jamxo

I’m always quite interested in this topic. I try to do the same but find in game my commanders get hit painfully often. I’ve seen people mention that at the part of the engagement we join on the typical CM battlefield most commanders in real life would have buttoned up - any truth to that? And was there standard operation procedure which differed between the various nations in WW2? As far as I recall British tank commanders were encouraged to stay turned out as much as possible (and this led to lots of sniper casualties in Normandy) Back on topic excited for the next few turns. Your armour on the hill must be itching to load some AP rounds

Popcorn at the ready...

WW2 is my main area of interest, but yes I own all the modern titles and had alot of fun in the Highland Games campaign earlier this year : H&E is definitely on my 'to play' list, but gaming time a little limited at the moment! Hope to get round to it next year - it looks epic.

Making my way through the various WW2 era screenshot threads. Just started the Broken Shields campaign and loving the landscape and atmosphere of the snowy map. Some of my reserve force waiting to be called into action:

One of the things I'm enjoying most about it! Also making me appreciate how when you view the maps at ground level the game engine actually does a great job portraying realistic landscapes (considering it's age now!) - hats off to the map designer too.

Also chiming in to say how great this is and that I'm eagerly reading along. The slow methodical build up in the snow is so atmospheric and you are doing a fantastic job documenting it all with some stellar screenshots and descriptions.

Thanks both! Like I mentioned in the CMBN screenshot thread, it is mostly thanks to modders and ReShade I can get things looking extra nice Enjoying the cold bleak atmosphere in CMFB very much.

Ambush in the snow...

Well I work as a photographer in real life so glad to hear some of that eye for composition carries across haha! I'm using Reshade 4.8.2. (no explicit reason why that exact version, think it was just the last one I installed at a point where I ended up happy with the settings.) These are are the shaders/filters I have set up The key ones are: - UI mask applies this just to the game image, not the UI strip at the bottom - Cinetools LUT has awesome presets and control over the colours, can really tweak your ideal realistic or war movie look - Sharpen really gives the textures a pop and makes things look more detailed. - Border and DOF is set to hotkeys so can easily toggle on/off as I'm playing if I want to take a screen shot. Have attached my preset settings file below although not entirely sure if that helps! Jam-CM-Day.ini

I would say it is 95% thanks to the incredible work of the modders, like you can see on Aris's AA halftrack (just absurd detail really) or Lucky Strikes' borderline photorealistic foliage - my ReShade settings just give it that extra pop. Mainly some sharpening bring out the detail in the textures, bit of extra AA to smooth out the picture, tweaking the tones and most importantly in my opinion the colours, and then finishing things off with some grain/depth of field when taking screenshots. The only problem is it gets so addictive flying around looking for little vignettes or cool details its slower than ever to play!

First day of Operation Market Garden; US airborne secure drop zones and eliminate enemy flak units... (From Mission 2 of the Road to Nijmegen campaign, using plenty of mods and ReShade which really elevates my enjoyment of this timeless classic of a game. So many great little details amongst the chaos.)

Partisans patrolling...

Reshade is basically a lightweight graphics program you can install to run over a game (almost like Steam Overlay or Fraps) which can change/improve the visuals by adding various graphics filters/post processing effects. It’s relatively simple to install and combined with some of the amazing mods out there can really help to improve Combat Missions visuals quite a bit. My own preset improves the anti aliasing, sharpness, contrast and tones and most importantly for my enjoyment tweaks the colours to make things look a bit more gritty. There’s a good instruction PDF here if you scroll down the thread or on YouTube some instructions:

Two man UK sniper team equipped with an AT launcher each, set to hide in an isolated farm far to my left flank. After taking out both tanks they effortlessly picked off the dazed crew trying to crawl away. I think someone has earned a medal in this particular engagement...