Slitherine

I haven't tested this in multiplayer yet, but LOS definitely has a bug in single player. Basically, the Fog of War does not update until your turn comes back around. In effect, this means that you can see what is behind your enemy's front line, as his line will move forward out of the fog of war, and it will not be updated until it is your turn again.

Here is an example; X represents some useless unit, like gallic infantry:

X
X
X

Here you have 3 units in a row, the first X is the northernmost, bottom X is the southernmost. You can only see the Southernmost coming towards you, the other two are invisble. Let's say that on the Gaul's turn they move them 2 squares down; if you watch them, you can see the second X appear from outside the shadow to follow the first, and then the third one, but then when the gauls end their turn the shadow will update and hide all but the first one again.

The problem is, it's hard to forget what you've seen, heh.

Whilst a bug as defined in the expected functionality, maybe there's an element of reality in it. If units are all moving then perhaps you would get glimpses of something behind the front line

Nevertheless, it probably should be fixed.

Hmm just uploaded the patch and only started to check out the features but In the one battle I started, Cannae, I let the AI move its units and I did not see what you described... However I tested in hotseat mode and there is like a 2-3 second delay once you end turn and the next player starts his where all units are visible before the fog kicks... Lilkly a non issue as the point of hotseat really is 1 person patiently waiting in the other room until its their turn.

The behaviour grumblefish describes is actually be design. We decided that, during the course of a player turn, hexes should only be revealed, and not re-hidden. So, if you catch a brief glimpse of a hex while an enemy battlegroup is moving, that hex remains visible until the end of a turn. I realise this is different to the way Fog of War often works in the real-time strategy genre, with areas being re-hidden instantly.

TheGrayMouser wrote:However I tested in hotseat mode and there is like a 2-3 second delay once you end turn and the next player starts his where all units are visible before the fog kicks...

In hot-seat mode, you're right that there's a delay in the FoW updating, depending on map size and CPU speed, when you can see the other side's battlegroups. But, this shouldn't happen in multiplayer games; please let us know if it does!

EricS wrote:The behaviour grumblefish describes is actually be design. We decided that, during the course of a player turn, hexes should only be revealed, and not re-hidden. So, if you catch a brief glimpse of a hex while an enemy battlegroup is moving, that hex remains visible until the end of a turn. I realise this is different to the way Fog of War often works in the real-time strategy genre, with areas being re-hidden instantly.

Weird design decision... Any reason about why it was used?? i guess for technical reasons, as gameplay wise it looks like a bad idea
This means you cannot advance your first line without completely uncovering your second line
IMHO it pretty much throws all the neat "battlegroups block line of sight" feature out the window!
As it is now, you can only hide troops by remainig still the whole battle.

I can't promise that we'll change anything, but I'd be interested to know what else you suggest?

If hexes are re-hidden after becoming briefly visible while the enemy moves, you would still learn about enemy troops (just that you'd need to commit it to memory).

Another approach would be to do no revealing/hiding of hexes on a battlegroup moving, and have Fog of War update only at the end of a player turn. But, that would look rather odd once the enemy had moved a lot of their battlegroups.

I suppose that a feature to move multiple battlegroups simultaneously would also give the screening effect you were hoping for. (This is just speculation though, and as I say I can't promise we'll change anything.)

EricS wrote:Another approach would be to do no revealing/hiding of hexes on a battlegroup moving, and have Fog of War update only at the end of a player turn. But, that would look rather odd once the enemy had moved a lot of their battlegroups.

This is certainly preferable. It preserves the tactical use of fog of war to a greater extent, and it won't look odd at all because once it's your turn to react, everything is visible. Also, it's not like in real life one unit walks forward, then the next unit walks forward, then the next, etc; instead, they all walk together, and the only reason bits and pieces of the fog are revealed when I move my front line piece by piece is because the turn-based interface cannot move multiple units at once.

In the current system, it's extremely difficult to successfully hide units immediately behind your front line, and if you don't look at the replay of your opponent's turn (I don't), then... oh well you miss out. Right now I have a multiplayer round going, where I am hiding 6 cataphracts behind an arrow formation of pikes. I intend to burst them out at the last minute, smashing through whatever units he tries to put infront of my pikes (swordsmen I think). Anyway, apparently that plan is up in smoke, both because the enemy might read it here, and because he can magically see behind my line because I can only move one unit at a time in an unrealistic fashion, and the fog constantly updates.

