CAOS News

Greetings! We are excited to share the experimental build for the largest content update we have ever done in CAOS. Update 1.0.4.4. focuses on Operation Husky, but also brings with it a series of hypothetical scenarios or variants and paradrop gameplay improvements.

See the picture below for information on how to opt-in to the Experimental build if you’re interested in playing new updates early.

To play the new historical or hypothetical scenarios, check out the "Premade" section under scenario type when starting a new game.
[h2]Operation Husky and Variants:[/h2]
Recreate the first decisive blow against fortress Europe in Operation Husky and explore two hypothetical variants of the scenario for increased replayability!

Operation Husky (Historical)
The straight historical scenario with turn-1 Allied invasion beaches and paradrop landing zones pre-selected and units adhere to their historical arrival dates.
Operation Husky+
A variant of historical Operation Husky where the Allied invader can freely select their initial invasion beaches anywhere from Alcamo-Partinico in the northwest to Avola-Cassibile in the southeast.

Operation Husky Expanded
A hypothetical, expanded variant of Operation Husky that assumes the Axis had one month’s advanced warning to prepare for the invasion of Sicily. Axis forces on the island and reinforcements enroute are more numerous by drawing on reserves from mainland Italy and Greece. Additionally, the Allies gain access to 7th and 8th Army’s full reserves, including the balance of the 82nd Airborne Division, 46th Infantry Division (UK), and 1st Parachute Division. Expect a tougher fight from both sides.

The substantially increased German presence in Sicily's interior in expanded Husky.

[h2]Operation Firebrand:[/h2]
Hypothetical scenario inspired by Allied proposals to launch a French-led liberation of Corsica in autumn 1943, as a sequel to a successful invasion of Sardinia. Historically, as the Italian Fascist regime collapsed following the invasion of Sicily, the invasions of Sardinia and Corsica were never enacted. To bring Operation Firebrand to life in CAOS we assume the invasion of Sardinia was a success, the Mussolini government did not collapse, and the Corps Expéditionnaire Français was activated early to liberate Corsica in October 1943.


[h2]Tutorial Scenario[/h2]
CAOS is also receiving a much-needed tutorial scenario that guides players through basic orders and game mechanics. The tutorial walks players through combat orders, artillery orders, game systems such as Zone of Control, and air system, before turning the player loose to hone their abilities in a hypothetical siege of Sassari scenario.

• Paradrop Air bridging. Paradrops onto friendly airfields inside friendly air space inflict minimum cohesion loss and do not suffer from drop dispersion. You can now safely air bridge paratroop reinforcements to the front with good air control.
  
• Air Interdiction can now only be conducted inside friendly air zone.
  
• Several updates to the Sicily map including more accurate reflection of the urban sprawl of Palermo, upgraded Alcamo to city status, and added a new Strait terrain type at the straits of Messina.
  
• Several minor updates to the Sardinia map, including the missing beach at Portilocco to make landings above Alghero more feasible.
  

• Movement speed now displayed on unit HUD card.
  
• Static and temporarily immobile status now displayed on unit HUD card.
  

Before the Husky update is ready for its full release there are still several content, feature additions, and bug fixes left outstanding.

• Withdrawal mechanic for Axis defenders in Husky and Brimstone.
  
• Operation Brimstone, the proposed Allied invasion of Sardinia, a in July and September variants.
  
• AI improvements, particularly regarding AI use of mobile supply depots and responding to attacks on multiple fronts in large scenarios like Operation Husky.
  
• The Allied AI is currently moving units between turn 1 beaches and air landing zones in historical Husky. A hotfix for this is in the works and will go up as soon as it's ready.
  
• Air command automation controls. This will allow players to automate the administrative side of the air command to reduce the tedium of managing massive air rosters.
  

We have fixed an install script error that caused CAOS to hang on load for some users. If you experienced the error, follow the quick steps below to make sure you get a fresh install to fix the problem:

1) Right click CAOS in your steam library >> Manage >> Uninstall.
2) Reinstall the game
3) Everything should work.

Have a happy New Year and a special thanks to the players who brought this error to our attention and helped us troubleshoot it.

Greetings! We have a brief update just before Christmas focusing on a couple key combat changes and interface improvements.


Update 1.0.4.1 brings a pair of crucial combat changes developed from experience in the historical Crusader/Gazala scenarios. Overruns have been removed from skirmishes to make the battlefield less inhospitable to small units, particularly recon battalions. The effectiveness of artillery fire support in offensive March and Skirmish combats has also been reduced to reflect the difficulty of coordinating fire support in fluid combat environments using the communication equipment and doctrines of the war.

