Bubba883XL

Ask or not, answer or not, how many times, forum police or not, none of it matters. Try the demos is usually good advice prior to a purchase - an option that is a rarity in gaming these days. Which titles are you most interested in buying and what are your hopes and expectations of each? People with more knowledge and game time than me can answer these specific questions very reliably when you consider they are expressing their preferences.
Back in the day I pre-ordered CMSF and didn't really play it for over a year due to its state. At some point in the patching process I was satisfied enough with the purchase to pre-order all the expansions as they were released. Not because I thought the games were perfect, but because I was invested in the vision. My preferences probably are irrelevant to you even though I own all the games/expansions and when I play (I am currently on sabbatical) I rarely play anything other than pvp. I like them all in their own way.
I could say try CMBN first, because it has the most content - especially when you consider user made content (I think this is still true). However, if you don't like CMBN all the content in the world won't make a difference. Hence the bolded part above.

That is not work at all, apparently you're his self-appointed representative, fine, that is some kind of put it all on a silver spoon request. He was told right away they are all engine 4. He also wanted an answer to how the games play differently? I said Try the demos. What the f is wrong with that approach? He basically said he would rather have it all described in words versus taking time so he could try them himself for free. I got it.  
Try the demos

I've noticed that CMBN seems to have more pathfinding issues than the other games, not sure if it's entirely due to the bocage or some minor differences in code even if it's using the same engine version as the rest of the games.

Try the demos 
 

Sounds cool. Technically von Paulus didn't get promoted til when? Wasn't it at the very end so Hitler thought he wouldn't surrender/surrender alive?

Amen to that.

Although CM has its shortcomings in simulating street fighting, I can't find a better street fighting game on the market that simulates that many elements.
So CM is only choice for me to choose.  Other games just don't meet my needs

i'd just can't get past the new building textures etc, with flags and stuff...just wow.... are these planned to be released to the community as a individual mod etc or? been following this for awhile and don't know much but big respect to your effort. just wow...
 
Bubba

Speaking as a long time building texturer... WOW!

Why is CM Great? One answer might be that real militaries use it as a training tool, and I doubt they’re trying to simulate what may keep them alive… badly. 
Another answer might be that I can realistically simulate countless battles with friends and learn real tactics.
Another are the fantastic mini-stories we see happen in each battle. Like, perhaps this One  that takes place over 5 panels. Could not believe my eyes when I saw it occur.

Combat mission has its flaws but what other tactical games handle these things better in your oppinion ?
I can think of NONE 😎...

Hahaha!!  I thought it was perfect!
I think the point that @Grey_Fox is trying to make is that maybe spotting should even be worse??  
This video is actually very telling.  

Not sure what the offensive “bad taste” element is here but it is very realistic.  This stuff happens all the time on exercises and we develop all sorts of methods to try and control it.   The lesson here is that spotting in a buttoned vehicle RL is much harder than a lot of people believe.

Do you expect actual combat operations to be less confusing and less distracting?

Get paint.net and I can share with you (if you want) my old paint.net files that have some ideas ON SEPARATE LAYERS you can judge if worthy for you.
paint.net = paint dot net = pdn
What I do is create a new pdn file and START WITH the desired pixel dimensions from the gitgo. Save as your "makes sense" filename. OPMAP FEB24.pdn. Save in a useful easy to find folder for using again and again as needed.
Welcome to the club

Amen. I agree with that!
I like paint.NET which is freeware and fun to use.
 

I agree with this. Unless you personally feel that you neccesarely have to use the stock templates for briefing graphics...Forgett about it ! nobody else cares if you are using your own graphics in the briefing maps, pictures etc...
As long as they provide the neccesary information.
Personally i have never used anything other then windows paint when designing these map...Never had a complaint so far...
 

cool....i'll look it up cheers

If they could use Photoshop, I could use Affinity Photo which is a lot cheaper. In the UK, you can get it for ₤50 only once. 

I owe someone a HUGE THANK YOU but cannot remember who or which post.
What's this all about?
About a year ago I bought a new Alienware gaming laptop with some pretty decent specs. But when trying to play my favourite game, CMBN, the text was virtually unreadable and the graphics stuttered and rendered very slowly and incompletely. I had no idea what was happening and frustrated removed the game from my rig. Went back to playing it on my desktop which it did quite nicely with two NVideal GeForce 1080 cards in SLI.
Then a few days back I stumbled on a post in this forum that advised players to make sure that the game was being directed to the VIDEO CARD and not the integrated video whatever. I though, "Huh??" Opened up my NVidea program and sure enough, there was a selection for letting the program decide automatically which to use or whether to force it to always use the video card. I selected video card and, nervous with anticipation, reinstalled CMBN and gave it a try. And what do you know? HooooRaaaah! It plays great. So now I am very very happy. And thank you, thank you, thank you to whomever posted that bit of advice.
Wim (a.k.a. WimO, a.k.a. Kandu at FGM)

My poor bookshelf overfloweth!  Looks like I’m pre-ordering.  

Hi all,
This book looks interesting, due out soon...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Battlegroup-Lessons-Unfought-Battles-Cold/dp/1914059964/ref=sr_1_1?crid=35HWTT0QVZE3E&keywords=battlegroup+jim+storr&qid=1639151810&s=books&sprefix=battlegroup!%2Caps%2C160&sr=1-1
It might be useful for scenario designers.

Ooh, looks great, thank you
 

You can't have a Cold War without a winter module. 

It wasn't a bad try, that I must admit. 🙂
Waiting for FR was agony because I'm an Ostfronter, for all other goodies I'm happy to wait. Just curious about which countries will be in the NATO module. But I understand it's still early days.