After the release of our Steel Shepherd (1.4.0) update, this hot fix aims to resolve our highest priority bugs while also introducing some necessary changes. As always, please ensure you are reporting any bugs using our form here. 

BALANCE CHANGES

Wehrmacht Italian Coastal Battlegroup 

We're happy to see people really take Coastal and run with it, trying all kinds of styles and strategies with the Battlegroup. We're going to continue to track its performance, but as a start we're going to tone down a few elements that we noticed were clearly over-tuned. 

Artillery Officer 

• Artillery Overwatch recharge time increased from 20 to 30 
• Manpower cost increased from 240 to 280 

Coastal Reserves 

• Call-in ability recharge time increased from 35 to 40  

Designated Artillery Overwatch 

• Munitions cost increased from 80 to 90  
• Overwatch radius reduced from 60 to 55  

US Forces Advanced Infantry Battlegroup 

Advanced Infantry seems to be having a harder time out of the gate, so we are giving Rangers a significant boost. They will have improved base performance but also scale better with reduced costs and better veterancy, justifying their high cost and upkeep. 

Ammunition Storage 

• Corrected an issue where the Ammunition Storage reduced all weapon cooldowns to 0; now provides the correct 25%  

Rangers 

• Capture rate increased from 1.25 to 1.5 
• Decapture rate increased from 1 to 1.25  
• Heavy Weapons expert accuracy bonus increased from +10% to +20%  
• Ranger Thompson SMG accuracy reduced from 0.54/0.33/0.18 to 0.513/0.3135/0.171 
• Veterancy 1 damage reduction increased from 10% to 15%  
• Veterancy 2 now grants +10% weapon accuracy  
• Veterancy 3 now grants an additional 10% damage reduction 
• Weapon Crate munition cost reduced from 100 to 90 

M1A1 105mm Howitzer 

• Barrage recharge times reduced from 60 to 45 seconds  

M1A1 105mm Howitzer Auto-fire 

• Range increased from 80 to 110 

Ranger Weapon Training 

• Command Point cost reduced from 4 to 3 

BUG FIXES & CHANGES

Art / Animation 

• British Air and Sea company has new icons.  
• Fixed an issue where the heavy mortar would animate slower when auto-firing shells. 
• Beretta M38 has muzzle visual effects when shooting. 
• Improved the consistency of vaulting over objects.

Audio 

• Fixed cases where the Intel did not notify the player when a unit is lost in combat. 
• Improved the audio of ships engaging in combat in the Italian Dynamic Campaign.

Gameplay 

• Observer Overwatch ability can no longer be permanently applied to a sector. 
• Fixed an issue that allowed some vehicles to phase through medium sized environmental objects, like cars, instead of crushing them.  
• Fixed an issue with the 254 Reconnaissance Tractor Off-Map Mortar Barrage also triggering the Smoke Canister ability cooldown.  
• Fixed an issue where converting Scouts to Pathfinders or Artillery Observers while retreating would cancel the retreat order and stop the unit.  
• Fixed an issue where Designate Artillery Overwatch and Designate Defense Line were useable on uncompleted Bunkers.  
• Fixed an issue where overlapping multiple Designate Defensive Line auras would unintentionally stack the damage reduction for units in the area.  
• Fixed an issue where the ownership of the British Forces Field Infirmary and Resource Cache would transfer to teammates when upgrading over a point they originally captured. 
• Fixed an issue where Pack Howitzer and Heavy Mortar formations would have a single soldier wander far away from the squad upon detaching from a towing vehicle.  
• Fixed an issue where the US Forces Demo charge did not display its camouflaged state.  
• Fixed an issue where units could sometimes get stuck when retreating near buildings.  
• Fixed instances where units wouldn't fire right after vaulting
• Fixed some abilities getting stuck on cooldown when recasting too quickly (aka spamming) 
• Fixed Team Weapons not retreating correctly after tearing down  
• Fixed the 4X4 Self-Repair ability decorator not properly showing a timer.  
• Mines planted by Panzerpioneers and Guastatori now use the correct model, animation and effects. Mines planted by other units now also use the correct model. 
• Removed the Churchill Crocodile flamethrower bonus damage against bunkers in Single Player.  
• The Ammunition Supply passive description has been updated to reflect that it affects all units  
• The Artillery Radio Beacon minimap range indicator now reflects the updated range when monitored.  
• The Howitzer Free-Fire drills cooldown can no longer be skipped by using the Barrage ability  
• Units will no longer cancel retreating early if their retreat target becomes invalid  
• Improved pathing of engineers - engineers should no longer go to the opposite side of barb wire to cut it. 
• Updated the Unit Command Card to include icons for the Breda Model 30 LMG, GrB Grenade Launcher, Johnson LMG, and MG 15.   
• Added a new Visual Effect on facing order commands, to confirm units received the order.  

