IHC70

Building on Freyberg's point, I'd like to see some incremental features that make the game less 'fiddly' and micro intensive.
(The below comments focus on infantry, as I don't play the tank shooter scenarios much -- for me, AFVs are taxis and gun platforms).
1. I'd love to be able to assign Formation Orders to platoons. These are point/area objectives or phase lines, set more or less like plotting artillery missions is done now. Once assigned, the sub units will move on those objectives and continue to do so so  for as long as they are in good order/ unpinned, or not overridden by me.
2. In issuing Formation Orders, I can also give choices akin to the existing AI logic: e.g. advance aggressively/cautiously, set up an ambush at the objective, etc.
3.  I then hit go and watch my plan unfold (and then not survive contact with the enemy). I can intervene, or not, when and where I choose. I can also cancel the formation orders and issue new ones, but as with Artillery these may take a lot of time to process depending on a bunch of factors.
4.  As it is now, we have to set and then tweak long chains of orders and routings, subunit by subunit. These are either obeyed slavishly, with no deviation for self-preservation until they've hit the point of panic, or just dumped, after which the unit sits there until I notice. So even a modest company scale action just seems to drag on and on and on while I cycle through every freekin counter to see what it's doing. Which after a while gets tedious numbing, even for an old time hex gamer like me.
Yes, you can certainly just lasso and Zerg rush clusters of units around the map on Quick, dispensing micro in exchange for a bloodbath, but why not just play Starcraft?
6. I get that TacAI is hard to program, and you get unintended consequences like the infamous 4.0 bug. And I don't mind my pixtruppen skulking for a while, especially rattled, exhausted or green troops with poor leaders. But it would be nice for formations that aren't too badly beaten up to revert to their orders on their own after a bit without me doing it all again.
.... Failing the above, I'd at least like my troop icons to give me some 'hey, I need some micro here' feedback, beyond just blinking at the moment they're under fire. Just for example: 
- regular coloured icon = unit is in good order, has orders active or is shooting
- translucent icon = unit has no active orders (i.e. needs micro soon)
- red background, unit is Pinned or worse (i.e. needs micro NOW)
All the above is FWIW, and I make no  demands here.

I would like this feature to happen someday. Sometimes I want to play a huge battle, but I don't want the responsibility of commanding a huge amount of troops. Maybe just a Company or a Platoon out of a Battalion. That being said... the AI would need to be drastically improved.

Hey please don't get offended - I'm not having a go at you
I just picked your message because you were commenting along the lines of what a group of really hard-core users have asked for, which is totally cool and that's your right.
I'd just like to make the point that for some of us, the gamesters, more micro-managing is not a feature we would like. I think the balance is good, and I like the level of clicking about where it is now.

Fair
Valid point. I suppose I was triggered by the reference to the rudeness by T*****. My apologies to you @purpheart23. I do like these wish list threads actually. OK I like the ideas, not the frequent use of passive aggressive phrasing that shows up in a variety of posts but honestly that should be water of a ducks back - so - I have work to do.

Yes, of course! And light up their pipes while they're at it
No. but I did have a couple of instances where a tank exhausted its ammo pounding the enemy while another fellow tank with a disabled main gun just sat there in the back doing nothing. It would be cool to somehow be able to transfer that ammo to the fully operational vehicle (in safe conditions ;).

A "Wait in Ambush, Shoot, then Displace to Another Location" order would be very helpful for snipers, and any unit waiting to ambush something.
A complete revamp of the "Acquire" process so that any unit could exchange weapons and ammo with any adjacent unit - up to a reasonable amount of course and with a time delay - like when one sets up a crew weapon.  (ie: Do away with the clickfest "Split into Teams, Mount Vehicle, Acquire, Dismount and Rejoin Original Squad" process.)
A "Scout Order" - one can simply click on a target location and the scout team uses an AI routine to carefully scout towards it while maintaining self-preservation.  (Currently, scouting is a virtual suicide mission - at least in WEGO.)
 

1. Shoot n' Scoot command 
2. Pre-configurable fallback point to be used when a unit retreats or combined with Shoot n' Scoot
3. UI element or command that lets you disable special weapons like ATGM's on a BMP or Panzerfausts in a Grenadier squad

There is good comments here about flamethrowers as to how they work in the game.
As pointed out, generally, if you have them on defence and can set them up where the line of sight is also limited. Like dence woods. They can spring a nasty suprise on the enemy.
On offence as pointed out, very hard to get them in the correct  location without being killed.
What might be important to note is. If you can get them to fire on enemy infantry, its almost a gareentee to kill them or at least break them and make them panic and run.
So I have found with breaking the enemy. You do not need to hit them to get the break and panic. just need a near miss to get that result.
So you can area fire and get that result if its next to the enemy.
So on offence, you might be able to not move into line of sight, but move into a spot where they cannot see you and you cannot see them. But you can still area fire into the action square next to them. which will do the job sometimes without being shot down. Also because of their great inaccuraccy, they might actually hit the target and then get you a gareenteed great result.

