MikeyD

To understand Germany's current attitude toward the military it should be remembered WWII was literally the worst man-made catastrophe in the history of the world. 3% of the entire world population perished violently in the space of just a few years.  The depopulation of the Americas after Columbus was more catastrophic but that had unfolded over a century and in absolute numbers WWII still surpasses it in sheer number of people slain. And Germany was at the epicenter of that catastrophe. Both Germany and Japan swore off 'foreign adventures' in the years following the war as a moral obligation and an act of atonement. The US has since wheedled and cajoled both Germany and Japan into  participating in 'foreign adventures' in recent decades but their respective populations remain dead set against it. Why Germany felt obliged to send military forces all the way to Afghanistan is beyond me.

A number of player complaints remind me of that old Henny Youngman joke: I went to the doctor, raised my arm and said "Doc, it hurts when I do this." The doc replied "Then don't DO that!" Often your pixeltruppen have difficulty in certain situations because they shouldn't have gotten into such situations to begin with. Getting yourself spotted 30m away from a hidden mg nest is unlikely to end well no matter what you do. Crawling across open ground while the enemy rains fire down on you is not going to end well no matter what you do. You need to look several chess moves back to discover the source of the problem, not the automatic AI response to the crisis.

'AI plan enhancement' is a slippery slope. Once you cross over into using programming language you'll lose a fair number of prospective editor users.
Many game owners are already intimidated by the current not-particularly-complex AI editor. How many game owners have built their own scenarios where APCs rush to a destination, offload their troops and multiple units then follow coordinated movements in an attack on an objective? Even veteran scenario builders are intimidated by the prospect of constructing assault order sets (that are more than just a shooting gallery). I've got a half-done scenario of my own sitting and waiting for me to add the offensive AI orders. Its not because the game's AI editor is difficult to use, its because planning offensive operations is difficult in general. Adding more options would be cool but it won't make it any less intimidating.

A number of player complaints remind me of that old Henny Youngman joke: I went to the doctor, raised my arm and said "Doc, it hurts when I do this." The doc replied "Then don't DO that!" Often your pixeltruppen have difficulty in certain situations because they shouldn't have gotten into such situations to begin with. Getting yourself spotted 30m away from a hidden mg nest is unlikely to end well no matter what you do. Crawling across open ground while the enemy rains fire down on you is not going to end well no matter what you do. You need to look several chess moves back to discover the source of the problem, not the automatic AI response to the crisis.

No 'what we shouldn't wish for' list wouldn't be complete without a "be careful what you ask for" column. A notorious example of that was players demanding troops be proactive in avoiding incoming artillery. The result was troops fleeing like school girls in silk blouses getting caught in a summer shower. That's since been fixed in the soon-to-release V2.01 (or whatever the number) patch. And yes, that had been added specifically to comply with player requests.
Beta folks have seen stuff that you haven't and know there's a reason why some of this stuff gets delayed/omitted. On-map mortars showed up (very) briefly in one of the earliest CMSF1 Alphas. But it quickly got pulled and it was years before proper coding and animations were in place to bring them back.
My contribution to the 'what were we thinking?' unreasonable demands list was civilians. I had requested a third AI-controlled 'force' layer of just civilians huddling in their houses and fleeing their neighborhoods as the opposing armies clashed. I imagined civilian deaths accumulating negative points to skew the final points total. That request didn't go far.

In the game the flamethrower max targeting range is a bit misleading. You fire a burst and the jet of flame is probably going to overshoot by 10-15 meters anyway, leaving a long narrow impact zone. So what's the max range, the max targetable range or the max distance of the impact footprint?

For a (short) while I was attempting to play by strict 'reality' rules. No moving your camera beyond your own forward line, no raising the camera above level one (except to facilitate placing movement orders). No rewinding to double-check where an attack came from. No flying about the battlefield like a bird, just naviagating by '+' jumps from unit to unit. The game suddenly became VERY challenging, even frightening. Being ground level with your troops in a patch of woods during an artillery stonking is unnerving. We don't realize how much we rely on the 'eye of God' view of the battlefield while playing.

For a (short) while I was attempting to play by strict 'reality' rules. No moving your camera beyond your own forward line, no raising the camera above level one (except to facilitate placing movement orders). No rewinding to double-check where an attack came from. No flying about the battlefield like a bird, just naviagating by '+' jumps from unit to unit. The game suddenly became VERY challenging, even frightening. Being ground level with your troops in a patch of woods during an artillery stonking is unnerving. We don't realize how much we rely on the 'eye of God' view of the battlefield while playing.

Wow, I've been paying CM from the very start and never noticed that feature! I am the least observant person in the world.

Tracers aren't 'just' tracers. They impart valuable information to the player. They give you information on the volume of fire, the velocity of the round being fired (the longer the tracer the higher the velocity), they tell you which of your units are doing the firing and which aren't. They even give hints about the round's caliber. Before CMFB Sturmtiger switched to firing a 3-D rocket model it was firing a 'tracer' that looked like a glowing yellow trash can - a very big and very short tracer.
A lot of players are in the habit of keeping their camera 20 feet up and 20 feet back while playing, That means the more subtle clues about whether a unit is engaging a target is lost

I'd imagine a patch applied to the arm of a uniform texture would need to be very small indeed. No matter what the original resolution, the patch would have to fit into an area perhaps 50x25 pixel or smaller (if your uniform art is standard 1024x1024 dimensions). It might work better to located the smallest decent pict of a subdued union jack patch you can find. Then when you scale it to fit the shoulder it doesn't have to scale down too far.

