Fog of War thoughts

Do you like the new fog of war?

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I was really surprised in the let's plays the number of players who failed to see barbarian camps in the fow. I was watching one where he was trying to figure it out while he had his mouse hovering right next to the barb camp in the fog.
 
VainApocalypse said:
Do they explain anywhere why they made this choice? It would seem to conflict with their stated goal of having everything on the map easier to read by making it pop.

Maybe it's to intentionally obscure the map so that player focus isn't interrupted by clutter.
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They explained with the 'Age of Exploration' theme. As you discover more you add it to your map, as opposed to uncovering a map you already have.

I don't see it being in conflict with there stated goals; it's merely a different approach.
 
I like it. Neat aesthetic and, at least in the few LPs I've watched, I haven't had a hard time discerning what a fogged tile is.
 
Ultimately change is scary, much like the "Civ [current]-1 was the best Civ ever, how did they ever ship this current garbage" effect (brace yourselves, Civ VI is going to be the worst game ever released soon) we'll see that on any such changes. Give it time, it's a nice aesthetic, and let's be honest here, darkening actually made it hard to see many features in past installments as well. It's a matter of being used to what you're looking for, and if the art style was done right, that shouldn't be a problem with this new one. I guess we'll all see.
 
It's pretty, but makes the map harder to read for me, so ultimately I must say that I'd rather have it the way it used to be.
 
For now I like it.

But things might change when I will be playing the game. It can be somethings that got old very fast........ but I bet there will be a lot of mod that will modified the color of the fog to make it look like the one in civ5.
 
I think the unrevealed map concept, that old-style parchment thing, is very cool.

On the other hand, the FoW just doesn't work for me. It should look much more like land (or sea) that's been revealed, and much less like the undiscovered parts of the map.
 
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BrokenBokken said:
It looks beautiful, and it makes the difference between FoW and non FoW territory blatantly obvious. It also isn't hard to tell what terrain you're looking at even if it takes a moment longer than in previous civs.
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That is just poor UI design period. A UI change that is made for a non-game mechanic reason that makes the user spend more time doing something is a poor choice. This change is not a game mechanic change. It simply is a visual change and a poor one.

What they have done is made the FOW tan (or brown whatever color you want to call it) instead of just a darker default color. Ok, that is fine and would look okay.

However, the issue is that they then took every single icon that shows details and made ALL OF THEM a darker brown (and fairly small at that). This is where my issue is. When you are quickly glancing around and can't tell the difference between a forest and barb camp, there is something wrong.

TLDR: A UI change that is not because of a game mechanic change should never make things slower or force the player to slow down. This change does just that. However, I do agree it does fit nicely with the overall art style of the game, but I am counting on mods to fix this as soon as the game comes out.
 
Gotta say, I really like it. Love the old map look. Oh, and I've been playing Civ games since the very beginning and honestly I think this approach my be my favorite.
 
Bigv32 said:
That is just poor UI design period. A UI change that is made for a non-game mechanic reason that makes the user spend more time doing something is a poor choice. This change is not a game mechanic change. It simply is a visual change and a poor one.

What they have done is made the FOW tan (or brown whatever color you want to call it) instead of just a darker default color. Ok, that is fine and would look okay.

However, the issue is that they then took every single icon that shows details and made ALL OF THEM a darker brown (and fairly small at that). This is where my issue is. When you are quickly glancing around and can't tell the difference between a forest and barb camp, there is something wrong.

TLDR: A UI change that is not because of a game mechanic change should never make things slower or force the player to slow down. This change does just that. However, I do agree it does fit nicely with the overall art style of the game, but I am counting on mods to fix this as soon as the game comes out.
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Even on the small compressed images I've seen it's easy to tell what everything is. The darkening method used to cause problems with people telling things apart in the past as well, arguably moreso. I'd highly recommend actually playing a few games before judging it, what you're describing right now is a lack of practice at reading the map quickly, rather than an actually issue with the UI or its design.
 
stealth_nsk said:
You mean you've missed 2-3 threads about it?
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That ^

In addition, I've to say that I really love the old map look. It's probably one of the best graphical improvement of this Civ iteration IMHO .
 
Overall, I like the general concept, but I still have trouble distinguishing the discovered-but-not-in-view-at-the-moment desert from the completely obscured parts of the map. I'm getting used to it, though.
 
Menzies said:
Even on the small compressed images I've seen it's easy to tell what everything is. The darkening method used to cause problems with people telling things apart in the past as well, arguably moreso. I'd highly recommend actually playing a few games before judging it, what you're describing right now is a lack of practice at reading the map quickly, rather than an actually issue with the UI or its design.
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I may not have played, but based on the hours of let's plays I've watched, I still stand by my point. Unless none of them had the option selected, the resource icons were not colored as well.

CIV5 may have had its issues, but in the close to a decade I have been playing Civ, I cannot think of one time I have seen a thread specifically calling out the FOW as a problem (possibly except for color blindness). Granted, I do not religiously visit them everyday (unless we are building up for a new release lol).

Pull up a Civ 5 or Civ 4 game and at the FOW late game (make sure resource icons are on). If you wanted to pretty much instantly tell what resources near a specific spot, it was easy as the icons were very clear and detailed in color (the icons may have been to large to some though but the color and details made it instantly obvious what was there). Now compare that the CIV 6. The fact that the resource icons are only slightly darker than the resources themselves which are only slightly darker themselves than the land is not a good design.

Putting three different shades of tan/brown on top of one another may let everything match aesthetically, but makes it crappy for picking out details. there is a reason camo/military fatigues are slight variations of what ever color pallete they are going for. It makes details harder to find. Now compare that to a hunters outfit (a smart one at least) with a bright orange jacket. Easier to see quickly.

Will we adjust? Yes. Will practice get us to roughly the same level as we are with CIV5? Yes. It still does not excuse a poor choice.
 
I like the map a lot, it looks nice, Barb camps are always easy to spot, and you can just quickly hover over any tile you're not sure of(or have yields turned on)
 
I really like it, but I think where it is worst is when there's just a small patch (maybe even one hex) of unexplored territory. My eyes can pretty easily find the border of a wide swatch of "explored" vs. a wider swatch of "unexplored" beyond it. I have had trouble on some of the lets plays with just one or two hexes of unexplored amongst a lot of explored space. I do notice, eventually, but its not quick, certainly.
 
I like it in general but I think they need to extend the vision range of your owned hexes by 1.
 
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It looks beautiful to me, but I have some slight worry about it giving a bit of a claustrophobic feeling. In some of the more peaceful games especially, it could feel as if you're playing the game alone.
 
If they gave some of the terrain features(particularly improvements/districts/cities) a bit more color, that would help it alot.

They do also need to work on the unexplored tiles showing up (perhaps a special sign when an unexplored hex has 4+ explored hexes around it)
 
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