Lethaface

I'm quite sure that at least in CMSF2 you don't need to open up with Hummvees in order to allow them target and actually put rounds down range. I think it is similar for WW2 halftracks, but not 100%. Now that I think of it that may depend on whether there is an actual gunner in the crew or whether the passengers need to man the weapon?

Looking good!

Well there's always plenty of ways to skin a cat. I can imagine people reading / learning about a battle and getting excited to recreate it in the CM editor. Of course that by itself is not a guarantee for a 'fun' scenario. Different people float different boats, so there might be people who feel that historical accuracy is more important than playability. Etc etc. While I started playing CM with CMSF, pretty exclusively in RT. Over time and with more CMx2 games, PBEMs and larger scenario's I mostly switched to WeGo. However, now and then I go back to RealTime and it is often much fun. Getting into interesting situations mainly because I couldn't pay attention everywhere. Finding a couple of remains of what was once a defense, fighting a heroic last stand and succeeding to hold their ground kind of stuff. So, I guess the main point I was trying to make was that what is fun is different for people. I might feel similar with regards to what I like, but there's plenty of otha fish in the sea ;-).

Indeed! smoke can make all the difference and quite some units have smoke rounds availabe, from infantry to vehicles and mortars/artillery.

Courage & fortitude is a very, very, hard campaign IIRC. Perhaps changes to the engine made it harder compared to when it was designed? I wouldn't hold the difficulty of that as indicative for other campaigns in CMBN. With regard to CMBS, IIRC I thought the last mission of the 'Accross the Dnieper' campaign was also very hard (facing heavy artillery and Abrams). I do remember the last UKR mission, I think it was won but at heavy cost. I didn't play much of the US campaign in CMFB, but I did play large part of the German (Peiper) campaign. Storm of Stoumont was one of the hardest battle I fought, took ~200 casualties. It was a rather nice one though. Modern vs WW2 does indeed require some different tactics imo. I think for modern more caution is needed, while for WW2 more audacity. Obviously that's a very broad generalization, but back in the day after CMBN came out I had to relearn/unlearn quite some of my CMSF habits.

Yeah perhaps 'large calibre' wasn't the right wording, as also autocannon (20mm+) and quad .50s are also quite capable (still). Although certain buildings are sturdier than others. Without such heavy weapons it is much harder to effectively defeat dug-in troops. Of course suppression with flanking does work, but not every piece of terrain allows the defenders to get flanked easily.

I also like the new behavior with regards to troops in good cover being harder to dislodge (especially without large calibre HE). The AI can still retreat from positions, depending on the AI plan. I played some missions of the Road to Montebourg (revised) campaign recently (with new behavior) and it actually had some defenses retreating from their line of bocage after I had entered it. They had offered good resistance but were suppressed over time by a tank platoon and infantry, allowing me to bound move up to their hedge on the flank and cross inside it. Suppressive fire was kept up until my infantry got to their hedge, this was necessary to stop the defenders thinking it was safe enough to sit up again. Although I have never actually fought in the bocage ;-), it seems much more realistic compared to AI troops leaving their good cover after a bit of suppression. Like others said, previously the AI would fall back without retreat orders and troops would just either be running through the open to nowhere specific or take position right behind the place they fell back from (usually a lesser position than they had fall back from). Of course it won't be perfect and in some cases the new behavior might have some downsides. Playing against another human fixes almost all of these things though

Perhaps try ALT-R to turn on shaders? Running at 2560x1440 without issues here.

I guess this malware is a littlebit outdated on the the developments in TLD business. I used to work in the sector about a decade ago, when there were only the .countryCode and .com/net/.org/.info/.biz/.gov/.mil etc. Since then the policy around TLDs has been relaxed and I think that for 100k you can create your own, although there are requirements with regards to business practices and processes as well iirc. The governance over TLDs is indeed regulated by ICANN (not ICAAN ) in cooperation with IANA which manage the root DNS system among other things.

