Slitherine

The game models a certain level of FOW.
- The player cannot see the statistics of the enemy generals.
- Some units can be hidden in forests, ....
- In campaigns, you have incomplete informations about the enemy units

Could you not increase the level of FOW ?
- you could give all the enemy units a dark facing indicator to prevent the player from knowing which enemy unit is out of command range of its generals
- you could remove the information "reduced CC" about enemy units (in their information panel)
- in the panel listing casualties, you could give an approximate number of enemy soldiers
- and maybe other things (the fog played a role in some battles like the battle of Arques in France during this period - the player could have difficulties to see units that are too far from his own army - you could reduce visibility on the battlefield when a lot of firearms have been used - routed units could be prevented from giving any informations about enemy units that they spot ....) ???

More generally, what is your design philosophy about the Fog-of-War ? Do you plan to increase its role, do you want to keep the things simple enough for the players ?

As it is, the game is really impressive and difficult. I don't suggest any changes, I just ask these questions to know what are your ideas about that.

You did not mention that units can be hidden behind terrain (forests, villages, hills) as well as in it.

The game is intended to fairly easy to play, but hard to master. Increasing the fog of war significantly would probably go against the basic design principles. There comes a point where so little information is given that the game will seem completely random to beginners.

I am not averse to hiding enemy command status information, however, if time ever permits.

rbodleyscott wrote:You did not mention that units can be hidden behind terrain (forests, villages, hills) as well as in it.

And that all units can, not just some.

rbodleyscott wrote:The game is intended to fairly easy to play, but hard to master. Increasing the fog of war significantly would probably go against the basic design principles. There comes a point where so little information is given that the game will seem completely random to beginners.

I am not averse to hiding enemy command status information, however, if time ever permits.

Most games have incremental difficulty levels for different aspects and this about the FoW seems a very good idea relatively easy to implement at the higher levels.
It's all about deciding if the parameter has to be gradual, following the difficulty setting or entirely configurable by the player.

This about FoW is another thing that could be modelled in the campaign. Give the 2 sides some points/cards to play (in this case: scouting) from a deck before they make a move.