Now that we have had several games with the FOG units in place, we need to get you to give us some feedback and input on what you think of the fog and how they effect the game.

SPOILER RULE: You can use your experience with the fog in Gotm's 17, 18, and 19 to "flavor" comments but try not to include specific game conditions and issues from Gotm19 since it is still in progress. You can freely use any information or screen shots that you may have from Gotm17 and Gotm18 since they are closed.

Feel free to try and assess how you think the FOG units initially effect you and then to try and step back and give an assessment of any big picture impacts that you feel they may have on game play.

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I want to share with you the design intent of why they have been included in the game and then ask you to tell us if you think this works and if it adds a functional dimension to the game that is not too screwy.

http://gotm.civfanatics.net/games/2003images/gotm17_fog.jpg

One of the things we wanted to do was to get a "Bigger Map" feel to the games without having to increase the file sizes. Having larger game files can be a big issue just because of the shear magnitude of the GOTM process. We are currently handling between 70MB and 110MB of game files each month and this is growing.

The FOG provides a way to increase the movement distance, sight distance, and mystery aspects of a map without having to make the map larger. It also provides a way to have different movement and access rates over terrain types that normally are almost barrierless. As an example, the movement rates for all naval units are set to one square per available movement point for all water terrain types (coast, sea, and ocean). The fog lets us initially slow down the movement in certain areas and effectively make the map feel wider and larger in certain directions without having to have the entire map be made that much larger.

FOG also provides some visual cover for the baddys even though you can probably figure out how to see through it. This just lets the baddys sneak up on you a little and perhaps be a bit more exciting and scary even if they are fairly whimpy.

FOG is also designed to provide the opportunity to be a distraction and training vehicle for navel units to gain experience. You don't know in most cases if the fog is just a wild goose chase or if there is something cool behind the fog. The hidden game traing detail here is to use the right-click and terrain info option to determine if the fog is over treacherous waters before you dive into it and use up your last movement turn and then end up going to Davey Jones' locker because you busted open the fog but then got stranded in the dead zone.

The final real design aspect of fog is to try and emphasize the need for task forces of ships. In Gotm17, single galleys would be stopped by walls of fog while small flotillas could cut through safely and then could regroup.

What is your general impression of how the fog units work and how they are being used in the games??

I think the Fogs are nice feature to have in the game, but I don't think there are much incentive for going after them. Of course, I wish I could say the same to the AIs; they seem to have a passion for going after the barbs and Fogs. In my previous games, unless the Fogs were within my city limit, I didn't even bother clearing them (until I had battleship or destroyer). Anyway, I think the Fogs would be great for preventing a certain sucide galley path. I also notice that you start to hide squids inside the Fogs as in GOTM19; if people aren't careful, a squid would jump out of no where to catch a galley off guard (I know that well because I have lost 1 galley that way). Anyway, may be in the future game, there are more incentive for going after them. For example, clear the Fogs, slay a dragon, then collect a treasure hut of 100 gold piece or something.:) I think it's possible to bring some elements from King's Bounty or Heros of Might and Magic into Civ3, but may be that would be too much for the average players.

IMO the fog units are a great idea. They can severely limit our travel plans, and the plans of the AI. They also give an aura of mystery to the map, and a bit of fright and anticipation of things hidden.

There is also the added risk assessment of whether or not to attack the fog early in the game. The rewards can be great (discover another tribe first), or costly.

Actual in-game differences are mostly on the AI side, however. In GOTM19, for example, the AI were obsessed with destroying the fog, just as they are obsessed with barbarians on land. The effects of this were that I faced *many* elite naval units later in the game. While this was not difficult to handle, it was noteworthy. On the other hand, it was completely different in GOTM17. Since the other civs were isolated, I never saw them bothering with fog at all.

If you really want to throw us for a loop in GOTM20, make ALL coast, sea and ocean tiles covered with fog. Ought to make for an intersting game...

Hergrom

I like the expanding effect of the fog, or the slowing effect of sea travel.

The incessant animation bugs me, as do most idle animations that cycle over and over... Also the FoW making them disappear seems kind of odd. I assume this isn't desired and there isn't any way to fix that, but that seems to be the only problem.