Aye, I am the person responsible for this work. It's one of the very late battles of the war, featuring Kriegsmarine defenders. They put up a fight, as the original poster found out. It's also playable from the German side, with 3 plans per side. Maybe he got the Ultra Tough one.
To those that struggle through it, and need Cliff Notes:
Smoke is available, use it if needed. There's plenty of artillery available. There's also 2 flame-throwing Wasps that, if you aren't charging at everything can make short work of anyone in strong points.
Otherwise: I don't make puzzle scenarios. This area of Northern Germany is largely as flat as Holland. I've been generous, as to the cover in the design. It's flat, and largely treeless save along the water areas. The terrain is made from a period map and images from the actual area - as close as I could get to the real deal.

I’m really hoping for early war, especially France 1940 and the Balkans campaign up to the fall of Crete in ‘41.   Various Cruiser marks and Matildas for the Brits; Char B’s, Somua’s, Renaults etc for the French; Pz Mk l, II, 35t’s for the Germans.  No big HE chuckers, so that ATG’s have a fighting chance.  
But if that’s too ambitious, I’d happily accept the Western Desert campaigns over the same period.

I think this is a major factor in a lot of the complaints about spotting being broken. 

I've always felt that CM captures the chaos on the battlefield better than any game I ever played. Because of the turn system there's always something going on out of sight and you'll hear an explosion or gunfire and go to replay to see what you missed. Just watch some of the AAR videos on youtube and look at the amount of firing going on in all different directions simultaneously and its amazing. Especially in urban environments the bullets, grenades shells etc flying around is nuts. There are improvements that can be made but I'll continue to play and purchase more games like Downfall.

If only I was a 17 year old 😉.  My point wasn't about hours played, it was that I've tried the alternatives but choose to play CM.

@Battlefront.com I just Re-read my post... I hope it doesn't come over as snarky or complain-y. That's not my intention, I really assume you know your market and of course you guys yourselves have preferences in what you want to do.

I completely agree, and I'm not German.

I guess you did an actual poll, market research or similar about that?
So maybe this works with a mostly US based audience. For me personally Downfall and also to a lesser degree Fire & Rubble feels like the Allies get an extension of timeline so they can play around with their shiney toys. But that really feels like the only reason for me because contrary to, say, the Bulge, historically the whole fighting by that point was totally pointless. And tactically I don't see what it reall adds.
This is very subjective on my side and it may be because I'm German. Don't get me wrong, this is not about me being butthurt here.
I'd much rather see France 1940, not because Germany won this time but because it would add so many new tactical challenges (armor and gun wise inferior German tanks but with better mobility for example, instead of unicorn tanks for late war battles).

Hello Steve, any future posibility to include additional WW2 Eastern Front representation, such as Romanian and Hungarian forces? I heard some units were around that area back in 44.
 
Thank you!
 

The comments about terrain are way over generalized as is the concept of battles in the Pacific and Korea.  Korea is mostly hilly open terrain, with a few areas of dense forests.  Korea was all about hills, rivers, and urban fighting.  The Pacific as a combat theater had a lot of non-jungle combat.  In fact, some of the largest US Army urban battles of WW2 were fought in more urban environments around Manila.  A large number of the island battles for the USMC were not in densely forested jungles.  The British fought large battles in Burma in urban and built up areas.  The Hurtgen forest and the Ardennes can be handled in CM so I would imagine it could handle jungles in a similar more abstracted fashion.
If we could just combine units from Downfall with Red Thunder, you could do the majority of Korean battles today.

I think @domfluff has given some pertinent advice for dealing with one of the key challenges in this mission. 
Anything I can add at this point risks spoilers, so I'll hang fire for now. But I will add the map is not flat and there is key terrain that allows long line of sight (and correspondingly (line of fire). 
Brille gave some useful tips re using smoke, though keep in mind some of these Panthers are early versions so not all have smoke dischargers. Your attached SPW unit has more reliable smoke dispensing capabilities with the 251/2 and 251/9 tracks. If push comes to shove the grenadiers have smoke grenades. Combine both bits of advice and I'm sure you'll crack this.
Cheery!

A lot of CMBS's 'faults' lie not in the game engine but in what the scenario designer thinks would be a fun scenario to play. If you want a minefield scenario, or a scenario with green troops with no command links, or an artillery dominant scenario, or a scenario with static defensive lines separated by a no-man's-land go ahead and make one. But  most players are accustomed to scenarios amenable to sneaking about and surprising enemy units, to employing 'clever' tactics over an hour's play time. The usual CM gameplay stuff. The real world is not often so amenable to 'having fun'.

