Which one? Old guy needs help pls

[gterl]

Hello fellow gentlemen flyers,

I’m currently looking for a worthy successor to my still beloved FE Gold (believe it or not).

A bit of context on where I’m coming from:

• I’ve been a long-time student and enthusiastic reader of everything related to WW1, especially the aviation side of it.
• I play exclusively offline these days — perhaps I’m getting too old for overly complex and time-consuming setups.
• I don’t have much patience anymore for building campaigns, missions, or spending hours configuring things.
• Visual immersion is very important to me — I struggle a bit going back to the older FE-era models and visuals.
• What I’m really looking for is: jump into a mission, read the objective, get into the cockpit, enjoy the atmosphere and visuals, and have fun — even if my average life expectancy is measured in minutes, as I’m a rather poor (virtual) pilot.

With that in mind, I’m currently torn between WOFF: BH&H and IL-2: Flying Circus. From a budget perspective, I’ll most likely stay with the basic versions of either option.

A few questions for those with experience:

• How good is the offline experience in IL-2? I understand separate campaigns are available — but how enjoyable and seamless is the overall experience?
• How demanding is WOFF performance-wise? I’d prefer to avoid slideshow performance or micro-stutters.
• AI flying sophistication is honestly not my highest priority — I’m usually the weakest pilot in the sky anyway.
• How is ground activity represented in both titles? Which one better captures that authentic “flying over the trenches in WW1” atmosphere?

At the moment I’m leaning slightly towards WOFF, but after watching plenty of IL-2 videos and learning more about the available campaigns, I’m becoming less certain.

My setup:
Intel i7-6700K @ 4GHz
GeForce GTX 1080 (8GB)
32 GB RAM
Windows 10 64-bit

Many thanks in advance for any thoughts, recommendations or experiences you’re willing to share.

Much appreciated!

[Goob113870]

do yourself a favor and ditch the flying circus as for single player it lacks in all departments. The A.I. aircraft are about the dumbest thing i've ever seen, they literally let you shoot them down.  There is only scripted career mode or scripted campaign. At least on multiplayer ypu can fly against human opponents.

Wings over flanders fields is a beautiful recreation of fighting the First World War from the air. its a true singleplayer dynamic campaign. I think the graphics are amazing especially with the Over The Top DLC & The Last Hurrah. DLC #3 just hit Dawn Skies. The A.I. Aircraft are some of the toughest opponents ive seen yet in a flight sim. They dont hang around to let you pick them off. You enlist in The axis or allied air corps and try to stay alive at the front. Tommorow is not guarenteed. In Short I would play WOFF before i fire up FC.