Fog of War

[thissneppah]

That was what i was trying to say in the first paragraph there =].

Ah, sorry, my bad. Well for small scale it could be said a person is making him / her self seem bigger (by pulling out their shield, waving their sword around, generally spreading out to seem more frightening, etc) and it’s hard to see over or through the person as you don’t have a way of looking past them so you can’t see past ZoC. That said I never really thought of Wesnoth on such a small scale as then the campaigns and MP battles seems more like a brawl between two neighbors that got a bit messy (what with all the carnage and bloodshed) then an epic struggle.

Anyway the point is to say that there is a way to explain ZoC limited sight, and in my opinion there are quite initiative.

[Darth Fool]

This is why realism arguments never win. It is almost fundamental that a realism argument can always be made for all sides of an argument. Making realism arguments therefore becomes pointless. The key question always is what are the gameplay implications of the proposed change.

it would be rather annoying to start having different kinds of fog rules in different campaigns, for example.

Here I disagree. I think that players are sufficiently adaptable that if you tell them what the FoW rules are, they will rapidly adjust to it. I think making FoW adjustable within reasonable limits in scenario WML is quite reasonable and would probably be used to good effect.

[Cannibal]

Even the most minor changes in FoW can bring significant changes in gameplay and faction balance. Wesnoth would become a different game if this is ever implemented. As most units would become effectively blind, this gives new meaning to "scouting" and "fighting in the dark".

Alot of things that were taken for granted are now gone:

-What race is your enemy?
-Does the enemy know what race you are?

-What units do your enemy have?
-Does the enemy know what units you have?

-Where is the enemy?
-Does the enemy know your position?

-What can your enemy see?
-Does the enemy know that you can/cannot see them?

-Which of the enemy's units are vulnerable to attack?
-Which of your units are vulnerable to attack?

etc...

All this means that gambles will not only be made in the small scale, but gambles will have to be made on the strategic scale. Ambushes, feints, bluffs... etc. are all possible. Long battle lines of units standing on high def terrain is no longer a good idea. Because you don't know where the enemy is going to hit you and what they are going to hit you with. etc. etc.

This is just to get the discussion back on topic...
realism doesnt matter, gameplay, graphics, and music are more significant

[zookeeper]

All this means that gambles will not only be made in the small scale, but gambles will have to be made on the strategic scale. Ambushes, feints, bluffs... etc. are all possible. Long battle lines of units standing on high def terrain is no longer a good idea. Because you don't know where the enemy is going to hit you and what they are going to hit you with. etc. etc.

Yeah, that's what I'd expect to happen more if visibility was blocked by ZoC. It might indeed change a whole lot about how a MP game is played, and I'd be interested in seeing how exactly it would work out. I have no real expectation of whether I'd consider it to be better or worse than the current way, but it'd be a change interesting enough that I'd like to try it.

[Cannibal]

All this means that gambles will not only be made in the small scale, but gambles will have to be made on the strategic scale. Ambushes, feints, bluffs... etc. are all possible. Long battle lines of units standing on high def terrain is no longer a good idea. Because you don't know where the enemy is going to hit you and what they are going to hit you with. etc. etc.

Yeah, that's what I'd expect to happen more if visibility was blocked by ZoC. It might indeed change a whole lot about how a MP game is played, and I'd be interested in seeing how exactly it would work out. I have no real expectation of whether I'd consider it to be better or worse than the current way, but it'd be a change interesting enough that I'd like to try it.

Drakes and Loyalists can cut through ZoC with their skirmishers, which gives them an advantage. Unless the skirmish ability doesn't affect vision.

[Sapient]

I think having more than one type of fog would greivously violate the OAB; we should stick with/improve the best fog and thus leave open the possibility to make it better in all cases simultaneously.

Personally, I liked my "150% solid fog" proposal, which was explained here.

[Sombra]

Sapient, the problem I see with your proposal is that you can see even further than right now. For example an Elven scout would be able to watch round abound 15hexes nearly the "whole" map. Couldn´t you have a similar effect with simply delaying the update of visible map potions. For example you know whats there at the beginning/ end of your turn?

