[ShadowWulf]

Im kind of new to the game as well but I can answer most of your questions. First off in my opinion the campaign is worth playing, you wont see much action until later into the campaigns but since its a cold war sim it gives it a realistic feel in my mind. A lot of the earlier missions feel like something you might actually be told to do in a modern day situation, yet I suppose they could be boring to some people.

As far as randomizing of the campaigns they are fairly random. For instance in one Akula mission you are ordered to escort a SAG out of the Baltic sea and sink any U.S. subs that you encounter. My first time through the mission I encountered 2 688i submarines to the north west and close together heading straight for the SAG. On a second time I encountered the same two 688i’s though they were spread out more and to the west of my starting position was a Amethyste sub. So if you were to just try and go straight for the 688i’s in belief that that was all that was there then you Amethyste would have almost certainly sank one or two ships in the SAG before you could stop it.

And as far as I can tell from what I have done in my campaign if you replay a mission it will effect the mission that follows it even if you have already beat both (don’t believe it messes stuff up any further).