Campaign Path Branches: Like or dislike?

[gadflyjs]

and when there are +50 missions? you re-play 30 times to play the 30 paths?

I think I mentioned that as the branches are "not very long or change what happen in the future very much", which right now usually only two, I play at least twice to cover both of them.
When there are going to be 30+, I guess the developer already bankrupted before reaching 20
But for most players, if the game is good, they will try to finish as much as possible.

[Waffenamt]

I originally played SCW from 1938 Bilbao branch but "fast-forwarded" Ebro. I was delighted to hear that AO39 had been tweaked in advance of AO40's release and picked up my save from the end of Corunna Road so I could enjoy the Malaga branch and thus get to play all the scenarios in the pack, including a still tough, but more survivable Ebro .

In this case I think the branching worked very well, and I particularly enjoyed the additional 1938 battles and found I had a much better grasp on forcing surrenders, capturing important equipment and dealing with the Nationalist forces. I had settled in at General level for the SCW, although I was playing PzC2 at FM level, since I found the DLC battles a bit more challenging, but will crank it back up to FM level for AO39 which should add some excitement to the coming storm.

Regards

[Tassadar]

Strong like on my part - both for branches withing a single campaign or DLC piece and with having West and East branching out. Especially if there is the "siege" part with fortifications, rough terrain and more puzzle like approach and a separate "blitzkrieg" part with more open terrain. In the core campaign I went for the more open scenarios first and then dis the second run on the other paths, when I picked up a bit more skill. The same happened in AO - I went for each more open scenario, but when I plan to reply these once all AO are out I'll gladly take the other ones.

As for the Africa vs. Russia elephant in the room - making Africa a separate DLC (with possibly importing AO1940 core) would make sense. It could then continue as the main AO in 1943-44 on the Western path easily (let's say as the default approach) and the Russian one cover Easter front once again by default, but with the option to switch between the two with imported cores freely if anyone so chooses.

[o_t_d_x]

For me, if the game is really good, then I will re-play it, on different difficulties. Since the branches here is not very long or change what happen in the future very much, I just play one branch in the first go, then anther branch when I re-play the whole thing. That actually add more spice to the "replayability"

Yes the replayability is the point. I finished AO39 once and didnt like it sooooooo much, it was good, but it doesnt motivate me much to do it again. So my main motivation for a second try is the branch with some polish scenarios, i dont know.

At the other hand: If there wouldnt be a branch and the polish scenarios would have been in a line, maybe nowbody would argue about the "too short poland camp.".

The perfect solution for me, can only come from a modder: loooots of branches with long, very detailed conflicts.
5 Saar missions ? Ok. Lets spice it up with 20 poland missions ? Great. A modder can do that. But dlcs with 30 missions ? How much should such a dlc cost ? How much would ALL dlcs in such dimensions cost ? Honestly, i dont care about the costs. I love pc2 and i really dont care if i pay 100 or 150 euros. I would be crazy enough to pay 100 euros for an ai dlc for civ VI, if they would make one. (but it seems firaxis surrendered regarding ai.) But i am sure most fans of pc2 dont think that way.

I did branching for example in my mod, if the player was bad. So he was sent to the minor front in africa. Or if you suck in france, same. As a sideshow front, africa shouldnt get the shiny new toys at least not much of it: no tigerarmys and simply no way to achieve air dominance. Because this front had always severe shortage of everything and that wouldnt have changed significantly, without the defeat of russia. Or at stalingrad: if you dont break out you loose your whole core and get to the historic branch with a core that reflects reality, not fantasy. That alone i am sure you will never see in a dlc. Loosing the core is drastic, but i want to force a realistic ww2 exp. on the player. (if he plays bad of course...)

Or if he is very good in france, he gets a mission in africa to capture the french fleet, that he needs to defeat the royal navy when sealion starts.
As a modder its easy, i do what i want. But for kerensky i fear: no matter what he will do, there will be many that wont be happy.

[Retributarr]

[quote=o_t_d_x post_id=877698 time=1599677787 user_id=257823

As a modder its easy, i do what i want. But for kerensky i fear: no matter what he will do, there will be many that wont be happy.
[/quote]
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"Kerensky"... has feelings of course... but will not let them "disrupt him"... as he has to know where the "reason's or reasoning for insulting and criticizing" is coming from! [By trying to put himself in the accusers shoe's... to make an effort to understand them!]… so that now the 'Evil' called down upon him is now not so ravaging.

He has to be... and likely needs to be a... "Rough-Tough-CoCo Puff"/_"Ancient chocolate flavoured breakfast cereal"_.

Also it would also be helpful to have the 'Attitude' such as... "Sticks and Stones may Break my Bones... But!!!... Whips and Chains..._(The calling down of Evil) … Excite Me!!!.

[medkirtys]

In general I dislike branches. Never liked replaying campaigns too much so I would rather have more scenarios in a linear campaign path.

[terminator]

In general I dislike branches. Never liked replaying campaigns too much so I would rather have more scenarios in a linear campaign path.

Save before bifurcations

[Stormchaser]

Personally, I like it.
There were plenty of battles that took place at roughly the same time across the front that would be impossible to justify your part of the army racing back and forth between points fast enough (I mean we already had that argument in complaints about the 1939 trip from the Saar Offensive to Poland). It also adds replayabilty, for those that enjoy that of course.

[adiekmann]

Personally, I like it.
There were plenty of battles that took place at roughly the same time across the front that would be impossible to justify your part of the army racing back and forth between points fast enough (I mean we already had that argument in complaints about the 1939 trip from the Saar Offensive to Poland). It also adds replayabilty, for those that enjoy that of course.

Of course I do replay the campaigns several time eventually anyways, but I'd rather play all the scenarios linearly too. However, I am aware and agree with the simultaneous battles in different locations timewise. It would be stupid to enable you to fight both in Sicily and Kursk.

Anyway, it is what it is and I know many players DO like these sort of choices.