Fog of war

[Cross]

Originally Posted by Wdll

I will keep it simple. I don't like the idea Cross mentioned.
It will just force people to waste time checking the encyclopedia all the time and/or only play against forces they know really well.

It won't force anyone to do anything. It would be an optional realism button, that people could choose to use, especially if they are playing against forces they know really well.

Marek,

I absolutely agree that AFVs may never show damage/losses they have sustained. Which is one of the reasons I support - the testing of - a 'disable unit info' button.

I was merely being 'Devil's advocate' showing that there can be times where visible damage is realistic.

cheers,
Cross

[Imp]

This is draging on but shows the way people think diffrently.
I have never used it to check for vehicle damage nor had the thought even occured to me.
Use it to find info on a vehicle gun ATGM I am unsure about or as said to check thats the squad I saw fire in the replay or know is there if a couple of days between turns, which one was he?
For a vehicle I see how fast its going & make a guestimate on how buttoned it is shots left & range for an approach, who says men cant multitask
I would think its you who are in the minority & using the exploit rather than most of us.
Its a computer game & hence treat like most games of that type quick play with odd reference to what is a player aid.
A board game or something with a complex rule system then game pace slows down & charts & tables come out is my mentality.
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Okay I admit it if the films any good I can either watch it or talk to you not both

[Cross]

Hi Imp,

Are you saying that you think most people don't use the unit info screen on enemy units to see the number of men/crew and the type of weapons?

And you seem to be saying that it IS an exploit

Both of these claims could support the introduction of a unit info disable button.

I'm with you regarding gamey practices. I always use a set of preferences/agreements prior to PBEM; which helps ward off gamey sharks.

I also keep my game playing on the light side. I rarely consult the encyclopedia; occasionally the unit info screen when the situation requires prudence.

Currently, I don't see the use of the unit info screen as unethical; but I'd agree to not use it if my opponent thought it was unethical.

Similarly, I often think unit names are too discriptive. But I don't ignore them. This is just how the game is currently played.

However, I do currently have an opponent who renames his Company Commanders! This gives away which units are coy leaders! I've told him not to do that, as it gives me too much info.


cheers,
Cross

[Imp]

Lol on renaiming Co Commanders I sometimes do in a Campaign vs AI as its easy to keep them out of trouble then but against another player may as well stick a beacon on his head.

Not realy an exploit but more as said a quick reference guide. Looking up crews left/damage could be classed as such & I dont do but to be honest if my opponent wants to thats fine. I think most people do not use to check for men left but could just be me.

Its time vs effect if you like in my opinion bothering to check is not worth the benefit but if a new vehicle has turned up worth a quick gander to access threat level.

Same goes for unit names think about if change them, the game uses 1 set of names. I have assorted T-80s or MkIIIs & now have to look at my info screen to see which have the 50 gun. The only way round that is icons diffrent enough to tell which defeats the whole object as its far enough away you cant recognise it. Also the person with the better memory has a huge advantage, my mate has a photographic one could learn all the icons. (Not joking read a bit from a book he has read recently & he can continue it word perfect)

As said before allowing for timeframe scale of the game & the fact could be a few days between turns playing or indeed several games I think the level of detail the game provides is fine.
House rules could cover things raised but if I wanted more fog of war would insist on hex grid off as makes much harder to tell where that shot came from.
But I am not fussed its his game & his call what he prefers, also once you play without for a while you become very good at judging distances so would give the player that plays that way an advantage.

The strange thing is most issues raised here would make no diffrence to me except to slow down play & make me pay more attention to the replay causing less fog of war.

Point in question the renaming a firing unit thats not seen.
I can catagorically say if it fires at me & does not become visible I only have an idea of the type of shot not the unit. Why because I am watching the action & by the time I realise should look at whos firing its to late & I am not going to watch it again to find out I know a gun or missile fired from around there & that will do me.

My view so far is suggestions cause more problems than they fix apart from maybe not listing men left if possible on info screen.

The only way to find out is play someone & see if any of it does make any diffrence but on spending time renaming units seriously I would rather watch paint dry. May be wrong but sure it was mentioned before that the reporting is deep in the code & will not change, so probably is the info.
To be worth it it has to have an impact on how the game plays like FOO, giro missile fire & diving helos we have had added recently which do.

One last point to keep in mind if someone wants to spend time using C of reds deploy trick, renaming units, repeatedly looking up info screen etc thats fine with me. The returns are small & they could instead actually have spent that time playing the game instead of getting bogged down on details.