I honestly don't like the fog as it is now. I miss out on all the advantages because I don't like to watch the enemy's turn, and the fog doesn't work in respect to the one way I like to use it - hiding units behind my front line.

Hey Grumblefish, i can apreciate your concern but are you sure your oppenent can actually see your cats? (actually not to makelight of your concern but realistically no cavalry really should be masked by infantry, nor can I really see how pike units could be masked by other troops w their 18 foot Sarrisas sticking up to the clouds )

W/o directly asking you opponent , maybe make a test secenaio in the editor with same deployments, play hotseat and see what you opponent can see?

I agree with the notion that perhaps LOS should be calculated at the end of ones turn, however there is always going to be oddities of "time dialation" which is an inherant issue w any and all turn based games... What actually happens in a turn is going to be abstracted to a greater an or lessor extent...

I'm no mathemetician and cant crunch the #'s in my head how los works in regards to enemy units fields of vision as we are dealing w hexes, I have no idea how the progam deals w "peaking around" vertices and "flats" of a hexside. Maybe it really isnt an issue as is except in the most extreme examples?

We played with the idea of revealing different unit types over others e.g. cavalry to be seen other foot but its doubtful if they could. Beyond the enemies front lines, the main thing you usually get to see is dust. Also I think the way we have it makes the game more interesting.

Banners and such like were often seen above enemy lines so maybe we should show generals but then again there are account of banners being raised behind enemy lines to confuse people on the real location of enemy commanders.

Keith

TheGrayMouser wrote:Hey Grumblefish, i can apreciate your concern but are you sure your oppenent can actually see your cats? (actually not to makelight of your concern but realistically no cavalry really should be masked by infantry, nor can I really see how pike units could be masked by other troops w their 18 foot Sarrisas sticking up to the clouds )

EricS says that they can. I have my line like this:

pppppp
pccccp

P = pikeman
C = cataphract

I'm not trying to hide the pikemen with their tall pikes, I'm trying to use them to hide the horses. However, when I move forward, the fog doesn't update to shade in the newly hidden parts as my pikes move forward, so when my cataphracts follow behind, they are revealed.

Basically, my plan is to get really close, identify part of his line that can't handle the cataphracts, and then move my pikemen apart to let the cataphracts charge the enemy.

EDIT: C = cataphract... there are no As

EricS wrote: Another approach would be to do no revealing/hiding of hexes on a battlegroup moving, and have Fog of War update only at the end of a player turn. But, that would look rather odd once the enemy had moved a lot of their battlegroups.

I suppose that a feature to move multiple battlegroups simultaneously would also give the screening effect you were hoping for. (This is just speculation though, and as I say I can't promise we'll change anything.)

Hi Eric!
That solution sounds much better IMHO. As you say, it would have the same effect that if the army moved simultaneously. Ans actually let you use the LOS to hide units behind others, something that doesn't work now.
I think it would be worth a try

Hey Keith thanks for commenting on this thread. I wasn’t really suggesting that additional rules be added for cavalry cant hide behind infantry etc, I feel when too many rules are added to cover every single circumstance, the overall game gets watered down some how. However I thinks its pretty cool you guys were thinking about these things! I especially like the idea of decoy generals and banners.

I thinks the issue at hand is, as Grumblefish’s diagram illustrates is that units can now be exposed only due to the fact that this is a turn based game and units need to move one at a time.. I doubt it would be easy to “redo” the lOS function completely, as I imagine the AI would need a full upgrade etc…. Probably not logistically doable.

So working with what we have what about this suggestion?
Units exposed during a players movement but then back in hiding at the end turn are only partially “spotted” as they move in and out of one fields of vision, ie: instead of seeing a glimpse of a cataphact, you only see a horse sillouette, same thing with any or all infantry. Would only require 2 new graphics , a washed out gray scale maybe?

TheGrayMouser wrote: So working with what we have what about this suggestion?
Units exposed during a players movement but then back in hiding at the end turn are only partially “spotted” as they move in and out of one fields of vision, ie: instead of seeing a glimpse of a cataphact, you only see a horse sillouette, same thing with any or all infantry. Would only require 2 new graphics , a washed out gray scale maybe?

Nah, that would still ruin my plan. Basically, if my pikemen are moving forward, they'd all be going at the same time, it's only the engine that frustrates this. You'd never get a chance to see a horsie, because they'd never be out from behind the pikemen. Just imagine the Ps and the Cs in my diagram walking forward together in formation, moving at the slow, pikeman pace. Perfectly reasonable, and I always assumed this would be the core of the LOS rules, but impossible to do with the current system.

