Complete Fog of War Idea

In many RtS games they have a complete Fog of War, where you cannot see anything beyond your unit's visibility range. In Afterwind, it sort of exists in that you cannot see the number/type of units beyond a certain point...

BUT you still know that there are units there, and that they're moving in a certain direction, and you can also make out the category of units (inf, tanks, air, naval). You are also aware of all the territories that all other players control or covet.

A complete Fog of War is where the entire map is greyed out, you can't see ANY of the above^, until it comes into your view. This would make the game more interesting, and put a greater emphasis on Sentries.

As a quick example as to how things get more interesting, here's one:
From the beginning of the game, you know which country every player has chosen, so you still have a rough idea as to where everyone is. If I choose India, while someone else chooses France, I could send Marines up, through Russia, and down through the top of Europe, while the other player keeps an eye on Turkey as being the most obvious route. It would create more strategic options, and force players to think and prioritize, rather than spamming every cap and country they come across, as they can't tell if there is any army coming to cap them.

Thoughts?

It certainly sound interesting but also sound hard to implement complete Fog of War into the game.

Sounds interesting, but everyone would just send sentries until all the world is uncovered.

Napisano od notserral, 13.04.2013 at 17:24

Sounds interesting, but everyone would just send sentries until all the world is uncovered.

And Sentries are expensive. There's no way it would be done in a few turns, or 5 turns, or even 10 turns. And when they LEAVE an area, then they can no longer see what's there, only see how things USED to be there.

Napisano od Selow, 13.04.2013 at 17:41

Napisano od notserral, 13.04.2013 at 17:24

Sounds interesting, but everyone would just send sentries until all the world is uncovered.

And Sentries are expensive. There's no way it would be done in a few turns, or 5 turns, or even 10 turns. And when they LEAVE an area, then they can no longer see what's there, only see how things USED to be there.

Send two sentries each turn for each side. Done.

Napisano od notserral, 13.04.2013 at 21:05

Napisano od Selow, 13.04.2013 at 17:41

Napisano od notserral, 13.04.2013 at 17:24

Sounds interesting, but everyone would just send sentries until all the world is uncovered.

And Sentries are expensive. There's no way it would be done in a few turns, or 5 turns, or even 10 turns. And when they LEAVE an area, then they can no longer see what's there, only see how things USED to be there.

Send two sentries each turn for each side. Done.

Dude, Sentries cost ~360 with SM. Two per side? That would be 1440 to 2880 per turn (Upkeep of 144 to 288, added each turn), and in the beginning, you're not going to have that much cash income, unless if it's a 25k+ start where it's just a spam game...-.-'

And still, it would take time to have each sentry cover the entire world area.

Though yes, you're right, Sentries would assist in making the entire map visible, fog of war would still add certain elements of critical thinking to this game.

I agree with you, fog of war would be awesome, but perhaps Sentries' field of vision could be altered a bit. Also, 2 sentries each turn is 640 with SM, not 1440

I thought about this but never made an effort to start the topic. I would like to see it as an optional game mode. Most of the proposition here to change a game are not well planed or are of the "try hard" type (make light, medium, heavy tanks, capital moving etc). This is somehow natural I feel. You don't have to explain why it make sense or make up some story that if we look at this proposition from the right angle it will make sense...kind of anyway.
I don't know how hard it would be to implement it into a game when we already have those 2 zones of sight. First when we see exactly the units and second when we see that something is there but we don't know exactly what it is.
Big support.

Napisano od Goblin, 14.04.2013 at 11:07

This would be cool for a games that date in ancient times and like that, but in modern world it would be kinda ridiculous that you don't know how the world looks like or what land belongs to certain nations.

I don't think the idea is of total blackness. You see the whole map, all the cities, countries, borders but at first you only know the starting countries of other players and unless city, country or a unit is in your sight range you don't know anything about it. (Spawn in 'Murrica other guy in India, he captures Pakistan it's not shown on your map until Pakistan is in sight range)
Well in modern world you know as much about what's going on in Australia as in medieval times. But today instead of sending a guy on a horse to go somewhere and bring us back information we have planes, satellites, cameras and radio. During war oponents spy each other and don't just know where enemy forces are. Also you rely on allays intel, in afterwind you could share vision with allays.

I like! If the "greying out" is difficult to implement, I would be enthusiastic if even just troop were completely masked. So instead of not being able to see a troop count outside visible range, troops were completely hidden. I feel like this would be more true to what the game developers had in mind since there are Lift the Fog upgrades no one gets until the end and the visibility buff and penalty for blitz and IF that doesn't really impact the strat.

Napisano od Goblin, 14.04.2013 at 16:21

Napisano od Homero, 14.04.2013 at 14:01

Napisano od Goblin, 14.04.2013 at 11:07

This would be cool for a games that date in ancient times and like that, but in modern world it would be kinda ridiculous that you don't know how the world looks like or what land belongs to certain nations.

I don't think the idea is of total blackness. You see the whole map, all the cities, countries, borders but at first you only know the starting countries of other players and unless city, country or a unit is in your sight range you don't know anything about it. (Spawn in 'Murrica other guy in India, he captures Pakistan it's not shown on your map until Pakistan is in sight range)
Well in modern world you know as much about what's going on in Australia as in medieval times. But today instead of sending a guy on a horse to go somewhere and bring us back information we have planes, satellites, cameras and radio. During war oponents spy each other and don't just know where enemy forces are. Also you rely on allays intel, in afterwind you could share vision with allays.

Um change in pakistan not shown ...but the player who lost pakistan can just type "i lost pakistan" in the chat ...holy shit atWar chat is better then spy satelites.
And really world today is so close together with information that a tribe in amazon would know what is goin on in Australia mate. xD

But good idea about troops visibility ...that should have some range. Oh but it does ...you dont see the actual troop count long distance.
Really only good for games in times before satelites , etc...

