HerrTom

That is what I am getting at with the vid first post which was not to show off Squad per say as cool as it is as FPS, but rather the feeling of what it would be similar to in say a 5v5, 6v6 if Combat Mission offered this for real time play. Imagine the fun of team orientated tactical game play in CM!
My belief is that when the developers first conceived "Iron" mode it was likely to be geared to the Multi-Multiplayer feature they were envisioning to someday implement with players controlling platoons with a force commander coordinating the team. I could envision 3 types of team FOW settings that are separate from "iron", warrior ect...

 
Hardcore: This setting would be the hardest for the commander to direct the team given the game as it currently is. All they would have to go on are the FOW icons that his units get reports on, what his units actually spot, and reports from the platoon leaders. I can't help but think the commander will need to see more like the tac map the video showed to be able trac and make good decisions, or have some sort of map to track and mark on. Perhaps more frustrating than fun who knows, but there to try.

 
Regular: This setting gives the commander the view of all the units just like when one plays single player now except they control the least. This simulates the tac map of the Squad video giving the commander the overview to direct the players who only see what their units see. I believe this would create a dynamic co dependency between the players who control more units and the one who sees the most, the commander.


Team FOW off: This setting allows the entire team to see the entire force just as one plays single player now. This may be ideal for training, for more casual games, or for fewer players like a 2v2.
Observers: Just as in the squad video when the dude dies and could just watch it would be cool to have slots for people who just want to watch the battle.
And Lastly for Real Time single player to be much more fun and controlable and less frustrating so you know what is going on around while the camera is elsewhere THE ROSTER.

 
This would be a hit game! Rarely does a game come forward with something truly original in a genre. Sudden Strike, Men of War, Company of Heroes ect... Are nothing like the game described here. None have a command structure, none have a dynamic FOW system, none really have that realism that there is a strong niche for. I could see lots of ARMA and Squad dudes getting into a RTS/RPG game like this. Real Time RTS offers that same type of rush one gets when playing FPS only less reliant on reflexes.

I have no idea. Most everything is digital now a days. Look at it this way. I built a 2400 dollar monstrosity for my 48th birthday a year and a half back. The first thing I did was install Steam and download my games. If it was a danger it wouldn't be on my computer. I don't do anything remotely risky with this beast. You would love it. You know how you are always b****ing about dealing with mods? You know what you do on Steam? You check a subscribe button and they are automatically installed. If you don't want to use one in game, you uncheck it. For a mod fiend like you, it's a dream. And every game you buy goes in your library under one UI. You can even play them offline once you DL. It's a no-brainer.
Not to mention the sales they run. I just got Sniper Elite 4, for $8.99. It debuted at $59.99.
I thought Steam was stupid, 9 years ago when I first had to join it, after buying Left 4 Dead. Not any longer. Don't be a Luddite, Erwin. The future has arrived!
 
Mord.

Yes, this!!!  

Yeah much better than when he was at Cannae and told Consul Gaius Varro that he should charge the enemy center and split them in two.  

That thought has been echoing around my brain as I have been reading this thread. The real problem I believe lies in we megalomaniac war gamers belief that if only we had perfect control over every action of each of our troops, the world would be forced to concede that we are the greatest general who has ever trod upon his defeated enemies. I watched this kind of micromanagement craze begin and then flourish wildly during the heyday of paper games in the 1970s and 1980s with the growing profusion of "monster games" which reached its apex with The Campaign for North Africa...or whatever it was called. You know, there is a reason why armies have chains of command. There are fairly strict limits on just how much one man can think about and respond to. Generals do not generally concern themselves with the conduct of platoons, that is the job of lieutenants. You have to be able to trust that they in fact perform those jobs adequately. War is chaos, you just have to hope that it is worse for the other guy.
Michael

Right after they release CMA 4.0 upgrade on Steam -- with visible aircraft models.

Okay, sounds like I’m going to have to play @IanL again sooner rather bam later to erase the stain of that last battle.

