Blue on FRIDAY

[Father Ted]

  Bloody wrong Bloody April?  I got the Flying Circus thing and its April 1918 (of course Bloody April was April 1917)...not that it matters all that much....Anyway, I took a screenshot of a Bristol Fighter in Flying Circus -- its a MArk III so it could not have been in the 1917 version of Bloody April, though an earlier mark could have been (I think):

It's a community event thing which has now been running for ten years (hence the "X").  When it started in RoF, there was a historical plane-set available, and I think there some attempt to follow history.  Over the years, things have changed, and obviously, with the move to FC, we can't recreate the actual Bloody April, but it's become more of a brand name for the event.  There's also "Flanders in Flames" and "Black September".

They're fun to do because you fly for a side, and whether the side wins or loses over 12 "battles" is down to the two-seaters completing tasks (recon, bombing).  So you get teamed up into a flight and assigned a role, and you want to do it properly to help your side win.  In that respect it's a bit like HLL, I guess (except everyone's a grown up).  Oh, and it's dead-is-dead, with limited airframes available, so you get more tactical behaviour.

[MengJiao]

  Bloody wrong Bloody April?  I got the Flying Circus thing and its April 1918 (of course Bloody April was April 1917)...not that it matters all that much....Anyway, I took a screenshot of a Bristol Fighter in Flying Circus -- its a MArk III so it could not have been in the 1917 version of Bloody April, though an earlier mark could have been (I think):

It's a community event thing which has now been running for ten years (hence the "X").  When it started in RoF, there was a historical plane-set available, and I think there some attempt to follow history.  Over the years, things have changed, and obviously, with the move to FC, we can't recreate the actual Bloody April, but it's become more of a brand name for the event.  There's also "Flanders in Flames" and "Black September".

They're fun to do because you fly for a side, and whether the side wins or loses over 12 "battles" is down to the two-seaters completing tasks (recon, bombing).  So you get teamed up into a flight and assigned a role, and you want to do it properly to help your side win.  In that respect it's a bit like HLL, I guess (except everyone's a grown up).  Oh, and it's dead-is-dead, with limited airframes available, so you get more tactical behaviour.

  Sounds good!  I haven't played RoF in years so in FC I'm still at the stage where I just marvel to see a few biplanes.  I guess I could try flying the WWII Russian Biplane versus some earlier planes but here I'm drifting into War thunder-ish territory where I used to get nice results in torpedo planes with bombs on tanks (because the planes are slow and carry a lot of bombs so I tended to hit things more often).

[JasonPratt]

Over the weekend, I finally caught back up with Shiloh again on Ultimate General: Civil War, this time with a better corps (though still only 15 brigades instead of 20 -- but the game assumes some of those twenty will be dedicated skirm companies and cannon batteries, both of which I'm ignoring.)

I can confirm that having captured the flag on day one, there is no "Finish the mission" button, ever. The mission drags out to the absolute end of the day. I did win this time, but I suffered some rather harsh casualties to my irreplaceable superweapons (the Lorenz and MJG brigades), because I got impatient at not being able to 'finish' and just set brigades in groups to push the yankees around the map and off their attempts at retaking Pittsburg Landing. By the end, I had gotten all but a scattered handful trapped in a corner of the map, constantly being shot and meleed. The after-tally couldn't accept that I had kicked sooooo much butt, and just straight lied about how I had caused (only) 50ish percent casualties. Not worth the irreplaceable super-weapons.

I will probably go back later this week and replay the final push (when the total map opens up at last for both sides of the fight), with an eye toward doing better fieldwork to protect my precious quality rifles while maneuvering around better to get inside the picket line and stay there defending the Yankee's own base against Yankee aggression. If I can get out with fewer casualties, I'll be a lot happier: having experimented to the limit, I understand the game just doesn't expect me to win on day one and has no code to understand it.