Hi All -

I recently bought Il2 1946 for the 1st time. It is fully patched to 4.09 and has (supposedly) all 5 games inside.

I have a question about the campaigns. I suspect that with the Original IL2, then Pacific Fighters, then Ace Expansion Pack, then Manchuria et etc, that there are several campaigns that came with each upgrade. I am also aware that there are numerous single missions, PLUS dynamic campaigns that can be generated by the 3rd party DCG I have downloaded.

But for a newbie looking at the user interface, all I can see is a large number of planes, countries and campaigns to choose from. There is no sense of context as to what belongs where, which campaigns are the largest and most developed, and which are the smallest.

I see some campaigns are completely dynamic and others are scripted. But there is no real way of telling which ones.

SO I must ask: what is the best way to understand exactly whats inside this library of campaigns? What are the "classics" that are "must plays?" Which are the weaker ones?

Its like walking into a library with a bunch of book titles and no sense which are the classics and which are pulp fiction.

Help!

That's a tough question. The game interface does not give you any of that kind of info. You just select a country and select a campaign by name and hope it's good.

Here is a link of Custom Campaigns you can download that were rated by the users here.

If you are new to flight sims I suggest you download and play my "Straight From the Farm" campaign as your first campaign. It is a training campaign that teaches you how to take off and land from grass landing strips and then you move on to fleet carriers, and finally escort carriers. It also shows you the basic functions to map. Each mission is very short and ranges from 2 minutes to no more than 10 minutes.

Follow the link below to my campaign page at M4T.