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Thread: Would a fog of war be a good idea?

  
  1. #1
    Dragon DragonsLover's Avatar
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    Default Would a fog of war be a good idea?

    I was thinking of that idea that could be interesting if it could be implemented. In strategy games, there's often what we call a "fog of war" which prevents to see what is happening in an area. I'm not talking of unexplored areas where everything is black and you cannot see at all what it is there, I'm talking of a fog that prevents to see the movement of enemy creatures or buildings of an area that was previously explored. This could be stressful since you couldn't know what the enemy creatures are doing or if an enemy has been built somewhere unless one of your minions watches the foggy sector. This could solve the problem of the lightning spell and cave-in spell that can be cast everywhere. Here, with the fog of war, you could only cast the spell in the area visible by your territory or your creatures, like it should be. The use of the SOE spell would be much more important since it would allow you to update the state of the foggy sector and you could still use the lightning strike spell, but with lesser power (instead of having the area already explored and use it at full power). Guard posts would have a better use now, same would go for the Alarm trap since you cannot see the enemy coming. And you'd have to think twice before using the "Reveal map" bonus crate since, once everything would be revealed, the fog of war would take place over the whole map right after (unless we decide that the crate actually bypass this).

    What would you think of that?
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  2. #2
    Awakening Game Master Metal Gear Rex's Avatar
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    Default Re: Would a fog of war be a good idea?

    I'm interested in it, but it goes without mention that this is indeed a very radical change. It's a little awkward because I can't see it being turned on by default as a good idea. So it would then be something extra, implemented in certain campaigns or something to play around with if a Player wants to try it. Might add some new challenges.
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  3. #3
    Beetle
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    Default Re: Would a fog of war be a good idea?

    I personally find it as a very bad idea. All that would mean is people will just build 1 tile of Guard Post every X tiles to keep the realm under their control. And to not allow the Guard Post to do such(It is a GUARD POST! It is meant for guarding, so it would make sense to have it do that) would be dumb. It kinda doesn't make sense at the same time, this isn't a normal strategy game like say Age of Empires or Starcraft where you are just fighting each other and all the map is is just where to fight on. In DK the dungeon is more or less the Keeper's body, with the heart being...well, the heart. So it wouldn't make too much sense for the Keeper to lose sight of a part of his body just because his creatures or some building of his isn't in the area.

    I like the idea, but I don't think it is possible to add in without it being too easy to counter. Personally I would just set Lightning and Cave in to your territory only, that would solve that problem. Or have it somehow check to see if it is your terrain vs not. On your terrain it would do max damage, on neutral/unclaimed it would do 30% and on enemy land it would do a measly 5-10% making it worthless to do on enemy terrain, forcing you to take the land over to get the most out of it.

    I can also see a very bad exploit with it too. Say the Guard Post tile revealed say a 5x5 area around where it is placed in your dungeon, and it reveals some dirt nearby that is in range, you could now abuse this by dropping imps to get a sight on all that land and just keep doing it from time to time to see what is going on. It could end up being where someone digs around their entire dungeon and place Guard Post in strategic areas so they always see some of the Dirt, making it impossible for anyone to ever break in. (Even at reduced Lightning damage on dirt path, it still would be enough to kill any imp that tries to dig to you.)

    I also feel if Reveal map was used, it would override the Fog of War, you just used an ancient magic item, I am sure it would bypass some lowly magical fog of war. The special would be useless otherwise.

  4. #4
    KeeperFX Author mefistotelis's Avatar
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    Default Re: Would a fog of war be a good idea?

    I agree this is a good idea as optional feature enabled in script.

    Still, it would have to be implemented from scratch.

    I think player-owned claimed tiles should always be visible, and it's a good idea to reveal a few more tiles by Guard Post.

    Still, only area in field of view should be revealed. Same goes to creatures - they would only reveal the area they see. There should be some delay before a revealed area become fogged again, ie. 3 seconds.

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    Dragon DragonsLover's Avatar
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    Default Re: Would a fog of war be a good idea?

    Yeah, I agree that it sounds radical and I also agree that it should be optional. I'm just curious to see how it would be with such feature enabled.

    About the guard post, I never said that it would increase the area revealed around the room, but you would have to put a creature there in order to see what is not directly visible.

    Quote Originally Posted by Shonji
    I like the idea, but I don't think it is possible to add in without it being too easy to counter. Personally I would just set Lightning and Cave in to your territory only, that would solve that problem. Or have it somehow check to see if it is your terrain vs not. On your terrain it would do max damage, on neutral/unclaimed it would do 30% and on enemy land it would do a measly 5-10% making it worthless to do on enemy terrain, forcing you to take the land over to get the most out of it.
    This can be an alternative solution, but the problem would remain: if that area would still be visible to you, you could just spam the lightning spell over and over again if money isn't a problem for you. With the FoW, you just cannot cast it whatsoever unless one of your minions explore there or you use SoE. And setting the Lightning strike spell to your own territory would mean that it would be considered as a defensive spell, which I'm so-so about it.
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  6. #6
    Fly Trotim's Avatar
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    Default Re: Would a fog of war be a good idea?

    This may be necessary for actual multiplayer to work, otherwise sending one Fly through the enemy dungeon at the start of the game reveals way too much for the entire rest of the match. It also finally gives proper reasons to build Guard Posts and Alarm Traps as I'd imagine both will give significant vision radius when occupied/triggered

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    Dragon DragonsLover's Avatar
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    Default Re: Would a fog of war be a good idea?

    That's a bit what is written on the Underground Throne kickstarter project page:

    Permanent Fog of War
    -DK1 was far too easy due to once fog of war was deactivated in a region you were able to still see an area. This made strategy pretty easy
    I like dragons! They're the center of my life! I'll never forget them...



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