You don't get what I mean. Let's try to explain it a little bit more.
1. Assuming you don't have access to spy or broadcasting satellites, you are not a hacker who have access to some intelligence agency server and you are not yourself a reporter traveling the world lurking for information, you have no clue whats going on in other part of your own country, unless somebody tells you (friend, tv news, internet news site etc.) World can be close together those days and it gives you wery nice info about what some celebrity had for diner today or what Jamal from Kenya thinks about lobsters. But afterwind is a military game. What do you know about current location, soldiers training and tactics of 27th Mountain Division of Indian army? What can you tell me about latest movements of 2nd Motorised Battalion of Croatian Army? If you are not in the army you do know about army us much as anybody who owns a tv or internet connection.

2. "But in afterwind I'm not a civilian but a general of the army". So? How much do you know about all those things if you don't have intelligence agency or some drone/ satellite ( plus team of nerds who know how to use this thing) watching your opponents movements? Treat it like view range in game. If you have troops close to Moscow and sent a drone/ plane/ spy or whatever to give you some info about the area then you know whats going on. But lets say none of things I mentioned above "works" for you near Volgograd area and you have no idea about a tank division coming your way from the south. You don't have anything to provide you "view range" -> you don't know about whats going on where you don't have it.

3. Guy types in chat that he lost Pakistan. You don't have a view range there so how do you know? You have to judge if this info is true or not. If you haven't watched movie Valkyrie (don't like this movie to much myself but it's kind of fresh, has a guy from hollywood in it there so maybe you seen it), Tom Cruise tried to kill Hitler he failed but he didn't knew he failed. He sends a message (types in chat) to Berlin: Hitler is dead. They believe this message, then Hitler types in chat: Hitler not dead. Chaos.

4. Back to world is close together http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncontacted_peoples . Some people think that Europe is one country, don't know what Great Britain is, don't understand a word like Germany or never heard about Hitler, Stalin, Gandhi, Kenedy, Russel Crowe, Christian, Muslim, Jewish or Hindu God/Gods.

5. You don't see troop count of stacks out of sight range. Well but you know that there is a bomber stack coming your way across Pacific Ocean. That is nice to know considering that none of your units can actually know that those bombers exist not talking about them being sent your way.

6. If your country doesn't own satellites and goes to war what are the chances that you will be able to take a peek from the orbit into a base in Gansu province in China? You may be president, general, astronaut and a marksman in one but still you know about whats going on in the world only if you are told about it and you have to put your brain to work to filter and decide what is true or not. Also 'Murrica haz lots of satellites, still guys in Afghanistan have troubles finding all those Talibans in the mountains.

Idea of this type of fog of war is in my opinion more realistic and the whole idea isn't forced by any means.
Hope it is at least 20-40% idiot-proof.

I like it, maybe there it could be an option, and it could even have varying degrees of Fog of War. with each one stacking on each other

1) none.

2) Basic. What we have right now.

3)Limited. Does not show any troops at all unless allied or inside view range.

4)Advanced. Does not show territory gains/losses, or population/income percentages unless in view range.

5)Total. Complete blackness unless within view range.

Napisano od Guest, 15.04.2013 at 01:18

I like the basic option right now, I expanding on it would made the game less risk like...

Right now I can't see what number of troops and such people outside my view range have. I like that.

If you implement a fog of war as in complete fog.. well its silly. O look I can't see the americas because I don't have a spy plane above it... what? I can pull up yandex maps and see it right now if I wanted to and I'm an average citizen. The entire world is completely covered by satellite surveleince. Complete fog of war no longer exists.

About not being able to see even unit outlines... welll if the indian army is amassing troops on the nepal border, its going to ge tout and people will know thats the world we live in. It's more realistic this way to be truthful.

But any ways that above is my rant about why I wouldnt want this in it... as a defacto feature... if its an option to choose from... welll I jus't don't care then. But for browser games easy simple fun > complex not as wide appealing fun. Just makes business sense

This is for fun man.

Citat:

Napisano od Goblin, 14.04.2013 at 11:07

[...] in modern world it would be kinda ridiculous [...]

Napisano od Goblin, 15.04.2013 at 05:25

You are thinking to much realistic, and its only a game. We could probably discuss for days now about history, politics, war, international law ...but we really
shouldn't ... whenever i discuss it with my friends it only ends up in fighting and i can see how this would end that way aswell.

I will only answer you ...yes i have seen Valkyrie and i liked the movie. Better then fuckin Argo anyway.

It was an answer to why I disagree about ridiculousness of that idea when thinking about modern world games. I don't want to make this game too realistic (like your unit's getting sick, lowering stats of units recruited in Africa because some of armies there are trained poorly or making each country have it's own politics and economic strategy). You said that rts like fow is detached from reality, I explained why I think it's not. Argo doesn't deserves that Oscar at all.

Support

I really like this idea, and been thinking about it, glad i could find the post. What do the rest of the community think of this?

Support for option

I propose a simplification of the settings:

Visibility:
* Everything visible: as it says, game stays as it is.
* Terrain explored: Fog of war enabled, you have the last intel of the enemies on your screen. Your allies and their intel are shared. Terrain is greyed out, but visible.
* Complete: Everything is black, and as you explore, terrain with no intel is greyed out. Your allies and their intel are shared.

I like this idea. It would also increase the need for large walls to prevent people from exploring your territory

Support as an optional game option.

Age of exploration custom map!

Support.

Supportz

Sounds like Warlight to me and I love warlight, support.

Absolutely support.

Support! Would make sentry planes much more useful!

Support