There is talk to include fog of war. Everybody seems to be quite keen on that. So I was wondering, am I the only one that does not like it? Fog of war might be nice in C&C/warcraft kinda games, but to me weewar is more like a chess/Risk kinda game, focussed on strategy, seeing what the other guy is doing and then reacting. Fog of war destroys all that.
Its also turning the game more into a game of chance, decreasing the use ofrendering strategy significantly I feel.

You will no longer be able to evaluate who the strongest player is and therefore you cant decide properly on who you want or need to attack. You gotta attack someone at random. If someone else is just doing the same thing from the other side the person in the middle gets squished. You can no longer stop someone from doing something significant because you dont even see it happening... etc. See where I am going?

I will certainly play very few games where FoW is enabled, if not none at all.

BTW: I am aslo wondering which kind of FoW its gonna be. In some games, afer you see something once, its always visible, in others it goes back to dark once you are out of range.

you make some good points, but I believe that it is going to be optional... so no need to be that concerned about it unless everyone refuses to play without FoW enabled, which I doubt will be the case.  I personally will probably not play with it that often, but I can see how new maps could be designed to embrace the FoW concept.

Yeah, I was under the impression it was optional.  I'm not a fan of FOW either, but so long as I can turn it off, it is always nice to have more options.

There's also the question of exactly how much it hides - like in Age of Empires, you had the blackout to start with, then just a grey-out after that, you could still see the natural features of the map but not any enemy units/buildings. I would oppose the full blackout for Weewar - not even being able to see the shape of the map would suck. But hiding enemy stuff until it's within range could work.

Then there's how large an area around units is visible, and whether it should vary by unit-type. I'd say it needs to be at least one more than their movement range, so that you can see anything you can attack on that turn (for artillery, that would be their attack range rather than movement range) and I'd go for a wider area - it should allow you to surprise enemies, but not walk carefully around their front line without them seeing you at all. Maybe a standard amount of n hexes (say.. 6? 8?), with a few variations for things that it would make sense to have greater line of sight, raiders as scouts and reduced sight from heavy tanks for example, or reduced visibility across mountains.

Would empty bases get a line of sight? And would it be as much as a unit's? (I'd say yes and yes.. if not more than a unit's)

On small maps this would make FoW kind of useless, since they're not that far across to start with, but I guess that's as expected - small area = see everything.

Oh, and the thing Streen said - does it stay revealed after you leave or go back to darkness? If we're having FoW I'd probably go for the return to darkness, so that there's an incentive to take over all of an enemy's bases in an area so he can't see what you're doing there.

But also definitely needs to be an option. I'm not sure whether I want it at all, so being able to turn it off is a must

It'd be extra useful if you could turn it off by common consensus part way into a game, or agree with another player to share your info with them - each see everything you can see between you (making team matches with FoW possible)

Fog of war will be optional. The choice will rest with the game creator. Once we implement team play team members will be seeing the same. Other details are not yet  decided. I hope this helps.

Sorry if I made the impression that it wasnt optional. The devs said before that its gonne be optional, I just assumed that was obvious.
But thats not gonna make me like it more nevertheless.

As I am agains FoW either way, I would prefer the version that you only have to reveal once. Oncve youve seen it you can always see it.
 

A few points:

There is a difference between Map Discovery and Fog of War.   Map Discovery is the blacking out of unexplored hexen until you visit them, or "see" them with your units' range of vision.  Fog of War is the invisibility of enemy units which are outside your range of vision.  These two things are not the same.  You can have one and not the other, or both, or neither.

Both should be options, but I personally don't play with Map Discovery on static maps (which all of Weewar's maps are), since it favours people that have seen the map before, which I consider unfair.   I do like Fog of War, though.

I disagree that it reduces strategy in favour of randomness, or somehow fails to award good strategists.  It just alters game play, and you have to take some other things into consideration.

Range of Vision (abbreviated RoV from here on) can be implemented in a couple of ways: (1) as a function of range of movement (RoM), (2) static numbers independent of RoM.  I would prefer static, but could accept functional if it were done that way.  Regardless, the RoV should have a slider, or at least a few spectral options,  so that people can create games with the quality of RoV that they desire (more limited, or more extensive vision).