You have made this as a subconcious decision already the benefit does not make using worthwhile exept in the odd case & therefore thats exactly what you do.

[Wdll]

I know I don't use the info screen to check the crew of anything. I use it if I haven't seen it before or to check the armour and weapons of the unit, but in no way to check the damage to it. I never even thought about it till you mentioned it. Still, I won't do it from now on, it just feels meh and I prefer to play my turn in less than half an hour.

[c_of_red]

I agree that the returns are not worth the investment if you are on a time budget. I'm retired so to me it's rare that the difference between a 2 hour set up and a 3 hour set up doesn't mean much. I prolly spend more time fooling around with hte game then playing it. By fooling around I mean setting up test games to experiment with different things under controlled conditions. I enjoy analyzing the game as much as I do playing it against another human. My analysis leads me to believe thatthere is no silver bullet in SP. No 'trick' that will ensure victory or cannot be countered in so way.
That is a big part of the charm of SP and why it has lasted an age in the fast paced world of gaming.

[Imp]

C of Red
Agree entirely but there is a major diffrence in what you do compared to things like overusing the info screen IMO.
Your fidling probably gives you insights into the game & therefore makes you a better player.
Where as spending lots of time say renaming units rather than playing gives no insight into new tactics.

The person that spends hours picking his perfect force looking at info screens etc is probably easier to beat than the guy that just gets on & plays the game because hes using his time more effectivly & can use units in more varied ways because he does not always have the right tool for the job, that makes him dangerous.
Course he does need to spend enough time buying not to shoot himself in the foot but hes playing & learning with less time lost that is not doing so.
Hence the reason why I said am happy for my opponent to do any all of the above hes helping me
Dont have a go people just expresing a view.

[RERomine]

I figure I'll throw in my 2 cents.

There are some aspects of the "right click" that provide information that we shouldn't know. Ammo payload is one. There are many units that have specialized roles and there ammo payload is altered accordingly. I shouldn't be able to tell if it has 10 Sabot rounds as opposed to 25. Still, do I really care? It only takes one round to kill my tank and I'm not going to take up tracking the number and types of rounds fired by an enemy unit. For all I know, the enemy unit might be right next to an unseen ammo source. Another thing we should not know is infantry unit size. Ten men in a hex could be two 4-man patrols and one AT team or a 10-man squad. Tactically, it helps knowing you are dealing with three independent units as compared to one. I accept it because it is just how things are with the game.

On the other hand, we probably don't see as visibly damage that has been done. It was mentioned that some units might trail smoke; a tank gun tube blown off or a turret constantly pointing at the same angle would also be a sign of damage; secondary explosions in the impact zone of an artillery strike; infantry man "Bob" knows he got two enemy soldiers, etc.

The idea of renaming units isn't new. I've read stories of people renaming all there stuff to "truck". It makes targeting more complicated, but not impossible if you are careful. For those with the CD, the filter option isn't going to be tricked by a unit name change. If the firing unit is unseen, a different name could be confusing, but if the weapon can kill me I don't care if it is mounted on a tank, truck or hand carried. My unit is going to seek out cover.

I like to look at it this way. While we, the players, are just one person, our force is composed of hundreds or thousands of pairs of eyes and ears. These eyes and ears are trained for their time period. Who playing the game knows what every nation had during every time period the game covers? Nations of a given time period probably had a good idea what their most likely opponents were able to field. In those scenarios, the fog might not be as dense as we think. Even in unlikely scenarios, such as 1980 Brazil vs. South Africa, one could conclude such a war didn't just come out of no where and that the opponents studied up on each other before the shooting started. The encyclopedia and "right click" allow us to know what we probably would know if we were actually living and fighting during those time periods.

Looking at it another way, we have cases where the fog is denser than it should be. Consider an advanced scout next to a field. An enemy tank company moves out from a hidden position, across the field to another hidden position and no shots are fired. The replay won't show us a thing, even though the scout clearly saw the whole enemy unit go by. It shouldn't be that way, but again, it just is.

Overall, we probably know more and less than we should at the same time. There is no perfect answer. Eliminate the "right click" so you can tell if a unit is caring a small AT weapon such as the LAW and you don't get to see the TOW missile launcher which is big enough to be visible. You have to start trying to decide if a weapon is big enough to be seen or not. No "right click" and people will start complaining that they should have been able to see this or that. If the game had started without the "right click", people would be complaining the other way around.

[Imp]

Gads hes still alive.

[RERomine]

Originally Posted by Imp

Gads hes still alive.

Yup. Life has been frantic and I disappeared into the "fog of war", for a while.