems to focus on the Battle of Moscow as the first sequel to COD. Some of this is apparently based upon some hint by Oleg, and/or a poster at an SOW:BOB demo-show(?).
In a recent thread, a discussion began about which aircraft would be needed for such a Battle of Moscow flightsim sequel. Answer:many Russian aircraft would need to be developed/added to the COD baseline, along with additional Luftwaffe aircraft types and models not used in BofB/COD. After all, the invasion of Russia did not begin until June 1941, almost a year after the Battle of Britain began. Also, the new Maps required would have to be failry extensive. It seems that a considerable amount of programming and design, etc, would be required for a Battle of Moscow sequel. I've long been curious as to why the Mediterranean Theater of Operations (MTO) would not be the next planned theater for a COD sequel. The role of the Italian Regia Aeronautica in the Battle of Britain was merely a curiosity, insignificant. So, why would so much programming effort in COD development have been diverted to such a relatively obscure matter. To me, it only makes sense if it were planned by 1C to use those RA aircraft in a Mediterranean scenario/sequel, released relatively quickly after SOW:BoB/COD release. Battle of the Mediterranean, 1940-1941 Italians aerial assault on Malta beginning June 1940: COD has RAF Gladiators and Hurricanes, and most of the significant Italian RA aircraft. One would just need maps, which would seem to be much less complex maps than the UK/France maps of COD. COD would need to add SM-79. Italians in North Africa attack British forces in Egypt in Sep 1940. Again, COD has all of the necessary RAF and most of the necessary RA aircraft. Italians invade Greece in October 1940. Ditto above. Germans invade Yugoslavia and Greece in April 1941. COD has 90% of the necessary Luftwaffe aircraft and all the RAF aircraft. Germans attack Crete and British Naval task forces in Mediterranean. COD Luftwaffe has almost all necessary aircraft. COD would have to add British Carrier(s) and carrier-based aircraft. Rommel battles British in North Africa from Spring 1941. Would only need COD to add P40B/C for RAF, SAAF of Desert Air Force It would seem that with a relatively small effort/cost, IL-2: MTO could be released very soon after all the major problems with COD are worked out and patched. imho |
Unless I am mistaken, Oleg himself stated that hey will be revealing the third title in line before the second - i.e. The Battle of Moscow.
Apart from the IL2 screen shot (presumably and early variant) that has been shown to us by luthier, we know nothing about the sequel yet. Why it isn't Mediterranean Theater - is beyond me and the majority here that have wanted this series to go next. Still, I look forward to any sequel - as long as BoB is made operational first. :) |
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+1 |
Enjoying the E3 but just give me a "190" soon
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1) No carriers used in the Crete campaign. 2) Malta would be a good addition, this would require RN Carriers. Aircraft on the Carriers absolutely required would be Sea Hurricane I (same as Hurri I but +16 boost and tailhook) and Swordfish. If you wanted all the seaborne aircraft then you'd need the Fairey Fulmar, Gladiator and Martlet, (Wildcat) and but those were a minority of the fighters used. Game already has the AI Glad so it could be implemented fairly easily. It was also the first defending land based fighter on Malta. The Italians would need the MC-200 for early Malta, and MC-202 for late plus and SM-79. |
Well, as much as I want the Med, and believe me I want it badly, The Battle of Moscow does not require any capitol ships to be modeled.
Note we have no warships of any kind in CloD. I suspect that modeling at least one battleship type, and cruiser type, and two destroyer types, for the Italian and British navies, and a Royal Navy aircraft carrier with the appropriate aircraft types for it would take a year in and of themselves, not counting any new maps. I'll bet most of the Russian Front stuff has been done for a long time now. ;) |
"Malta" doesn't have a broad enough scope to be a full addon in and of itself. It requires a significant investment in Ship models and CV operations, and in the end, its VERY narrowly focused. Its certainly something to MOD when the plane sets becomes available..but who is going to play "Malta" over and over and over?
