What is up with the OPFOR in the campaign? and other realism gripes.

[Nihilistkitten]

I am essentially playing a US combined arms company/coy combat team (1x Coy mounted in Bradley IFVs with a supporting platoon of tanks) to which some enablers have been added. The OPFOR is the Soviets. The year is 1991. I am playing on the default settings for OPFOR points and Support points.

The doctrinal enemy such a formation could be expected to deal with is a battalion in a meeting engagement (owing to tanks + superior availability of air support) or on the defense, and maybe an equivalent formation on the offense.

Why am I then fighting the equivalent of a Soviet Brigade+ (sometimes even division!) worth of assets in every scenario? (Despite achieving sometimes 6-7 to 1 kill ratios) Even when I'm willing to accept that I still have plenty to learn about the engine, but for a game that bills itself on realism at the tactical level, this is not a realistic (or fun) OPFOR generation algorithm.

Also air support is way too cheap and plentiful. I think artillery is where it's supposed to be at, expensive to get a battery in direct support which is what it should be, but the aforementioned Soviet Brigades+ summon entire squadrons of planes and Gunships when normally, these assets are very rare in the dedicated ground support role. Similarly, my company+ sized force should not be getting 5-6 sorties of CAS for the cost of an Abrams platoon lol.

Finally despite somehow managing to defeat the OPFOR, my force is then wrecked from running through the red horde. All my support points go into restoring it but the Soviet brigade I just trashed is back in the next scenario right as rain.

Some suggestions to improve this:

- Generate the OPFOR based off doctrinal orbats and give us the option to select what we would like to fight (Soviet Armored Battalion, Motor Rifle Brigade or Division, etc.) These are easily available in the public domain now.

- Have the OPFOR pay for restoration or get reinforcements the same as we do. Maybe include some campaign events where if you've destroyed 2311 Motor Rifle battalion, it's sister formation takes its place, or it receives a company of conscripts, etc. Tracking the OPFOR states and getting intelligence updates about it would be awesome.

- More scenario types. An occasional battle where you're considerably overmatched by a full Soviet brigade with air dominance and have to conduct a delay would be fun, every scenario being that is not.

- Make air cost a lot more for both sides.

- I'm glossing over the AI here as I understand it's difficult to get an AI to react well to the complexity of the game, but it'd be nice if it employed some better tactics as opposed to the mad dash and fires/air spam. Especially as a single player game only.

I bought the game for the dynamic campaign features and it feels in a very rough state right now, I hope improvements will be made in the future.

[Veitikka]

Dynamic campaign improvements are planned.