I have not personally tried the specific case were both players are trying to use forces their opponent has not licensed. Given that the new game system includes all the content and you have access to what you have licensed the way it works is if I have licensed everything I can include those forces in a game and play them against you, who has not. However a Quick battle where I do not have a license for Nato forces but I do have the British module can I actually start a game British vs German. That is an interesting question. For a scenario it would definatly not work since I could not start it because I don't have the required Nato forces and you could not start it because you do not have the required British forces module.
Seems like this both players missing content is not likely to work.
This rarely comes up since most heavy PBEM players have all the content.

ie God-like and deserving of worship and human sacrifice...  

For nigh on ten years now my biggest projects have always been my portrait mods. I have invested weeks and months on end, that have added up to hundreds and hundreds of hours of time and frustration creating them. I have made easily over ten thousand portraits, through trial and error, redesign, and updates. It's been a true struggle at times, and I am never happy with the outcome, though I'll say I am, once a project is complete. But I am always fighting the design decisions I started with way back in SF1 and it's hamstrung me artistically. After the FB portraits I decided I wanted to redo all the portraits for all the titles (the BN mod is long over do for an update) . So, after a long hiatus, I set about trying to get to someplace that would finally make me happy. I decided to start with RT to get ahead of the module release, and after a week or so of fiddling, resizing, making test bmps, and checking in game, this is what I came up with.

For about two seconds I thought they looked good. But once again I was confronted by the poor design decisions I adopted all those years ago. You see, I have been in a constant fight with what I term the "bobble head effect", which causes the portrait heads to appear bulbous and fat-headed. It occurs because I opted to show each portrait with a split face on the bmp. It has been my bane since my BN mod and it frustrates me to no end. And considering how I built each face from screenshots, pieces of faces from all sorts of pictures, and the fact I only worked on the left side of the face, well it doesn't leave me room for presenting them in any other way. And On top of all that, I have always felt there was inconsistency in the quality of the faces, and that they appeared too cartoony.  So with that said, I am putting these portrait mods to rest. I have taken them as far as they will go and they have reached a dead end. They had a good run but there really isn't anything more I can do to improve them.

 
 
 
 
 
 
Now, check out what I have been doing for the last two weeks and tell me I didn't make the right decision...



Now for some comparisons of the old style and the new.


 
Now the portraits in the context of their own mod. It'll give you an idea of the overall design.


 
And within the context of the game UI.


 
Some of the portraits are tentative/place holders until I find something that really blows me away. Or will be replaced later. The Heer Armor and Armor Infantry come to mind as far as that goes. Luckily I haven't made anything yet with them, just tests.
Now, unfortunately I will probably have to share a lot of the portraits (mostly Germans) across games, however backgrounds and the like will be changed for each setting.  And I will of course do all the battalions and regiments etc. Whether or not I will be able to keep the quality across titles remains to be seen but I will do my best. It is going to be a colossal amount of work, already has been. For the Germans alone I have created and discarded over a thousand portraits. LOL. Every time I think I have one down and start producing keepers, I stumble across a better pic, or I adjust some color to better fit the portrait into the overall look and I have to redo a ton of work. I just replaced the Heer Infantry yesterday, now I have to redo 374 that I had already made, as well as the SS Arm Infantry. I have done this a couple times already. But getting it right is what's most important. Perfection is what I am aiming for.
I don't know how long it will take. Getting the right pics is painstaking and laborious as hell. For every good one I make I throw out five. But this style will be the definitive version of my portrait mods from here on out. As I complete them I will remove the old versions from the planet. I'll start threads in the corresponding game forums as I progress.
Welp, that's about it. I was gonna keep all this to myself and wait to surprise everyone, but I have been working in a vacuum for a month and it feels good to talk a little bit about it. Especially as I have been going full bore, night and day for two weeks straight. I Hope you guys like what you see. I think it's the best work I have ever done.

Mord.
 

Everyone seems annoyed that the inevitable happened and the release date slipped but all I can think is how annoying it is that this means that the patch for 4.0 games has also slipped.

I'd second the call for a Red vs. Red.....Preferably Conventional vs. Uncon on an urban map.
But I would say that, wouldn't I. 

HerrTom:  B4 you go about changing thing, try and get other testers to play your scenario.  Until others come up with the same imbalance conclusion you can't be certain that your tactics were optimal.  

