Falcon 4.0 is a military flight simulation with unusual depth of design. Not only can you participate in a simulated battlefield that integrates a real time dynamic air and ground war, you can also determine the strategic priorities of the campaign.

At first glance many players will conclude that there are three basic campaigns to choose from, and each can be configured with the difficulty level the player prefers. This is the best place to start, of course, but from here the player can choose to customize the war along specific strategic lines via the Priorities panel, creating personal variations on each of the three campaigns.

Access to the Priorities panel is via the button labeled "P" at the right of the small campaign map. Clicking on the Priorities button brings up the screen shown top right as Figure 2.

Notice the green box at bottom left of the screen in Figure 2, indicating that the computer is making all decisions with regard to strategic priorities. When the computer is allowed to determine priorities, the campaign begins with the settings as shown top right. These priorities will change according to the progress of the campaign.

The Priorities panel is composed of three separate tabs, each of which influence tactical and strategic priorities. The first tab is Target Type. Notice that at the beginning of the campaign the highest priority is set to Air Defenses and Army targets. If you have played a campaign for a few days with the default settings, your primary Frag orders have reflected these priorities.

If you have played one of the more difficult campaigns, either Rolling Fire or Iron Fortress, you have discovered that the odds are stacked against you. Perhaps you have wondered whether the campaign might go better for you if the strategic priority was different?

In Figure 3 at top right you will see a different target priority setting than is displayed in Figure 2, with radar installations now equal to Air Defenses in priority and command, control and communication now taking precedence over even Army targets.

Figure 1.

I selected these settings and then tracked two different campaigns for fourteen hours to assess the difference in progress. I also made two other critical modifications to the campaign. I increased the priority of Strategic Strike missions and shifted the geographical focus of my offensive.

Figure 2.

Figure 3. Priorities Panel.

In Figure 1 the grey square represents the default settings for Close Air Support, Anti Shipping, and Strategic Strikes. I increased the priority of Strategic Strikes to equal Interdiction, and reduced the priority of Close Air Support missions to match these two. I also reduced Anti-Shipping to zero.

My next adjustment was in the geographical focus of the offensive. The following image shows the default PAK settings followed by my adjusted priority setting.

Figure 4

Figure 5

In Figure 4 above a box locates P'Yongyang province. The deep red coloring indicates that P'Yongyang is a very high priority at this phase of the campaign.

In Figure 5 you can see that I have greatly reduced the strategic priority of P'Yongyang, and increased the strategic priority of Kaesong and Wonsan (the coastal territory just north and west of Seoul). This means that the AI will schedule more missions to these territories until it assesses a certain level of success. Note, however, that this doesn't happen immediately but takes roughly two hours to implement.

While adjusting Target Type and Mission Type does have an impact, it is not possible to zero out the sliders. I monitored the frag order for ten campaign hours in each campaign I ran, and in spite of my sliding the Anti-Shipping target slider to the extreme left, naval missions were still flown.

The other difficulty is a bug that prevents your changes from being saved. Once you exit a campaign and re-enter you will have to reset your adjustments in the PAK screen. Other changes appear to be saved.

Furthermore, in spite of the many changes I made to the Mission Type and Target Type priorities, the ATO changed only slightly from the default unmodified campaign to the two modified campaigns. I maintained exhaustive ATO lists for each campaign. I suspect a few bugs in the AI here too.

Is It Worth It?

The test of the change of strategy is the actual progress of the campaign, as well as the number of pilots/aircraft lost vs. the number of enemy targets destroyed. I tracked the default "Rolling Fire" campaign as well as my modified campaign for the first fourteen hours to observe the differences, recording the frag order as well as mission result. The AI level for both campaigns was "Rookie," and the following are the results I recorded (campaign results at 1500 hours, 1800 hours and at 2200 hours.)

Default Campaign

1500 Hours

• Pilots killed = 2
• Aircraft lost = 2
• Missions flown: 40
• AA Kills = 7
• AG kills = 23
• Static Targets = 5

1800 Hours

• Pilots killed = 3
• Aircraft lost = 3
• Missions flown: 66
• AA Kills = 10
• AG kills = 31
• Static Targets = 5

2200 Hours

• Pilots killed = 4
• Aircraft lost = 4
• Missions flown: 114
• AA Kills = 17
• AG kills = 40
• Static Targets = 5

Strategic Campaign

1500 Hours

• Pilots killed = 3
• Aircraft lost = 5
• Missions flown: 34
• AA Kills = 6
• AG kills = 24
• Static Targets = 8

1800 Hours

• Pilots killed = 3
• Aircraft lost = 5
• Missions flown: 69
• AA Kills = 9
• AG kills = 28
• Static Targets = 8

2200 Hours

• Pilots killed = 5
• Aircraft lost = 6
• Missions flown: 113
• AA Kills = 19
• AG kills = 33
• Static Targets = 13

Aircraft and pilot losses are almost the same after virtually the same number of missions (113 vs 114). The most substantial difference is the number of static targets destroyed, reflecting the difference in campaign priorities. This chart shows the differences:

Statistically the difference isn't significant, but it would be worth monitoring the campaign through a second and third day of progress to continue to monitor the progress. Until the bugs in this system are fixed, however, it probably isn't worth the attempt. Watch for a followup to this article in late April or May.