I like the fog when there isn't a lot of it. It definitely makes the map seem bigger. It also is nice to have a cheaper way to promote galleys than harbors (expensive) or barbs (dangerous). As far as "hiding" the map, they actually do the opposite IMHO. With FOG visible offshore, the computer rolls the FOW back to show you the units. In the case of lots of fog, stepping on the shore can open 3 or 4 tile radius instead of the typical 2 or 3. Then you can make the fog disappear by leaving or changing the map display to just the terrain. I do usually right click to check for other units in the fog.

I say keep them, put them in strategic places (and a few dummy places) but reduce their total number.

I think that it is cool to look at and adds a different feel to the game but the AI often feels the need to kill it all. This may not be in the best interest of the AI to waste units and shields with the sole purpose of killing 1/0 barb unit.

One question I have is do FOG units block trade?

Originally posted by hotrod0823
One question I have is do FOG units block trade?

Good question Hotrod! I don't think I've had a chance to check this in any of my games. That would make a true reason for attacking Fog. Of course, the AI is so bad at building harbors/trade routes that the fog is usually gone by the time that happens.

I do believe they block trade, it's like a naval blockade. The fog is considered as a military unit by the game.

That would be my guess but does that mean that barbarians crossing the road block trade too? I've never really seen/read this.

I don't think land-based trade can be blocked. The only way to put an end to land-based trade IMHO is by cutting the roads.

As with most of the added units in the GOTM (squid, picts), I have enjoyed the fog, but I wouldn't want to deal with it in every single game.

The main reason that I prefer that fog is used sparingly is that it affects naval strategy as compared to the stock rules. I have no problem if the GOTM requires us to adapt our strategy to a new situation, but I would prefer that this new situation does not become the norm. In other words, I don't want to expect to deal with fog, even before the game begins.

By the way, there are alternate ways of increasing the movement distance on a map, thus slowing exploration. One of my favorite is to make galleys require two movement points to enter ocean tiles.

I quite like the F0G (and FOG). One suggestion - would it be possible to assign it to a "dummy" civ, rather than being pure barb? That might prevent the AI civs from making a beeline for it - on the other hand, it might also stop them from attacking at all, so maybe it's a non-starter. I'm no editor-genius.

I never attacked a F0G, so maybe they worked quite well at "hemming me in". Then again, I didn't play GOTM17, perhaps this point is not relevant.

Where the fog makes the map bigger, the benefit is clear - especially now that I understand the reasoning behind it. If it's hiding a prize, like a small island (or even a whale or fish), then it also has value. As Moonsinger suggests, using it to hinder suicide galleys is also a good idea. I would prefer limiting its use to specific effects like these.

After watching a civ in the current game do nothing but attack FOG, I'm thinking get rid of it. The AIs are clueless. I just waited until they destroyed all the fog and squids and then I had free movement.

One of the things we wanted to do was to get a "Bigger Map" feel to the games without having to increase the file sizes.

A lot of mods increase the movement cost of Sea and/or Ocean tiles, and then give various later ships the ignore terrain movement cost flags. This would be an option to make the crossings 'wider' without adding more tiles. Another option to 'expand' the seas is to make Galleys wheeled and make ocean uncrossable by wheeled units.

I think the FOG unit has been an interesting addition to the GOTM experience, and accomplishes most of the design goals that Cracker intended for it.

FOG on water causes a greater expenditure of effort to cut through it (definitely widening the seas). FOG on coast is not as bad; a ground unit can stop and heal, but a ship has to go back to port to heal. The AI might expend a lot of effort to clear the FOG, but this will probably result in more contacts for the AI thus making trades for a passive human player more difficult.

And the FOG really should remain as a Barb unit anyway; that way it's not an impediment for the other Barbarian units (so they can jump out at you and say BOO!)

I think the FOG is nice. It adds a little flavor to the dangers of sea travel in the early years. However, I don't think there should be too much FOG, as it might become a bit overkill, like surrounding the entire starting island, for example, would be overkill, IMHO...

While I agree with Aeson that most of Cracker's goals with implementing fog can be accomplished in other ways, I think the fog has a distinct 'feel' to it that those other sollutions won't capture. I think it's what Cracker describes as the Mystery aspect.

Originally posted by cracker
FOG is also designed to provide the opportunity to be a distraction and training vehicle for navel units to gain experience. You don't know in most cases if the fog is just a wild goose chase or if there is something cool behind the fog. The hidden game traing detail here is to use the right-click and terrain info option to determine if the fog is over treacherous waters before you dive into it and use up your last movement turn and then end up going to Davey Jones' locker because you busted open the fog but then got stranded in the dead zone.