Maps

(2) Villa Fiore

• The central villa of Villa Fiore has been updated to reduce the dependence on garrisons and improve movement from HQ to HQ, via the villa itself. Three buildings have been removed, and a fourth replaced with a central mansion that has distinct blindspots. Height gameplay still persists in this area, but is less drastic once the player's units enter the boundary of the villa itself (any progress up the hill will negate it). 

Minimap Updates

• Added updated versions of all Italy and North Africa minimaps for Campaign missions, archetypes and skirmishes across the Italian Campaign and North African Operation.
  
  

Single Player 

• Fixed some hovering strategic points on the Twin Beaches skirmish map. They are now grounded properly.  
• Fixed the Focus Sight ability to correctly update sight and range.  
• Fixed a few buildings that didn’t have Auto-Reinforce set to ‘on’ by default.

Dynamic Italian Campaign

• Changed the Hold the Line objective to focus on the two capture points beside the Flak 36s. Previously the objective told the player to defend their base.  
• Fixed Companies from getting healed every time a save game is loaded. 
• Fixed Companies getting stuck in Spinazzola if airdropped on the location.  
• Fixed one of the Spec Ops Company's upgrades reducing cost of Mechanized Support Center's upgrades instead of Infantry Support Center's upgrades.  
• Fixed the attack movement preview being visible when trying to attack an enemy target with a company that cannot attack on this turn.  
• Fixed the Medical Half-Track being available before requirements are met.  
• Fixed the Wehrmacht aircraft abilities sometimes ending too early.  
• Reduced the amount of path-blocking rubble near a medical point in Ortona. This change will now enable reinforcements that spawn behind the point to reach the street.  
• Updated the atmosphere on the Enigma Mission. 
• When playing a skirmish, the title now displays the squad Company's faction name instead of the default assigned faction

Foggia Mission 

• Fixed a fatal scar error occurring when the enemy used a strafing run.  
• Fixed an issue where some of the airstrike event notifications had no icon.

North African Operation 

• Changed the Ajdabiya scene atmosphere to prevent issues when transitioning between atmospheres. 

Tutorial

• Adjusted tutorial mission atmosphere to move it more in line with other North African atmosphere settings. 

UX/UI 

• Added a tooltip on a disabled button in the pause menu during the Tutorial  
• General tooltip and ability icon fixes.  
• Reviewed negative affectors in campaign skirmishes to display the right color, a description and an icon.  
• Squad count is now displayed even when only 1 unit remains in the squad.  
• Updated icons for side objectives in the objectives pop-up to look consistent with icons in the objectives panel. 
• Using the Afrikakorps ability to recrew team weapons from the medical truck will no longer cause an empty / null squad to be shown in the post-game stats Units tab, as well as in the Replay live stats.  
• When setting up a match, all game mode option selections are transferred over when you change the game mode.

Addendum (Dec 13)

Our team has identified the following fixes and changes from the 1.4.2 hot fix that were missing patch notes.  

• Coastal Wall - Command Point cost from 2 to 3
• Challenges that were already in progress before 1.4.0 and are now over the completed amount can now be completed by progressing them just 1 more time. 
• Converting an infantry unit no longer makes it lose any collected special weapons. 
• Fixed a sync error when re-crewing team weapons. 
• Certain elements of the Italian Dynamic Campaign UI are now correctly localized in other languages. 
• Lowered the attack rate of the Partisan Hub Encircle Target ability, to improve game readability on the Italian Dynamic Campaign Map. 
• The Fortified Positions trait in the Italian Dynamic Campaign now correctly references to emplacements instead of detachments. 
• Updated description for the Special Forces' Elite Commandos Trait campaign upgrade. 
• Improved resource crates clarity on the Italian Dynamic Campaign Map, ensuring all the different crate types feature a portrait and a brief description. 
• British paradrop planes in Campaign from the Air and Sea Company can no longer be shot down. 
• Campaign Companies will no longer offer an option to change battle and mission affectors if there is none available. 
• Fixed the tooltip description of the Valentine II tank in the Italian Dynamic Campaign. 
• Fixed an issue that was causing auto-saved Replays to no longer recognize players slots and colors after renaming them. 
• Abilities tooltips are now anchored to the resource bar in Replays, no longer appearing as if they are floating when collapsing the Playback Panel. 
• Match information will no longer be cutoff in the Replay List under certain languages. 
• Improved chat box size and positioning in Replays to always show the entirety of messages. 
• Fixed an issue that was causing ellipses to be applied to text in the Mods page even in cases where it was not necessary. 
• Garrisonable structures no longer display a description in the Unit Card. The detailed description is still available in the unit tooltip, visible when hovering the mouse on the structure name. 
• Added an Add Friend button in profiles of players that are not in the friend list. 
• Updated Tobruk to use a new atmosphere. 
• The Battle overview UI is no longer visible when quickly switching from hovering on an enemy unit to hovering on a mission space, which previously caused various UI and gameplay issues.