• Skirmish combats can no longer trigger overruns. Recon battalions are now safe to roam the countryside without being vaporized by passing panzer regiments.
  
• Artillery fire support provided to offensive march and skirmish orders now scales according to artillery type and training level. Armored artillery, and highly trained artillery suffer lower penalties. See chart below for details:
  

[h2]Fire Support Mobile Combat Reduction Table[/h2]



We’re also including a series of interface improvements following up on player feedback. You can expect to see a few of these in each update moving forward as we work through the backlog of interface suggestions from both ourselves and players.

• Air recon missions now display their Line of Sight radius while placing order.
  
• Moved sort by service dropdown menu to the left side of the requisition screen, along with the rest of the sorting features.
  
• Attachment dropdown menu renamed to Change Attachment to better reflect its purpose.
  
• Made neutral placenames a brighter shade of green to improve readability.
  
• Improved visibility of close menu boxes by adding red buttons beneath the X’s on most menus.
  
• Multiple weapon cards can now be opened simultaneously, for easier comparison.
  

We’ll be taking the next two weeks off for the holidays to spend time with our families, but after we come back the Operation Husky update will go live on the experimental branch shortly after New Year. The Husky update will launch with the Operation Husky, Operation Brimstone (Sardinia), and Operation Firebrand (Corsica) scenarios. We’re also working on a proper tutorial scenario, although that’s not likely to be ready until later in the month. The previously discussed AI update is also still in the works and will gradually roll out across January.

For now, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We’ll see you all again soon!

Greetings! We’re back with the full public release of the Operation Crusader update!
[h2]General Gameplay Additions and Changes:[/h2]

• Added Operation Crusader historical scenario. Recreate 8th Army’s bold offensive to break the siege of Tobruk in November 1941 to January 1942!
  
• Added Random button added to unit pool, when pressed it automatically purchases units for you. This feature is still in development and tends to scatter units all over the deployment box.
  

[h2]Interface Improvements:[/h2]

• Added daily situation report.
  
• New and improved Air Command screen displays more information, more clearly.
  
• Holding Left Shift while buying replacements buys 10 at a time.
  
• Hovering over air units in Requisition screen now displays the squadron’s name in place of its aircraft type.
  
• Armor suppressed in combat reports now also displays armor losses as percentage of total armor involved in battle.
  

[h2]Bug Fixes:[/h2]

• Fixed interface bug that caused Air, Group, and Unit Pool buttons to draw off screen on some more exotic resolutions.
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause connected clients to technically lose in co-op games if the AI opponent surrendered.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused breached minefields to take just as long as unbreached minefields to clear.
  
• Fixed a bug that allowed supply extenders to become infinite supply sources.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused mobile depots to fail to refill their supply when in range of a supply source and a supply extender was stacked on top of them.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused attackers and defenders to receive the same number of replacements in historical multiplayer scenarios.
  
• Fixed mini-map view box scaling on several maps.
  

With Crusader released we’re ready to move full steam ahead with the Operation Husky update. On the road to Husky we’ll be working on an AI update focusing on AI decision making and reducing turn run times, and the new automated replacement system. Each of these improvements will both greatly enhance scenarios like Crusader and Gazala, but will also be necessary to make Husky work.

For now, to our fellow Americans, have a fantastic Thanksgiving and we'll see you all soon after!

We have a new update out on the experimental build, it resolves most of the outstanding, non-AI related issues with the Crusader update, discovered up by players and in internal testing.

See the picture below for information on how to opt-in to the Experimental build if you’re interested in playing new updates early.

• Fixed a bug that allowed supply extenders to become infinite supply sources.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused mobile depots to fail to refill their supply when in range of a supply source and a supply extender was stacked on top of them.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused attackers and defenders to receive the same number of replacements in historical multiplayer scenarios.
  
• Hosting multiplayer games as attacker works properly again.
  
• Fixed mini-map view box scaling on several maps.
  
• Attacker scenarios briefings in historical scenarios work properly again.
  

• The supply overlay still sometimes incorrectly displays supply extenders as generating supply when disconnected from the supply network; even though they do not, and units inside their range do not receive supply.
  

If internal build testing goes smoothly tomorrow and on Friday, the Operation Crusader update will go fully live on Saturday.