Nice initiative!

How I understand this, is that a unit will get a contact marker if they can't actually see the KO'ed AT gun. When they have visual on it, you will see the KO'ed gun and the marker goes away. However as they move away again with the ATG out of LOS, it becomes a marker again. The marker simply indicating that an AT gun has been spotted there, irrespective of whether it is working or not. The same goes for KO'ed tanks if I'm right.

Although I only read censored version, I think that Steve did hint at that the 'Eagle' will land at one point in the future. Didn't know it was already spreading its wings, but have distilled this somewhat speculative conclusion from the censored info.

I learned that trick from a guide from someone on this forum a while back, I think it was @Mord's. Before that the spinning did drive me nuts a couple of times as well

I get around this (no pun intended ) by setting 'input processing: pass on all input' in the Reshade settings.

yes. Same way to install/uninstall.

Some shots from a game:

Thanks! It is working now Even the depth effects seem to sort of work, focusing exactly on where the camera is pointing. So guess it can make nice screenshots. Although like you say it maybe a good idea to dive a bit deeper into the inner workings of all those and set it up properly. I did get one error when loading the presets: "Some textures failed to load: 'V__PandaFX__NoiseTex'", tried updating all shaders again but that didn't fix it. Anyway, it does look great already! So, again massive thanks! It is time to see it in action

I did install the latest version and updated all shaders/textures to see if that fixed anything. If you make a newer version of the .ini that would be very much appreciated!

Got it up and running, looking nice! There is too much to try out with this! Thanks for the massive effort! Some screems: Only reshade seems not making much difference on or off even though I got your setup loaded and all updated etc. Not expecting support, just curious if it looks different for others. I made a new install on CMBN as I hadn't setup reshade for it. Perhaps I'll try to overwrite the ini and shaders from the .rar again. Anyway that's a small detail.

Just saw this and downloaded from dropbox no problem. Greedy clicks got the manual, file 1 and 2 without problems before I read about download errors. I was signed in into dropbox, perhaps that makes a difference? Anyway, thanks! These will sure look great

So did you try out the smoke in a manor?

I don't know how you are coming of with that conclusion as the article specifically mentions that most of the Russia scenarios are unlikely: "These are still unlikely cases since the casus belli is unknown and there is no territorial dispute between Russia and these states, but at least they constitute a contingency informed by the history of great-power irredentism and observed Russian behavior. Why defense planning is based around a Russian deployment into the Suwalki corridor, or “gap,” as opposed to a town on the Russian-Estonian border is a mystery, but an evidence-based understanding of the problem would certainly privilege the latter over the former. Beyond cases of limited territorial conquest, there is, however, still the chance of war with Russia due to miscalculation on both sides when responding to a potential crisis in a third country like Belarus, where decisions made inadvertently lead to a conflagration." While he also specifically mentions that there is cause to be pessimistic about the future regarding China: "In the case of China, Taiwan constitutes the quintessential case of a territory claimed by an irredentist power, and there is cause to be pessimistic about the future given how compelling the threat appears." The article is about the impression that parts of the US military focuses on wrong interpretations of what are 'fait accompli' and goes on explaining that through various examples of what is and what isn't a fait accompli, the consequences this brings and what could be done about it. The article isn't about Russia being a greater threat than China, or the other way around.

Lol, yes sometimes it's difficult to explain what you see. Although at the same time in most of the cases, it does a very good job. And with some imagination it's easy to explain that in some cases people just don't see stuff which they should see. Distracted, whatever. There is chance involved in whether someone can spot something, but the visual fidelity doesn't show a soldier looking at his mobile phone/watch/whatever when they draw bad luck.

ABS? No problems here with CMFI. I'd advise you to open a helpdesk ticket.

Agreed, although I have learned to live with this after it's been like this that long; it would be nice to be able to use the smoke rounds when HE is depleleted.