Well if bfc published CMBS today with the premise to depict a historical representation of the Ukraine war, then you would be rightly disappointed maybe. 
But as it stands now you can be disappointed all you want but that's somewhat on you. You bought the game based on the facts bfc has given you: An alternate, fictional war in Ukraine (that wasn't even happening at that time). 
If you haven't informed yourself beforehand, you are the one to blame. 
Its like going into a fish restaurant and being disappointed about getting a fish for your meal while you would have liked a steak instead. 
Don't get me wrong your points itself surely make sense and probably would be great to see but this game is a finished product with maybe some tweaks, modules and battlepacks in the unclear future. Maybe bfc will give it a credit in one of those but probably not. This game is several years old now. Other companies would have already dumped it and be getting to their next game. 
And though I would myself like to include some of these ideas for historical accuracy, I doubt that it would make that much fun in a quick battle. Getting hammered by roaming drones half of the time is hardly anything tactical challenging. 
I somewhere read that bfc isn't all that fond of air assets getting involved in the ground combat at all. So thats maybe partially why Syrians don't getting hammered by Nato airforce in CMSF2 most of the time, rather being attacked by normal ground forces. So I doubt that bfc will adjust drones to be more common. But they should be at least available for Ukraine too, I give you that. 
 
CMBS may be the weakest game in the series for me too but that's mostly about the lethality of things. Tanks and infantry can be wiped out in an instant if one is not careful enough. 
Often you split your infantry to small spread out teams to reduce casualties by one artillery barrage or a tank round. 
Artillery is more common and deadlier than in any other game in the series. 
So comparing to real events I think bfc nailed the feel of a modern battlefield, while not depicting the historical war entirely. 

I believe that this game should stick to the fictional 2017 timeline, in an alternate reality where APS is in service and various models of tanks like Oplots and T-90s were produced in greater numbers. It's like Shock Force, where although it's inspired by real life conflicts, it's a fictional event and thus available equipment can differ from reality. I believe that the devs feel like it's in bad taste to profit off an ongoing conflict, which is the reason for the module hiatus, and therefore they are going to stick to Black Sea being a fictional 2017 conflict.

Many of the things you suggested and problems with the Russian army in the current conflict are operational/tactical/logistics issues that can already be replicated in scenario design such as lowering the morale, using older models of vehicles, etc to make scenarios that more closely resemble the current conflict.

If you make the "high-tech" stuff like APS and advanced tanks out of reach for most battles with extremely high rarity, the game will play too much like Shock Force in my opinion, and Black Sea is aiming more for a "near peer" and "near future" feel.

Well, as a matter of fact, to me it sounds like "another 1944-45 WW2 game featuring Sherman tanks". Clearing not the most appealing of the WW2 CM titles...
And indeed the only of the 4 WW2 CM titles I haven't bought (yet!).
I would gladly pay twice as much for any other WW2 title, either Stalingrad or North Africa or France 1940 or Barbarossa, even Yugoslavian campaign! 😆

You pay for a car. User made maps are a free gift. I agree with Warts if the maps under discussion are 'paid for' items. On the other hand, if something is a free gift, and I don't like it, then I'll  either fix it or pass it over without fussing.
I'd like to appeal to all on this thread that we come to a peaceful ending, agreeing that there are differences of opinion which we can respect without the need to 'convince' eachother. Then we can lower the temperature and get back to more harmonious subjects.

Flamethrowers are engineering tools. They excel when you need to clear infantry out of a dug-in position quickly and efficiently.
That implies that their main targets are trenches, bunkers and buildings, and they are a support asset, not a leading one.

All of the man-portable flamethrowers operate within 30m or so - which is grenade range. This means that any use of a flamethrower should be when the fight has been won, and you have control over the surrounding area, but you have (or suspect you have) some dug-in infantry that need to not be there.
This mean that you'll have established total fire superiority, have isolated and fixed the target, and what you're avoiding is the final kick-the-door-in approach, which is risky, slow and frequently costly.
 
The vehicle mounted weapons give you some more flexibility. The principle is generally the same, but the employment can be different, because armour and mobility can reduce the risk. There's a panzergrenadier training video which shows them in use - this was in the context of a counter-penetration attack, with soviets occupying the german's previous position. In this context, the flame halftracks are useful after the battle is "won", to clear out the trenches of any stragglers with speed, and a fair degree of certainty.

The Churchill Crocodile is somewhat in a league of it's own. The armour on a Churchill is so thick, that it's pretty much the only flame vehicle that can reasonably lead an assault. You still need to be mindful of the surroundings and have won the battle with the manoeuvre elements, because this is a secondary, engineering task, but you can roll up frontally to a bunker and burn it down from 100m or so away.