Euri

Recce squad A-team has radio but B-team does not have a radio, you can make them a 4 man team in the squad.

1.Has the reinforcement issue in Semper Fi "Flirting for Disaster" been fixed in the latest patch?
2. If so, would one have to replay the campaign from the beginning or just start the specific mission from the beginning

Can someone attest positively that Marines get reinforcements in Flirting with Disaster mission, at the most recent USMC campaign version ? The post from Battlefront on the matter was ambiguous and I don't want to restart and be found at exactly the same position 

1.Has the reinforcement issue in Semper Fi "Flirting for Disaster" been fixed in the latest patch?
2. If so, would one have to replay the campaign from the beginning or just start the specific mission from the beginning

Which is good because the T (Target) or J (Target Briefly) commands fire the tows if the designated target is a building
 

Which I believe is wrong because it does not reflect a situation where blue operates with full air superiority. AAA assets are useless against jets except if the jets operate at low altitude. But there is no reason to operate at low altitude if one dominates the sky. I have written a longer post about it a month ago or so

It better to resist the temptation of entering and clearing buildings.  Better bring the building down with tank and AFV firepower. 

It better to resist the temptation of entering and clearing buildings.  Better bring the building down with tank and AFV firepower. 

It better to resist the temptation of entering and clearing buildings.  Better bring the building down with tank and AFV firepower. 

I believe this deserves a separate topic:
I played the Alamo scenario and it seems that AAA fire is just as effective as in Black Sea, which in my opinion is very wrong. ZSU-23-4 Shilkas are very effective in shooting down air planes in the game. There supposed however to be a difference between CMSF and BS. In the first case the airspace is dominated by Blue while in the latter it is contested and the air assets are forced to operate at low level making then more vulnerable. In the first case fixed wing aircraft should be practically untouchable by AA or AAA fire or, at least, being hits should be a very low probability. Before any operation of ground forces in the broader theater of operations, SEAD missions with warm missiles should have neutralized the air Syrian radar air defenses and no Syrian aircraft should be on the sky in intercept missions. If any of us has played Falcon BMS simulator he would understand what an easy job is for jets to deal with ground forces when the airspace is uncontested and they are not facing long range AA missile threats. AAA guns and portable SAMs are rarely a threat.
To make things worse, there are no drones which would allow taking out Shilkas with precision artillery (and correctly so as we are supposed to be in 2008)
I believe this presents an issues that the developers should seriously reconsider re-balancing. 

Working away on alternate, putting my pixels where my mouth is....
Keener eyes might recognise the inspiration.

It's a good point.  In CM2 it's very common to have the AI unexpectedly surrender before one has the chance to execute the final stages of one's brilliantly planned attack. 
 
It's very frustrating akin to "coitus interruptus".

Vinnart makes some very good points, in line with the idea of consistent visual flow in one direction, e.g. Left to Right.
 
However, I suspect you might be a bit too comfortable with the UI as is, due to familiarity..?
 
Anyhow, here is a grid suggestion.

 
This works from a 1 --> 3 --> 4 --> 5 cell horizontal arrangement,
And from a roughly 1 --> 1.25 --> 1.2  (not perfect, but a least following the Left to Right decrease in size rule.

Good points all round.
 
However:
1. Customizable UI is, As outline by Steve, of very limited value for far too much effort.
2. The less pop-ups the better - I personally value seeing every bit of information in one sweeping glance, working left to right. Requiring me to click to reveal info is guaranteed to irritate me by slowing me down and forcing me to remember, especially in a RT game.
 
2. I disagree with Steve re the positioning of sections being critical to user recognition
 - 2.1 Any info/action panel can be visually identified with sufficiently clean, clear graphics. To suggest that position alone is the only correct way to identify a panel is a bit blinkered.
 - 2.2 If we're going to justify jutting out the Support Call panel on purely priority reasons, then why stop there?  lets make a total mess of the UI top edge, allow any/all panel to jut up, dow, angle in...
 - 2.2. No. There must be a visual discipline here. The top edge is always, Always clean, complete and unbroken in the UI of every single successful strategy game. The only time the edge is broken is for a major, self contained panel, which is usually position on the extreme left or right.
 - 2.3. The Support Call panel is given disproportionate weight - yes its important, but it is still only a PART of the entire "Orders" section, and is still below Movement/Target sections in term of how often we use them.
 