I'd imagine a patch applied to the arm of a uniform texture would need to be very small indeed. No matter what the original resolution, the patch would have to fit into an area perhaps 50x25 pixel or smaller (if your uniform art is standard 1024x1024 dimensions). It might work better to located the smallest decent pict of a subdued union jack patch you can find. Then when you scale it to fit the shoulder it doesn't have to scale down too far.

I just now did a VERY quick mini-test. For getting the mortar to fire outside of LOS at a designated time you want to (I didn't test the trigger):
Place your mortar where you want it. Give the setup order an 'Exit before...' time so the AI order will move on to the second order at the time you want it. (Exit Before 10 min for example)  Give the mortar AI a 2nd AI move order but instead of painting a movement destination you just control-paint an 'area fire' location. When the mortar AI orders hits the 'exit before' time it'll area fire on whatever location you painted, even if its outside of LOS. Give the 2nd AI order its own 'Exit before..." (Exit Before 13 min for example) so it'll move on to the next order and stop firing. My mini test didn't need painted-on movement orders. The mortar crew could stay in place and not shift position. Mortar targeting was exact, no spotting round. But it started a little bit later than expected. I guess you need to factor in the time for the mortar crew to orient themselves, aim, and and start firing.

I just now did a VERY quick mini-test. For getting the mortar to fire outside of LOS at a designated time you want to (I didn't test the trigger):
Place your mortar where you want it. Give the setup order an 'Exit before...' time so the AI order will move on to the second order at the time you want it. (Exit Before 10 min for example)  Give the mortar AI a 2nd AI move order but instead of painting a movement destination you just control-paint an 'area fire' location. When the mortar AI orders hits the 'exit before' time it'll area fire on whatever location you painted, even if its outside of LOS. Give the 2nd AI order its own 'Exit before..." (Exit Before 13 min for example) so it'll move on to the next order and stop firing. My mini test didn't need painted-on movement orders. The mortar crew could stay in place and not shift position. Mortar targeting was exact, no spotting round. But it started a little bit later than expected. I guess you need to factor in the time for the mortar crew to orient themselves, aim, and and start firing.

A Beta tester recently figured out how the get AI on-map mortars to 'area target' a painted spot beyond LOS after a trigger has been activated. Its really quite amazing. My hat's off to 'em for figuring it out. Its not in any scenarios because its 'new information' that hasn't been put to use yet (and on-map AI mortars were wonky on CMSF2 release). It would probably work using on-map mortars and timed 'movement orders' too. Movement order Minute 10, 'area fire' location X, Movement order minute 13, stop area fire. It doesn't work for off-map mortars, though. It was tested.
I made heavy use of AI-directed 'area fire' timed movement orders for direct fire weapons while refurbishing the CMSF2 scenarios. That was fun to play with.

I've stopped placing blast waypoints on the far side of the wall. Instead I place the blast waypoint on the same side as the troops one space over. Doing that I've never had the blast command convert to 'quick'. And as an extra bonus, the troops won't blindly run through the gap into the open after the blast.

I've stopped placing blast waypoints on the far side of the wall. Instead I place the blast waypoint on the same side as the troops one space over. Doing that I've never had the blast command convert to 'quick'. And as an extra bonus, the troops won't blindly run through the gap into the open after the blast.

Here's the Turkish G3 rifle in Dutch hands. the model borrowed from CM:Afghanistan and the texture reworked. It replaces the plain Dutch C7A1 (Canadian-made M16)
 
 

In the game tracked vehicles will currently run over low rural walls without hesitation, and will most likely come away with a little  track damage because of it. Proper masonry and concrete walls would be even more problematic. People already complain about  vehicles getting stuck in muddy or boggy ground. I don't think they'd want even more stuff to get stuck on. Here's a pict of a Challenger 2 hung up on some concrete and rebar.

Those tall pine trees can be considered pretty much telephone polls with branches starting halfway up the top. You'll get more cover from the 'hvy forest' terrain tile its sitting on than from the tree itself.

I just checked, the editor in this title doesn't come with a uniform 'appearance' selection like you see in CMBS and others. The uniforms are... well... uniform. Or any differences (on the Syrian side) are purely random. Combatant's have their own textures, fighters have their own textures, Militia, Mech Infantry, Special forces and Airborne each have their own textures. But you can't further subdivide the groups

CM is not particularly forthcoming about the mechanics involved in lethality assessment and such. They don't want you to play the 'game engine' but play-out the tactical situation like it was real world. The engine is very precise in what it does, down to the volume of explosive filler in individual shells, whether the round uses a thick steel case like an artillery shell or thin like a Nebelwerfer rocket. You may notice Panther 75mm HE shells are notably less effective than Sherman 75mm HE shells. That's because Sherman shells pack considerably more HE into the round. Panther rounds need to be more thick-walled to withstand the higher chamber pressure on firing. Stryker MGS fires a low velocity 'squash head' round that almost all HE and no casing to speak of. That's all buried in the game engine. You don't know its there but its there.

There's a danger to being over-ambitious. Green scenario designers often dream big then become discouraged. If you've never built a CM scenario with proper AI orders before I suggest you first make up some tiny scenarios just for fun then play them to see if they work as you imagined. Then work your way up gradually 'til you can tackle your magnum opus.