How will the new BofB compare to Talonsoft's original?

[xj900uk]

Really liked the Talonsoft original when I brought it (still have it!) but found it a bit slow and tedious particularly when planning the German missions (reconisance really got to me!). It was a challenge to play as the Luftwaffe, as the RAF it was all far too easy but the German's were really slow, often planning and setting up the missions took over an hour.
Interesting that Uncommon Valour uses a similar plannign system but is far more interesting and dynamic, possibly because there are fewer planes and bases and missions go more pearshaped.

May well give the new BofB a look-see whne it comes out, but I would like to know what others think of the original and its main weaknesses (too easy for RAF, too slow & tedious to plan German missions)

[vils]

hmm never had problems with recon, thanks to the auto-plotting feature in the game, i just pick a target type and then re-hit plot recon until i run out of resources
 
But bob was acually more fun than Btr, it was to easy, almost impossible to resist the gameys i remember particular bombing ***********, thus winning as axis way to quick. Strangely ive never really enjoyed playing the defender side, nor RAF in bob or Germany in Btr, but thats me
 

[SireChaos]

Strange, xj900uk.
 
I found that in BoB (never had BtR), it was too hard to win as the Brits. The Luftwaffe would suffer losses, sure, their air groups would degrade, but the Brits never managed to stop them from inflicting crippling damage to British industries and cities in the process. And I played both sides, both long campaigns, several times.

[xj900uk]

My problem is that my recce planes always got shot down by the Brits.  I either had to sneak 'em in at low-level which is fine near the coast,  or possibly the low-level loan raider to drop the odd bomb on Tilbury & escape the balloon barrage,  or else send Me110s ultra-high over the top of heavy raids into the SE,  if they could get past Hendon the chances are the RAF wouldn't bother so they had mroe than 50/50 chance of actually seeing and photographing something,  and getting back with the snaps!  If I left it to the auto-plotter,  I usually ran out of recce planes inside of a week,  and was giving loads of free scores to the RAF.
 
Playing as the RAF,  I always won & yes although my indsutry and airfields sometimes took a pasting,  I was often shooting down 100+ machines a day and wore out the Luftwaffe inside of a couple of weeks.  Now I know our boys in blue made those type of claims,  but hte most they ever scored was 71 confirmed down on (I think August 15th).  It is worth noting that for September 15th (Battle of Britain day),  the RAF claimed 185 German planes shot down.  The actual figure was subsequently reduced to 56,  the Germans accept 50 with another 10 lost either through non-combat, or else crash-landed in northern France & were beyond recovery.  However,  I do accept that these claims are disputed even to this day.
I still found it too easy to win as the Brits, and the Germans although genuinely interesting and challenging (could i do bette rthan Goring?) were very slow and tedious to plan

[SireChaos]

Regarding recce... first of all, there is one type - JU-86P, I think - that can fly so high no British fighter can intercept it. Second, the Me-110 recces are awfully difficult to intercept, IIRC. Third, I recall I was often successful sneaking recces in among a massive strike, or while the RAF was fighting off a strike elsewhere. Recces alone (except Me-110 and Ju-86P) are merely fighter fodder.
 
Except for my first feeble attempts at playing, I never used the auto-plotter at all.

[Hard Sarge]

interesting points of view

Recon, we have made them a little HARDer to kill (well, if you can catch them, you can kill them, but they are HARDer to catch)

but over all, Recon needs a plan, you send them in lonewolf, they going to get hunted, if you send them in while the RAF is too busy to react to them...

also, Recon, now takes multi snaps of the area, so if you get 5 birds to sneak in and get back out, you may have 20-25 new snaps to work with

I have tried to take out all of the "old" LF one day cheats, so a Blitz like before should not work


plotting is still going to be somewhat the same, we got more waypoints to make getting the raid where you want it, but the plotting system is still the same, but as a old timer, once you are used to it, it is nothing, the trick is getting used to it

if you like the detail and the micromanegment you are going to love these, if you don't, well, we still got staff auto plot, which sometimes it can plot some pretty poor raids, other times, it does a good job

for BoB, there is no bais as to which side should win, other then the Defence is always stronger then the Off, until you get into BTR, the Allies are going to be strong very strong, by the time 44 or early-med 44 rolls around

[Joel Rauber]

I  enjoyed doing the plotting in BoB.  Yes it takes time, but I don't see how you could make a good game at this scale (time and unit) without requiring the Germans to do plotting.

In the PBEM's the German will be the player with more time on their hands for the game.  The bloke with the less time on their hands will be the Brits.

I loved BoB and look forward to this new edition.