3. I agree with Steve, the UI should Not, absolutely NOT be designed around how current customers want it.
 - 3.1 It SHOULD be designed with some basic principles,which will guide and arrange everything in a hierarchical and flexible manner
 - 3.2 As is, there is no underlying coherent organizational grid to the UI.
 - 3.3 Simply count how many different horizontal lines, at different heights there are and you will get a sense of the visual mess and indiscipline that infests the current UI.
 
The UI is now a fat, bloated, slothful Pentagon-esque project, massively over-detailed, over-weaponed and over (visual) budget.
 
We must strip the fat away, run our 4Km each morning and do our mental push-ups.
We must go back to basics.
 
So, we need a few simple, utterly unbreakbale principles to refer to for each decision making process.
 
Principle 1
Info on the LEFT, Action on the RIGHT.
 
Principle 2
Consistent flow from MACRO Info/Action --> MICRO Info/Action,
- Again, from Left --> Right.
 
Principle 3
HORIZONTAL CONSISTENCY
 - Info/action item boxes should work to a flexible grid within a strictly delineated arrangement of rows.
 - Vertical arrangement is more forgiving, but horizontal is critical - this is because we have a very limited before the UI becomes intrusive on the the view, where as the width provides far more room to work with.
 
We can add more items, but using just these 3 Principles as our rules, will bring huge improvements in readability, usability and visual beauty.

The current info/orders panel is pretty rough on the eyes - a lot of stylistic, proportion and information flow errors.
No consistency in vertical break-up, no consistency in panel size/proportions/relations, no consistency in button design.
 

 
Here is a first draft alternate:

 
Simplification of information flow
Information flows from the left, Action sits on the right
i/e/ READ --> WRITE
Keeps orders/usage to the right hand side
Scales consistently tighter in parallel with level of information and priority of action within the game
Starts harmonising panel and button styles
 
Here are the original and alternate side-by-side.

## Kieme's Mods are superb, but the links are buried way too deep in a constantly growing thread.   ## So, for ease of access here is the most current list, ripped from @ Page 34, Post #672, July 17 2015.   Terrain and environmental mods:



 
Buildings and structures:



 
Troops and soldiers:



 
Ukrainian Army vehicles:



 
US Army vehicles:



 
Russian Army vehicles:



 
Interface:



 
Others:



 
Total: 1.8 GB
 
Still missing: bridges, a couple of them have been done already. More interface: weapon and vehicle silhouettes (less than 50% done), plus a few tweaks here and there.

If you don't have more or less overwhelming force clearing gets very expensive, very quickly.  If you have the artillery, and there not some large overriding reason why not, you should just level them.  Remember if are relatively sure a building is going to be a problem your arty is far easier to use in the set up phase.  Only clear if you can't level it or bypass it.  The same goes for woods mostly.

A feedback thread about campaigns. All played on iron and WEGO.
 
UKR:
Mission 1
Nice movement to contact mission. My Oplots did most the work and thanks to the APS systems they field, none were lost. Because of this the scenario was quite easy. I guess this was intentional. The biggest challenge came from morale shocks on my side, if anything was lost. I really like the "soft parameters" in CM, and in this title the soldiers feel "real" under fire and when taking casualties. Some may see it as "being cowards", but in my opininion it's quite spot on, with the flaws and all.
 
Mission 2
Very good scenario, except for the cheesy spawning of Russian reinforcements. I happened to had stormed the highground building complex on the right, and made a quick and decisive long flanking move from the right to the final objective. When almost in the objective, the Russians spawned inside my attack formation. That's poor scenario design in my opinion. Otherwise very enjoyable and challenging mission, which was quite easy to tackle thanks to the available arty and chopper support.
 
Mission 3
I love these smaller scenarios. Found this one very challenging, though doable. My plan was to create my assault routes with the BTR-4 cannons, rather than using the approaches that would have lead to enemy ambushes. The enemy plan was good, with troops disengaging and pulling back in front of the attack.
 
Mission 4
Too big to my liking, but challenging mission. I would rather have had 2 max coy size scenarios than one battalion size. In my opinion, the bigger the scenario, the worse it suits CM because the player has to micromanage everything. And I mean everything. Doing that to all those forces just isn't fun, especially under fire ;-)
 
Overall the Ukrainian campaign felt short, but I liked missions 1-3, especially 3. It was easier than I would have thought, mainly because of the Oplot and APS.
 
US:
Mission 1
Loved the terrain. Overall the scenario was quite challenging, I had to restart it once due to (surprise!) a bad plan on my side. It would have been more realistic, if the enemy recon element was also moving. Being static they had the upper hand against my smaller recon element, that was relying on the single Bradley. Enemy plan was believeable and the fighting turned out very tense on my left flank, where I had my tanks and Bradley platoon taking the complex. Nice use of enemy reinforcements on the flanks. This one forced me to use more brains than muscle.
 