Basically, secretely moving men behind your line is impossible now. This is because (a) units moving forward go one by one, allowing the enemy to peer through the line, and (b) after you move your line forward, the area behind the new position of the front line is not shrouded until you end turn, so when your rear units move up, they are all revealed, despite being behind the front line. These two points render LOS completely useless for me, unless there is a well-placed hill or forest (and even then, I use pike armies a lot and avoid obstacles). It's an obvious point, but historically line of sight was used to move things back and forth behind the front line; just think of screening things with cavalry, or stacking part of your line and leaving another part thin in the hopes of quickly overwhelming a flank.

I am also not aware of the AI attempting to play sneaky buggers with the LOS, so a change would do nothing to the AI.

For what it's worth, I can't think of any accounts of ancient battles where troops deployed the main line of battle (ignoring skirmish screens out in front) seem to have caused a major surprise by appearing in the middle of the battle. There are certainly accounts of troops deployed in ambush before a battle being a factor, e.g. Lake Trasimene or Trebia, but other than troops that were hidden by terrain to start with, it doesn't seem like Fog of War was a major factor in determining the outcome of ancient or medieval set piece battles. If anything, FoG PC may go a bit too far in having individual BGs obscure other BGs from the same side.

Chris

Cesar at Pharsalus. He hide some veteran cohorts behind his weak cav and LF and kicked Pompey cavalry ass with them when they bumped into the legionaries while chasing the cav and LF screen. In the end this won him the battle.

Probably Thebes double thick phalanx was such a success against the spartans (i think??) because the enemy couldn't know what kind of mass of hoplites was going to hit them. The would have seen a regular phalanx while it was not at all.
I'm sure there are a lot more examples around. Just think that mos armies (romans are great example) deployed in several lines. And the enemy woudl not have a bird's eye of this deployment. They never knew what could be behind the first line.
Cheers

Well, they might not have had a birds eye view of the battle field, but very few areas of land are completley flat, even very slight undulations are going to provide a certain "depth" to an enemies dispositions.....

That being said I feel hidden/masked troops etc were more important in the initial deployment of forces and the entire plan was based around this depolyment, not maneuvering troops around purposfully "stealthed" behind other units...(although Grumblefish's battle plan idea is quite nice)

My above suggestion about having only generic unit type ie horse or foot was just that, not married to it, and ideally I think LOS revealed at the end of the turn would likly be the best soultion.. The issue is if is feasonable that this will evver happen?

I really wish I was at home so I could fire up some other tactical games I have to see how LOS is determined , I have several "grognardy" pc games w LOS and never once have I read on other forums people thinking it wasnt working realistically/ or in the spirit of things....

TheGrayMouser wrote:I really wish I was at home so I could fire up some other tactical games I have to see how LOS is determined , I have several "grognardy" pc games w LOS and never once have I read on other forums people thinking it wasnt working realistically/ or in the spirit of things....

Yes, this is the first time I have ever had a problem with the fog of war feature, too.

I've just started my first game using fog of war and I have to say the current system isn't really working for me on two counts. First, the glimpses thing is a bit daft. A phalanx (and probably most other heavy formations) moved as a wall, not individual BGs. If troops are blocked from view by such, they should IMO remain concealed.

My other problem is the loss of the redo button which is very useful for many things. So far, I think I'd rather forego FoW to keep the redo ability. It would be nice to allow redos unless they spot a hibben unit. But I'll have to play some more games to appreciate what is there, I guess.

Deeter

I'd quite like for FoW to show units hidden behind others as an unidentified unit of either horse or foot. Because every unit had to leave gaps to either flank (even sub-units of a phalanx) in order to manouevre, it would be possible to see some unit presence. but the dust etc of the troops in front would make it hard to tell what exactly. This could be done for all units beyond say 10 hexes (500 yds).

I'd also like just to see the counters and weapons/armour info when troops are visible. Not the unit rating (elite, superior etc).

TheGrayMouser wrote:I really wish I was at home so I could fire up some other tactical games I have to see how LOS is determined , I have several "grognardy" pc games w LOS and never once have I read on other forums people thinking it wasnt working realistically/ or in the spirit of things....

in fairness to slitherine, most games don't feature units hiding behind other (moving) units, but only terrain, buildings, etc. Probably no perfect solution here...