I’m hoping that this thread won’t turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I switched to Rook a while ago, just to meet some new faces. What I have learned from it only reaffirms what I already knew about the AH1 version of the game. The end result, whether that be a battle to win a field or the war itself, comes down to one thing, and one thing only – numbers. I decided to stick with the “weaker” team, certainly weaker in terms of numerical strength during Euro hours, so that I could see what went on from the weaker side’s point of view. Plays havoc with k/d (lazs please note!), but someone had to do it. We were down to one field, and a CV. I decided to work with delphi44 and try to keep the CV for as long as we could.
A lost cause. We faced a wall of Bish TBMs – actually more like a chainsaw as they kept re-upping over and over, plus a divebombing LANC formation. All credit to the ship gunners – the LANCs went down, the carrier stayed up. But here comes another wave – heavy fighters and more TBMs. Much of the time it was 9v2. Hehe – I was waiting for some smart alec to tell us to come out of the ack to fight the 9 planes that had 5-10K alt advantage – lol. We concentrated on the TBMs and LANCs, and let the fighters die by following us into the ack. I had 3 kills credited to me without firing a single shot!
Eventually, the inevitable happened. The carrier went down, game over. And just then, the knits won the war at A3!
I don’t care for the repeat pork-n-auger suicide & re-uppage game, and that’s the primary reason I look forward to AH2. That, plus evenly matched planesets in missions, ie not F6F v Yak-9U, Spit1a v 109F4 or some other such mismatch.
But I’m beginning to wonder whether it will succeed. So many people have adopted the numerical supremacy smashdown, brute force, suicide fuel pork, LANC divebomb the CV and auger routine as a gameplay culture – and seem to enjoy it – that I wonder how many will actually have the patience/interest to spend time at AH2 TOD...