Ctrl-shift-M is much easier since it clears all FOG, not just one certain tile. :)

The fog as it is now seems to accomplish the objectives. Since it's very weak it doesn't really pose any real thread (unlike the squid, which makes me build a harbor more often, and send out unloaded ships first).
If used modestly, it adds to the fun. No plans on giving it a movement factor ?

It looks like I am in a minority in this discussion. Although I appreciate the advantages of this unit I have had a couple of experiences with it that I didn't like.

In one game (b4 I had worked out how fog functioned) I put a settler and spearman in a boat and set off through the fog. It redlined, I sent it back yada yada yada. When I hit land I couldn't unload the settler because the fog was over the land.

Secondly, fog appears and disappears under the fog of war depending on unit placement. In the same game I bought a map, and on that basis planned a war. I sent four or five boats with troops to where I had decided to attack from. Of course, when the boats got a couple of tiles from the landing site the fog covered the landing area and I couldn't offload the troops.

That doesn't strike me as fair.

And lastly (and perhaps a little petulantly), I don't like the graphic.

The use of Fog would in no way prevent me from playing GOTM it just makes me sigh quietly to myself.

I don't mind the fog, but watching last gotm the AI sinking one ship after the other just to clear all the fog, I believe it gives the AI more disadvantage than human players, so I would use it only for very little.

Originally posted by ControlFreak

I say keep them, put them in strategic places (and a few dummy places) but reduce their total number.

Totally agree. I also tried to used the fog to get some triremes become elite without much success. So I would rate it as a slowing factor for travel move.

On a separate topic, I lost count of the triremes I lost against squids. Even with some careful move along the coast I was under heavy pressure. I had only one trireme that survived the squid and was promoted elite just to be attacked in the same turn by another squid :mad:

Then I just avoid using the triremes

I have no problem with the fog.
It is announce ahead of the game, and we know what to expect. It can help control travel between two land areas without creating hugh blocks of water.

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My line is drawn on issues that change the working of the game (ie - settler suddenly have an attack factor). This is simply a new unit and I do that myself in my LK world map mod so keep the seas foggy.

I think the FOG is cool as a unit and graphic. I find it has little impact on the game and strategy as long as it is spread. But I strongly believe that the large amount of FOG s l o w s the game and that I hate. I say use it like the squid, to cover in and around islands, to cover sides of continents and so on.

I don't like the Fog as a way of shrinking the map. The shrunken oceans introduce a lot of distortions into the game (suicide galleys are more effective, Navigation/Magnetism are much less important since it's easy to cross the oceans without ending on an Ocean tile, Great Lighthouse is more important because it can get galleys across the ocean; the AI players don't understand how to cross narrow oceans effectively).

Is it possible to put a "trigger" into a scenario, so that the Ocean spaces are uncrossable (e.g., put 100/100 super-FOG units in them) until the first discovery of Navigation or Magnetism, at which point those blockers disappear? That would make the shrunken-map games more "realistic" in that the oceans couldn't be crossed without the requisite techs.

BTW, the speed 2 galleass seems to confuse/break the AI: I've seen the AI leave the galleass in an ocean space even though it didn't have Navigation or Magnetism. I think it expects to be able to move three spaces and then runs out of movement before making it to safety. I don't know if the computer is programmed to check for this and sink those ships sometimes, or if it assumes that the AI always leaves its ships in safe positions, but it's a quirk either way.

I don't particularly mind the fog, although seeing the squids moving around encouraged me to just leave them to the AI to clear out the squares.

I think they work best if placed strategically so that they can be used to limit the effectiveness of suicide galleys and slow down getting a first contact with remote civs. Doing this would make oceans feel more significant in a limited space -- at least until the fog was cleared out. ;)

I have a question, is there adifference between FOG anf F0G?

Re: inudog

I would guess that one of them is the sea based FOG unit which hinders oceanic exploration, and the other is the land based F0G as found in GOTM 17.

I personally don't think the fog helps the game much. It doesn't seem to have any effect on my ability to go where I want. I still have to spend 1 movement to get into it, so it doesn't even restrict my movement across small bits of ocean. (Unless at war, where your HP actually matter)

It doesn't bother me, but I sure could live without it.