Mission 2
This scenario was not up to par with the rest in the campaign. Using that small force in that big urban setting felt funny at first, especially as the enemy was already in the buildings. Using mines on junctions is of course SOP for any defending infantry unit, but having the minefields on tarmac (undetectable by my AFVs) seems odd. I would have bought it if the mines were on the gravel roads etc. In the end the mission was not that difficult, but the map/task size compared to force size was IMO too big. I did not enjoy the scenario because of that.
 
Mission 3
Poking was interesting in design. Joint fires did cause a lot of damage for the russians, but I lost all my air assets in the end. That was because of the reinforcement Tunguskas that arrived later. I found this one the most difficult mission in any of the campaigns, and as a commander would have brought up a bit more forces to counter the threat of the enemy counterattack. Now even as I had good positions when it happened, I ran out of AT weapons and that caused most of my casualties.
 
Mission 4
I deployed the defending units so that they were not hit by the preparatory barrage, and on the left I managed to hold the line and cause the Russian attack to stop. The following mop-up with the reinforcements was easy. The Ukrainian units in this scenario were a fun little touch. I dislike these huge factory complexes in CM as the infantry is not that good in urban warfare and close quarter combat.
 
Mission 5
Hats off. This mission was not difficult because the enemy was too strong, but because they did a very smart ambush. For the start of the mission I kept picking off single targets, but the tanks hidden inside the forests came in just at the right time to cause some real havoc and "D'oh!" -moments. The tank company (?) counterattack turned into "laser warning - smoke - reverse" duel that lasted for 30 minutes. One T-90 managed to kill 2 Abrams with 1 shot, which caused loss of hair. Good scenario, and the size was barely manageable as most of the forces were tanks and they arrived on the map in packets. With this many tanks on map, I really really miss a proper tank AI, that could manage the single tanks like real crews: taking hull down positions on their own, backing up to turret-down when fired etc. Now the tank battles feel clumsy and unrealistic, when both sides just sit there and slug it out.
 
The american campaign was mostly good, with enough challenge in the end. I was afraid it would be more like CMSF, but the challenge was quite balanced and there was the actual chance of losing, not because of lack of forces/support, but because of smart scenario design and believeable enemy actions.
 
RU:
Mission 1
Quite easy to punch through the screening line. Nice map. Enemy was very much scattered so it was easy to pick peace-meal. The T-72B3 coy was nice thing to have, but as it was not core force and never made another appearance, their casualties did not matter much. Maybe if the same coy would have been available later, with the losses carrying over...?
 
Mission 2
Good atmosphere, very good map. The UKR chopper attack kept me on guard, but where are the AA assets when you need them?
 
Mission 3
Excellent mission, with beautiful map. Finally they swim! The enemy force guarding the beach was very weak, but the stiffer resistance up on the plateau, using 100mm AT -guns was harder to crack, thanks to wisely laid out fields of fire. The Oplots that were so over powerful in the UKR campaign were cannon fodder against the T-90s on the high ground. I managed the crossing and taking of the beach objectives with zero casualties, which felt good. No-one would attempt such a crossing if there was stiff resistance up ahead. The dug-in Tunguska on the Plateau proved to be the most difficult opponent. They are maybe a bit too good against ground targets, spotting everything first and always firing firts... At least it felt that way.
 
Mission 4
The blue side plan was once again very good, along with the map. The flanking move from left is very obviously stated by the map, so did just that and moved the support platoon to back left corned high-rise buildings, from where I was able to knock out some Strykers with ATGMs. The otherwise good enemy plan lacked a good counter to this maneuvre. The BTRs felt like paper vs any weapon from 12,7 to 40mm to AT weapons, which was quite frustrating. The enemy EW was good touch, along with their quick reaction indirect fires. With the EW on, I used most of my artillery in preparation and that seemed to be the right thing to do. Too bad the force in question was not part of the core force.
 
Mission 5
This scenario once again was quite close to my limit in size, but good thing the forces arrived in packets. The fight for the church was intense and after that planning the mechanized attack was very challenging, thanks to the Abrams and Bradleys watching all the approaches. The amount of artillery made the scenario quite easy, thanks to possibility to lay down huge smoke screens, 203mm barrages and the Havocs taking out few of the tanks. Good call on the scenario designer to hide most of the vehicles so, that chopper attacks did not manage to take them out - missiles hitting trees or buildings. Map was good once again, with sufficient size to maneuvre, but compact enough. American artillery kept on raining quickly and accurately, and it caused most of my casualties.
 