What would be really interesting is if the dev team coded lines of sight, as well, so you could hide behind mountains and forests where, if those obstacles were not there, you would be within the enemy's RoV.  Also, giving a boost to RoV on mountains would be neat.  We'll see what they roll out, and when they roll it out.

Oh, and: Normally for FoW, units appear and disappear as they enter or exit RoV.  This is most sensible, as it conforms with reality.   If you come out from a room, and I see you, I should not be able to keep seeing you if you go back in the room and shut the door, or if you get in a plane and fly to the other side of the world. 

the more i think about FoW, the less it seems appropriate for weewar since weewar is turn-based vs. real-time (chess vs. uh, StarCraft).

just my two cents
 

Wesnoth is turn-based and has had FoW for a long time.  Being turn based does not make a game incompatible with FoW.  Various mech hex games also employ FoW and even sight lines.

hehe.. if FoW ends up being adjustable, I'd be interested enough to play a game where you can't see a thing beyond the hexes immediately around your units (not the blackout kind of can't see anything, just the enemy units hidden)

It'd have to be a not-for-points match, but it'd be interesting to see how it plays.

Never heared about Map Discovery, but it gives a name to the thing, so I dont mind. I prefer Map discovery.
In the undesirable case that we get FoW, I like the ideas pistos pointed out, units hiding behind a forest and further view from mountains.

I would guess that we will not have hidden maps. Its more likely that only the opponents units will be visible/invisible when hidden in the fog of war.

+1 for the dynamic RoV based on Terrain.  Reduced visibility in forests and increased from mountains, and having forests block FoV when you're on the wrong side of it.

Of course implementing any kind of vision system is bound to be tricky!  Good luck Bert and Alex!

I didn't think about reduced RoV in forests, that's a good idea, too.  In fact, it brings to mind my prior suggestion about some units being able to hide and ambush (bonus for initial surprise attack).

my 2 cents: although it would be interesting to play WW with FoW, to me WW has always seemed like it is best as a game of complete information.  FoW is more of an RTS thing in my mind.

That being said, it would be interesting to give it a try, but I think there are a lot of features and fixes that I would like to see worked on before FoW.

 

Indeed, my priorities would lie with other things.

Something just occurred to me - what viewpoint do non-player observers get? If they get to see the whole board then you could just log out to see what your opponent's doing.

Super-King, good point, perhaps only view units viewable to both players.

Great point, Super-King.  I think FoW games would necessarily have to be unviewable.

What's wrong with being able to view units that are viewable to both sides?  That way you can watch the skirmishes but not see the massing troops.

what if there is 4 sides?

only showing to observers what everyone playing is seeing seems unrealistic to me, and quite boring for the observer as well.
I agree with pistos, games with FoW need to be unviewable by default.

A solution would be to enable players to invite others to see it from their point of view, so see all that they see.
But this would be very complicated to implement (I guess), so I rather suggest that we forget this whole FoW idea all together

Am I convincing yet?

 

mmmm... thinks... no

So how will FoW with with the 'Undo Move' feature?  I can see abuse of that feature with people moving a unit jsut to see what's beyond the next ridge then undoing the move.

The standard practice is to give player the option of one of the following behaviours:

(1) Cannot undo when fog recedes

(2) Delay fog update (until, say, end of turn)

We won't know if it's good or not till we actually test it. I'm personally looking forward to it.

concerning undo: You should only have the FoW lifted when the game is sure you cant undo anymore. So mostly after you moved the next unit.

Streen: Like I said, you do one or the other.  You can still lift right away; but then you can't allow undo.

What I meant is delaying the update, just not at the end of turn, as the new view might change your strategy. But as soon as you move another unit it is updated. That recent move can be undone but not the previous one, so you are fine. Cant be exploited

Not allowing undo at all is a bit harsh I think.

I see what you mean.  Yes, that could be a third game mechanic option/method.

Our current thinking is that the revealing would happen immediately upon move but that undo for moves would not be available in such games (as it is with attacks right now).

I wouldn't mind having a hardcore game setting where there was no undo.

How about make a setting for players to customize the undo function so hosts can decide whether they want no undo, 1 turn undo or 2 turn undo.
 

making undo customizable would be a nice option - but fog of war comes with certain requirements limiting those choices (if we had them).