I wish I could tell you mate!

I have spent a long time trawling all the forums and boards to get some ideas because I am currently being hammered in my first campaign, and very few of the tips seem to help (me anyway!). I fear the lack of good advice about the campaign is a sign that most people give up on it.

The consensus of all the posts I have read is:

Example for allies

* Choose only the three star *** missions
* Attack shipping until the front line moves onto land, once the front line is over land, concentrate on CAS missions to move the front line
* Focus on attacking where the enemy is weak, rather than defending where the allies are weak is one line of advice but others contradict this
* Choose missions in squares where allies are strong and enemy weak (green square with red border)
* Other advice says that it is irrelevant which sector you attack as long as it is a three star target, and you are successful with your mission, the front line will advance. So choose missions close to your base, which are three star, in order to most quickly move the front and rack up prestige points. (This does tie in with the next tip).
* Only accomplishing the goal counts. Killing
additional targets does help your personal and unit prestige though, which is important for launching offensives and buying new planes.
* To trigger a US invasion you have to move the frontline past an invasion point (light blue squares on german side) once an invasion point is open the US will attack
* Aim for an invasion point that is close to the frontline and where the British are doing a little damage
* You need to build up squadron prestige points to launch a specific ground offensive, and many recommend building up enough points to launch 5 or six day offensives, if you want to see results. (A one day offensive will be over between missions because the campaign skips five days between every mission.)

Now all of this is well and good, and following this advice after about ten anti ship missions I saw the British invade Holland and then later Calais. The US is still not in the war. I have tried a couple of times to launch ground offensives and though I am docked for the hard earned prestige points, the offensive never starts and the resource levels remain the same. Once the British started an offensive, which I had not launched.

I am flying the B-26 loaded for bear, which means my squadron can usually take out one or two shipping formations on shipping missions, or on CAS missions can take out the primary, then up to 8 other targets such as vehicles, ammo dumps, troop concentrations or production centers.

I've been concentrating on hitting the primary 3 star CAS target, and then production centers for secondaries. Nothing I do, whether shipping strikes or attacks on production centers, has seemed to slow German production. It slowly builds and then every couple of weeks they launch a new offensive, the latest of which was so huge I have now been kicked out of Holland and just have a tiny toe hold on Calais.

I love the concept of the flexibility the campaign gives, to choose your own missions and choose where you fly them - but the lack of any clear link between action and effect is killing me!!

My questions are:

- What is the trick for launching an offensive beyond earning enough prestige points and pushing the launch button
- Will the offensive be launched around the square where your cursor is, or does the program decide where to launch it
- Why does the offensive sometimes not launch, despite the prestige points being taken. Is it because I am flying for the US, but the US has not entered the land war yet? If so, why is it taking my prestige points?
- How can one best prevent Germany from building the resources for an offensive, as attacks on production centers don't seem to be the key.
- Has anyone analysed the *.cmpstat file? This seems to contain clues to the various campaign event triggers. From what I can see, for example, a British offensive in one of the invasion points is triggered when 'Recon=Y', so presumably just running a recon or CAS mission in that sector would trigger the British to land? Which explains why they invade as early as mid 1943 . . . if you fly a mission over the Hague or Calais.

Arrrrgh. It's insane that MSoft has produced no real documentation for how to fly the campaign, and win it. More than a new patch or new missions, I'd dearly love them to write a real user manual!! Mind you, this seems to be a trend in sims. Try working out how to play the campaign in LOMAC! Both CFS 3 and LOMAC tout the advanced nature of their campaign engines, and the forums are full of punters asking 'How the heck do I play the campaign mode in (fill in sim name here).'

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I would say hit the sectors where the enemy has the most strength, so you can reduce it and prevent thewm from launching an offensive.

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At least for the British campaigns, probably.   i very rarely fly bomber campaigns, as flying a successfull anti- ship mission against a defended convoy is next to impossible,  and there are very few three star missions to fly.