The beautiful part for me with ZoC FOW would be the ability to actively "hide" units before the enemy. With other words you can do something yourself to obscure your movements to the enemy.

[Sapient]

Sapient, the problem I see with your proposal is that you can see even further than right now. For example an Elven scout would be able to watch round abound 15hexes nearly the "whole" map. Couldn´t you have a similar effect with simply delaying the update of visible map potions. For example you know whats there at the beginning/ end of your turn?

I think you don't understand my proposal. The fog is only updated at the beginning of your turn. So then you can move fairly close to the fog edge, sure, but you don't really know what is beyond it until the turn ends. So in effect, you cannot see as far as before (in any specific direction).

[Sombra]

Hello Sapient, please correct me if I am wrong. FOg of war is updated at the beginning of your turn. You can see as far as 1,5x your movements points. So instead of being able to see the dark blue area +1 square you are able to see the light blue area. So effectivly at the beginning of your turn you have a better overview. If you move closer to the enemy you are worse off than before because the fog is only update in the beginning of next turn.

For me its an interessting idea still for me it doesnt really my personl issues with the current FOW.

- With your system you will still have a really good information base regarding enemy placement. Attacking will be more risky even and the game will perhaps be even more defensive as it is right now.

- You still can´t actively hide units for a sneak attack or as a hidden defense reserve.

[Darth Fool]

Hello Sapient, please correct me if I am wrong. FOg of war is updated at the beginning of your turn. You can see as far as 1,5x your movements points. So instead of being able to see the dark blue area +1 square you are able to see the light blue area. So effectivly at the beginning of your turn you have a better overview. If you move closer to the enemy you are worse off than before because the fog is only update in the beginning of next turn.

For me its an interessting idea still for me it doesnt really my personl issues with the current FOW.

- With your system you will still have a really good information base regarding enemy placement. Attacking will be more risky even and the game will perhaps be even more defensive as it is right now.

- You still can´t actively hide units for a sneak attack or as a hidden defense reserve.

FoW is currently updated whenever a unit has moved. Thus, if a unit is on a giant plain of grass and can move 4 hexes, he sees a radius of 4+1 hexes around him. When he moves , he can now see 4+1 hexes around his new location, even if he has used up all of his MP in doing so.

[Sombra]

As the 1.31 development branch of Wesnoth has started (thx for that dear developers). I would like to push this thread back to attention. Perhaps one of the gods of Wesnoth hears our pleas and makes some attemps to establish a different and better world

[Wintermute]

I would like to push this thread back to attention.

This thread is also very interesting to me. I really like the idea of a more restrictive FoW ... in theory. I agree that it would be fun to be able to keep more hidden from opponets. A fast mobile, and surprise, reserve would become much more important.

HOWEVER, I have played enough double-blind tabletop games to know how slowly and carefully you need to play to avoid people charging at your flanks. I think about how long a serious 2v2 game takes under the current rules, and shudder to think about the slow stalemates that would insue if you couldn't see what is just behind the enemy lines. It is such a defensive game already that the added uncertainty of having who knows how many spearmen just out of sight would make attacking almost impossible.

Granted, there might be an implementation of stronger FoW that would be interesting without such a dramatic affect on gameplay.

So who's got one?

[irrevenant]

The good thing about the way the current FoW behaves is that it's intuitive and simple.

It really isn't. There's no visual hint that there's any difference between movement range and sight range.

Most novice players won't even guess there's a difference.

[EDIT] Disregard this - I posted it before I saw 1.3.1 in action.

I think the cleanest way to implement shorter vision range would be to make it a unit-specific attribute: for example gryphons would see 10 MP's away, elvish fighters would see 4 MP's away, trolls would see 2 MP's away due to bad sight, etc. However, this obviously complicates everything by introducing yet another unit-specific property, so I don't think it's a good idea (so don't spend your time arguing against it unless someone else argues for it).

I think it's a good idea, but I would leave that number at it's current setting for (almost?) all existing units.

I for one would like the option of adding a farseeing unit to a campaign I have in mind...

To the original poster (Cannibal):

It sounds to me like your concern would be resolved simply by playing on larger maps.