Keeping in mind that the coders are RUSSIAN :) and that the original CORE of the IL2 series started with the Russian campaign, I think its logical in both time line and progress of the plane set. You get to integrate a lot of knew AC types that they already have in the bag, and grow the plan set. I'll place my money on Barbarossa :) |
I wonder if an issue is the size of the maps required? Though doing an entire 'Eastern Front' campaign map would entail as much, if not more, than a Med one, it would be feasible enough to do a smaller one (just the Smolensk - Moscow region?), and still have plenty of space for a decent campaign. In contrast, a Med map would need to be quite large to do justice to the historical context - fronts moved rapidly etc. Perhaps a Med map would involve too much work, or put too much strain on current hardware?
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However, Brit carriers Ark Royal and Illustrious and one or two others were active in Med in 1940 (for example, Illustrious in attack upon Taranto in Nov 1940). Later, in summer '42, several carriers were active and Indomitable, specifically, was attacked by LW Stukas. Quote:
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I realize they won't be 16 poly, but all I've ever done is blow them up. I really think Oleg must have planned to do something with the IL2 ships, because there was never any real effort made for ships. That does seem abit strange, because the Battle of Britain started with concentrated attacks on British shipping. Like yourself, I'd love to do the Hurricanes, Glads and Spits out of Malta. We have most of the aircraft now, with the Italian aircraft, etc. All we need is the maps covering southern Italy, Malta and North Africa. LOL |
Well, 1C is a russian company so naturally they're closer to the interests and wants of the russian players. Secondly I remember pics of Oleg showing Il-2 1946 to President Medvedev last year along with reports that the russian state and 1C have signed a contract for state subsidies for the development of computer games which show aspects of Russia's history to the younger generation.
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As much as I'd love a dedicated Malta scenario, the Moscow addon makes more sense for 1c as a whole. The future for them is to share many of their models and other content for ease of production over a number of different games. Men of War 2 and future ToW series etc might well be fought in the clod engine. Focusing on the East is just good resource management.
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Learn to walk before you try to run ! :neutral: |
Maybe they'll go right to Korea! :)
They have had many of the mdoels done for quite a long time... |
I think it would make most sense to carry on with the ETO, using an extended version of the current map for 1941, and then bring in the Russian front at the appropriate point in the time-line. Jumping from BoB to Barbarossa is bullcrap.
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The problem with the MTO is that the 1st Spitfire didn't arrive there till 1942, so the timeline argument is ok but it means you can't use a Spitfire over malta till a year after Barbarossa launched. There's a lot of overlap.
If you want it chronologically then MTO would be Itallians vs Hurricanes & Bi-planes from June '40 to January, when the LW start to get involved. The LW would then effectivley pull out from April to December '41 to take part in the Battle of Crete/Balkans etc.. Park didn't arrive in Malta till 1942. The big RAF offensive sarted afer that and was over by November '42, at which point 330,000 Germans were encircled at Stalingrad. Having said all that I'd like to see MTO next, but it's not because of historical accuracy it's just a preference. |
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+1 for the MTO, but then I just want to fly for the SAAF over North Africa :grin:
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At least the planeset around this scenario would have brought some interesting planes to the players: Fw190A-2/-3, as Fighterbombers too Bf109G-1 Do217E Spitfire V & IX (Merlin 61) Hurricane IIb&c Fighterbombers Mustang I Boston III B-17F as examples ... with some new ships (as BoB is realy lacking in them) and perhaps some new engine features - it would have made a nice intermediate AdOn to sell before the next BIG one with a totaly new map. And i belive making a Map for this series is a lot of work. but this will obviously not happen :D |
Interesting. I second that.
btw, the Dieppe 42 scenario could be combined quite easily with Cerberus 42, the Channel dash to Germany by Scharnhorst, Gneisenau and Prinz Eugen from Brest naval base. Most of the interesting map is already available, and this major operation also included ferocious air combats in Feb 42... These kind of scenarii (both Cerberus & Dieppe), also are an excellent opportunity to tweak the whole Channel theater map, while introducing new tactical situations later in the war. This would : - enable the BOB aficionados to play in a tweaked environment, thus directly supporting the debug phase on CoD map; - enable the bored ones to get new stuff, although kept at a lower cost for the dev. This is a typical quick-win opportunity they could tend to favor to solve CoD issues... :rolleyes: |
Maybe they should go for the Rhubarbs and circuses of '41. Same map (with duxford / 12 group added etc..)