My bold - I would favour trying this first. Having some of the initial force arrive as reinforcements would fit with your goal:
 

Noooooooooo!!!!!!!!!   
A cease-fire??? Your men's honor demands they be given at least a chance to prove their devotion! Allow them to attack. No more "probing" or "watching" or "peeking": unleash them on a direct line upon the enemy! Even if they do not achieve victory, their blood will fertilize the fields upon which the hopes of future patriots will blossom. THAT will be sufficient victory for them. Trust me, I know what is important in their little lives.
Sigh.

I don't mind that things are delayed, I mind that the customer base is often left in the dark, often for months on end.
This has admittedly gotten much better in the last few weeks, but it has been months of waiting for the 4.0 patch.
 
I can't say for sure how this is effecting the player base but look at how posting has died off for CMFI and CMRT -  titles I personally really enjoy. There are threads detailing bugs and TOE/OOB errors and omissions from 2014 that have still not been commented on. Are they being fixed in the next patch? Who knows?
If BF is aware that for example FJ gun transports in CMFI carry 50mm ammo regardless of the gun in the platoon, and it's being fixed in the next patch, then that's something I don't have to worry about, if they let the customers know and then I don't have to resurrect dead threads from 2014 in the hopes that it will be noticed, only for there to be no response because nobody is posting in the CMRT forum, lest of all devs.
 
In my opinion, it's not the big things like delays with the website or CMSF2 being a little later than expected, and certainly not major additions like France and Italy being added to CMSF2 at launch, it's the lack of patches and dev blogs on the existing titles. Little things like the graphics issues with the BMP-2M in CMBS, generated many, many community posts and were met with silence. Would it be so much to say "We're aware of that, we're fixing it, it will be in the upcoming patch for the 4.0 engine".
The responses to the question about CMBS bugs persisting into CMSF2 and asking if they will be addressed in a patch for CMBS is a ray of hope, I can only hope that there is a more organized way of doing that going forward.
Maybe have pinned threads in each of the titles' boards and one day a week (if possible) have someone a dev or beta tester come in and give a little update on what's being done on the title, what the known issues are, maybe even solicit help from the community if there is uncertainty about a TOE or OOB. So on Tuesday say, go into the Development Thread in CMFI and say "You know, we looked at that Italian infantry handbook you guys posted back in 2013 (and was reposted in 2018!) that mentions the squad breaking down into 3 man teams, but we think that was just for running in bounds and the Italian rifle squad was fundamentally a LMG section and a rifle section and couldn't maneuver as smaller elements than that." and then on Friday post on the CMFB board and say "Yeah, we're aware that the availability dates for HVAP for the 76mm gun might be off, we'll address that" (No more specifics needed, 10 seconds to post!). The following Tuesday, if there's less going on in the development of CMFI maybe just check in and say "We didn't really take the time to go back to look at the Italians after the engine updates, since they were in the initial release of CMFI and we couldn't just port over assets from other titles when we added AAA. We'd like to add stationary Breda 20mm guns to give Italians the ability to have AA units, and luckily we already have this modeled in game on the AS. 42. We'll hopefully have time to add this as a small patch to CMFI between CMSF2 shipping and Rome to Victory"
I know people like to say customers ask for too much. I disagree. We're not asking for detailed weekly dev diaries, just some indication of what is being done.
I know people say that posting on the forum takes away from development time. I disagree. Just say something like: "Not only will Module 1 for CMRT bring the timeline to the end of the war and add German formations and equipment, but the Soviets got a second looks too. So now Cavalry Uniforms are a selection as appearance in the unit purchase screen instead of a mod tag. Oh and since we already had Polish voice files from other titles, we're adding the First Polish Army to the Russian side". That took about 30 seconds and covered questions raised in dozens of threads and hundreds of posts dating from 2014.
 
 

Cheers @HerrTom
Judging by the timed 'ping' I get every night in my Dropbox folder I share with IanL, I'm guessing the script he wrote to record daily weather patterns across Ukraine is still running. If the CMBS timeframe expands out to cover 2017-18 winter and autum period we'll be covered.
If anyone is interested. (Current CMBS timeframe only)
http://cmmodsiii.greenasjade.net/?p=5228

I'd buy it.
I'd take a Russia, Iran & Afghanistan pack too......CM:FW (Combat Missions: Forever War). 