The Russian campaign was in my opinion the best and most enjoyable. Fighting the Ukrainians felt like a pushover from time to time, but going against the Americans, with all those small touches like EW felt like a true challenge, and true modern combat.
 
 
The campaign scenarios were better in my opinion than the campaigns in previous titles. Maybe when there is no historic burden, it's easier to design good scenarios, or maybe you have just gotten better over time? The scenarios also felt interesting for the most part, not repeating the same stuff over and over (like CMSF:NATO felt to me). I just hate too big urban fights with too little forces and support. On the negative side, the campaigns were small, 4, 5 and 5 missions long. If I compare this to MG allied campaign (16+ scenarios), it feels even shorter. Most of the scenarios were quite large in size (campaign description "medium" seems to understate this), with a lot of forces. The UKR mission 3 was a very welcome change of pace. More of the smaller ones, please! Another negative that comes with the campaign lenght is that the same core units don't make appearance in many scenarios, and that there is no feel of achievement / defeat from branching. The manual describes the "NATO win/lose" branches and same for Russia, so why not utilize that fully in a longer campaign? Now all campaigns ended in a sort of cliffhanger - where I would have loved to see what next.
 
I truly hope you make some sort of "modules" or packs to this title, with the focus set on new scenarios and especially campaigns. I think it's easily the best CM yet, with the most interesting setting. The forces feel different enough and they provide different kinds of challenegs to the player. The game feels "complete" even without more forces and sides available to the fight, though more is welcome here too! With the background story I would love to see more variety in the campaigns as well. Now all campaigns were focusing on attacking. How about a UKR campaign describing the deployment to east, and then the desperate delaying action in the beginning of the conflict with ever diminishing core force and the knowledge that if you don't do well enough, the NATO will not make it in time. Or the NATO trying to turn the scales in the situation where the Russian campaign ends? Please, include smaller scenarios in the campaigns as well - or maybe a smaller scale campaign all together.
 
Thanks for the good hours of campaigning, hope there's more to come!

SPOILERS
 
I found this mission very easy. Actually I caused a surrender without even touching a single objective. Just establishing my tanks on the central hill, two good observation points at the hills left and right of the map, and then using my UAVs to call Helo and precision strikes on enemy vehicles. I only advance a bit my Bradleys and dismounted infantry along the main road, but, as I said, just a bit. The enemy took so many casualties that they surrendered at minute 45.
 
In general, with the US one has a huge technology advantage with the UAVs and the ability to bring precision in two minutes.  No need to seek contact with the enemy. In this mission, playing elite, I had 3 KIA and 1 wounded. That is all

That is whole point of panic

MANPADS organic carrier vehicle should be carrying additional missiles that can be obtained by loading the unit into the vehicle and using the ACQUIRE command.  Also, if you keep them near their carrier vehicle, I think they will automatically acquire another missile via ammo sharing.

I had this kind of problems occasionally with CMBN and CMSF (i.e the saved file was not loading, or the computation phase hanged) The solution for me was to increase the max size of the virtual memory as much as possible. Be as generous as you can. I should probably have posted this reply to tech support thread. 

One word: "Congradulations"
 
Both, mission 2 and mission 3 of the Russian campaign were not just well designed. They were unique and magnificent! (In my opinion better than "Battle for objective Pooh" from CMSF - which until today was the standard of excellence)
 
SPOILERS
 
I did very well in mission 3 (elite difficulty). I crossed untouched! Admittedly, I was lucky to survive two or three of AT-14 shots but then all went smoothly. Here is how I did it. Basically I exhausted my arty on long linear (antipersonnel) missions on the ridges of the slop overlooking the beaches. I took out some houses with my airplanes. Immediately before entering the water I expended all my smoke rounds on the ridges and the beaches. When crossing I sent my AFVs in wedge formations with the APS vehicles on the lead, to draw AT fire and reveal the locations and kill them with my tanks from afar. One last detail, I took my time before crossing. I went in the water 45 mins into the game!
 
One thing that cough me by surprise (a pleasant one) was that the AVFs were able to shoot while in the water!
 
Thank you again, for the amazing experience.

Sad news... If it was possible to use target commands while making AI plans I'm sure the AI would be far more lethal !

I actually find reloading turns has helped me become a better player as I learn what works and I can then put it into practice. So these days a reload alot less than I did a couple of years ago.