It would give the chance to fight the BoB in reverse, with the RAF fighters tied to escorting bombers at the limit of thier range and the LW fighting a defensive battle, wouldn't need too many new aircraft, could be quite quick to produce. Other scenarios that could use the same map with additions, Dieppe (as someone said), Preparation and aftermath of D-Day, The V1-V2 offensive Hopefully in the future some third party will design plane sets/vehicle sets to use on existing maps. |
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I don't have any inside information...
I suspect the Med is next, because we could have done the COD without Italian aircraft and most people would have been content. Look at the Italian aircraft in the COD. As I recall,... the same Italian aircraft were flown in the Med. It really doesn't matter anyway, just talk of course. |
Oleg is gone, we know it, but he did say: "Med after BoB 100%"....yes, a lot of time ago.
However now we don't need neither Moscow nor Malta but only The Battle of Britain, if possible. |
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Me too; 1st squadron :) Doolittle raider: I agree with you +1:) |
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I'm quite sure about this Oleg's statement, but as said above is not so important now. However considering how is going BoB, The Battle for Malta would have been probably a better choice..."Water, water, everywhere"....
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You need to look at the big picture, fixing things will be the norma for the next 10 years. Every time an addon or new content is released there will be improvements, optimizations, new features, turning on features that are in but invisible to us now.. Its a long process. Flight Sims require a HUGE investment of time and resources before you evr get the game to market. Its what has killed most true sims.. the model they are using is to give the engine 10 years of life..so they can continue to add new content and continue to generate revenue while they improve the whole package. If they have to keep going back to re invent the wheel you simply cannot afford to do it.. |
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Maddox Games after all is just a subsidiary of 1C (and has been since 1999). It's called 1C Maddox games which is 1C's usual way to add pattern before the name. |
My dream TO
IF they do the MTO, I would rush to buy it. Fighters here recognised the MTO as a hell on earth, and the misfits elsewhere managed to make a name for themselves here, vide Beurling and Warburton, for instance.
I would certainly love such a sequel, or expansion pack maybe and I am confident that Malta would be played over and over if realistic battle scenarios are recreated - there could be Junker dive-bombing missions, BF109/FW190 escort missions, high-altitude bombing missions from RA/Luftwaffe, Night bombing raids, raids on ship convoys...(and that's just the Axis side)...from the Allied side you could be involved in missions ranging from recon to base defence, as well as skirmishes over northern Africa and southern Italy / Sicily. The potential is huge. I would love it. Then again, I'm Maltese. :) A |
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I would love a Med theatre add-on as well, especially since it has been a quite forgotten part of the war in computer games.
I don't know if anybody of you reckon it, but there was an air combat sim. based exclusively on the Desert fighting: the game was called "Desert Fighters". It was cancelled and it never came out, but I remember flying in the demo in the C.202 over northern africa in 1999 (I was in Canada at that time). It could be something new and refreshing, as the original Il-2 has been for the Eastern front. But... I would also love to see a France 1940 campaign, so... Whatever will come out, I'll buy it. As long as it has propeller planes in it, I'll be sold for it :) Cheers Rick |
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So for a "Malta Campaign/Sequel" (1940-1942) or a "Malta-Greece-Crete-Libya Sequel" (40-42), no FW-190's would be needed in COD. A more expansive Sequel covering all of the Mediterranean including North Africa/Tunisia, Sicily, and Italy (say 41-43) would require additional aircraft such as FW-190, P38's, etc etc |
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