Suggestion: Add fog of war options at game setup

from Elemental Forums

I am one of those people that don't really like spending large amounts of time exploring the map with scouts just to see the whole map.

I suggest that a fog of war option be created that allows people to tweak it. I would personally like the ability to set fog of war to "partial" like it is possible to do in many games so that you start with the whole map explored but still can't actually see what the other factions are doing. I hate having to painfully send scouts to every corner of the map just to reveal it.

 

8,762 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top


Part of 4X gaming has always been world fog, and revealing the map via exploration, but if it's too much to deal with, you can always use the cheat code to reveal the map.

 

I'm curious as to which games offer this "partial fog" feature you speak of; I've seen games that allow you to turn it off completely, but am unfamiliar with the option you describe.

 

Nor is it a feature I have any interest in seeing added, eXploration being one of the basic 4 Xs.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Agreed 100% with Brewskin on every point.

 

As was said above, there is already a cheat for this to see everything on the map.  If a cheat isn't what you wanted, then it simply sounds like this isn't the type of game you're interested in playing.  This specific type of exploration is a fundamental part of a 4X strategy game.

Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

Not only is it fundamental to the genre, I'd argue it's even more fundemental to Elemental games due to the nature of player vs. the world throughout much of the early stages of the game.  Without the fog of war you lose a huge part of the early game tension around exploring one more square for that next resource/good hut/quest vs. uncovering something nasty and pulling it towards your fledgling civilization.  

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

I think some of the things said in the above replies are both wrong and also smack of elitism.

"4X is MEANT to be played in the manner that I say hur durr"

I have played lots of games that have only partial fog of war. Age of Empires 2 has a partial Fog of war option. I believe that Empire Earth 1 and 2 has them as well. Both Civ 4 and 5 have partial fog as well. Don't know about the earlier Civ's. So your claims that "having to explore the world map has always been a part of 4X" are completely baseless.

There is no "correct way" to play a 4X game. If that were the case, then what is the point of the "game setup" options? The game setup options in games lik Civ and LH is to allow the player to customize his gaming world so that he can have the kind of gameplay that he wants. Sometimes I want to play with full fog of war, and sometimes I only want to play with partial fog of war. To argue that the option should not be added because "its the wrong way to play the game" is nothing but elitist crap.