MINUTE 8
A Company
The following images highlight the actions and events at the farm Objective this turn...
... the forward BMP and the T-62M both fired at the large building, hopefully suppressing any enemy teams that might still be inside.  This firing was for 15 seconds only.

Then 3rd Squad rushed to the large building...

..1st Platoon HQ spotted this enemy HQ Team rushing over the edge of the ravine towards the river.  HQ for what I wonder?

Here is an overview of the situation on the right side of the map, definitely rosier than the left.  Note the AT-14 Team in the field... hopefully as they creep forward they will have pretty good observation of this side of the map.

 
2nd PLATOON
Alright, that does it, I cannot play with the standard floating icons as I can't tell what the hell I'm looking at.  I will do screenshots with them for this AAR, but I will be replacing them with my NATO icons ASAP when giving orders.  The two sound contacts I had on my left were not light armor at all.. they were freaking tanks... Leopard 1 C2s to be exact... 
2nd Platoon's forward 3rd squad spotted this beauty towards the end of the turn.  Even at 100m distance I doubt the RPG-7 is the correct weapon to engage this tank with.  

3rd PLATOON
The BMP-3 that was fired on last turn, sadly, was not able to escape.  Damn.. however its death will not be without value. I now know exactly where at least two of Ian's tanks are, and hopefully can pen them in.
It sucks being on the receiving end of these.. but I expected losses... this is the second sound contact morphing into another Leopard 1 C2.  I am just thankful that one of the AT14 teams was not on this BMP.

I must say, I am also pretty happy that Ian has two tanks that far forward.. that was unexpected but I wouldn't have done that unless I had gone tank heavy with my force and even then its risky... does he also have infantry in this area?  I have yet to see any... what this means is there are two fewer tanks to oppose me on the right, and it also means he isn't husbanding them for a reserve like I am.  Now.. can I take advantage of that information?  We will see.

Minute 153: Orders
Based on the relative activity I changed my mind again about the FO. They cannot use TRPs to call fire on Rutsey so they need eyes on. Also in this shot is the call time for a non TRPs call to the 105s for the FO.

 
For reference the call time for the Mortar platoon HQ is just as bad as the section leader on KT3.

 
And same for the CO.

 
No orders for the tanks on KT3 – the know what to do.

 
The sniper team is facing a mechanized assault – so time to really go. Pull back and ford the river, rest and head for the trees.

@Bil Hardenberger Do you have a blood board going for this battle?

Or the Fletcher's Paradox. There is always half of the work left to do. In engineering, we joke that you can always get close enough for practical purposes haha!

A couple more postcards from 'The Valley':

Not a fortress, honest! 

Peace be upon them. 
Very close to finished now, just the area south of the highway and a few assorted bald patches to fill in (see foreground in first picture).....Then about a million more flavour objects to add. 

"A CM2 release is never late, nor is it early, it arrives precisely when Battlefront means to!"
 

1647

The scout unit's BTRs cross seemingly unmolested.  A knocked out BRM-1 is in the foreground.  It may have friends nearby, but the last fifteen minutes of observation have only shown the scout team associated with it.  My platoon should have little problem taking them out, and I think the BTR-82A's autocannon will be more than a match for a BRM-1's low pressure gun at close range, if it comes to that.
But I didn't expect my overwatching ATGM team to fall asleep.

They stare at a T-64 as it drives out of the woodline towards the crossing BTRs.  Over the course of a minute, it gets into position and takes out the headquarters BTR just a dozen meters from the shore.  It doesn't have good sight on the remaining two, so they should be able to drop off their troops, but I doubt the ability of RPG-16s to take on an MBT!

Finally, some autocannon fire reaches out of the smoke and damages another BTR as it crosses the river.  Things are going very badly right now.  I think I pushed too hard at the beginning and rushed the crossing in the name of the Blood God.  I'm sure Ken is satisfied!  The restart of the scenario also definitely didn't help, since I guess my opponent got a good enough look at my strategy and I didn't change it enough!
Things are looking grim, with almost a dozen BTRs sinking in the Dnjepr and heavier enemy presence than anticipated.  I'm currently feeling that I need to give the Russians more troops when I update the scenario (or better ones for this crossing, since it's approximately even).  Time will tell.