Reboot might help.  Does it happen after a reboot?  If so I'd suggest a screenshot

Reinstalled the game and the problem still persists.  Happens when I start the Scenario, when I start a New Games, and even in the tactical map.

The tactical map is barely visible through the smear.  The smear disappears when I zoom out, but then I loose detail.

At this point I've stopped playing since it's too aggravating.

I don't see how a screen shot would provide useful info.

I've got some screen shots but have no idea on how to post them.  Copy-paste does not allow pasting.  Insert Image requires a URL.

Where are the hoops that I have to jump through?

Blind guesses while you are uploading that screen, did you delete your LH folder in documents/my games/ when you reinstalled? It could be some sort of messed up graphics setting or a mod.

How much (and how recently) did you play the game before this started happening? What are your system specs? Maybe you played a small map first and it seemed to work fine and a larger map was something your system couldn't handle?

Do you have any issues with other games? Random visual artifacts sometimes occur when a graphics card is dying or over heating.

Deleted my game data and it appears that the problem has gone away.

Looks like it was corrupt data causing the problem.

Thanks for the suggestion.

FYI, you could try to "verify the integrity of game cache" instead of deleting the entire game. Might save you on download times.