The fog of war is ugly.

[npburg]

I like the aesthetics of the paper map so I don't think it is ugly; however, agree that this appears to make it less functional since it is not always clear what is unexplored vs what is simply out of view. From the many let's plays I have watched, it is disappointing how hard it is to tell the difference. At the same time, I am hoping that playing the game for myself will be a better experience to judge if it clear or not. Also, I have not heard anyone with the preview copy complain about this issue so it might not be a big deal. Worst case, I am sure there will be mods for this and hoping for some more custom lenses to boot.

 

[Jabulani]

When a player will be able to clearly see all the map that have already been discovered ?

Satellites will show all the map ok, anything else before ?

 

[shaglio]

I agree. I love the currently visible territory and the unexplored territory, but I dislike the fog of war. It needs a different color (gray, maybe) to separate it from the unexplored territory a little better.

 

[Aheadatime]

Visible map looks pretty imo. Unexplored map also looks nice, but fow map looks like covered in mud -- not so pleasant to look at.

That's a good way to word it. The 'mud' look is ugly due to the color scheme. I agree with people in this thread who think the hand-drawn look is attractive. It's just that the color is non-functional and ugly. If it was hand-drawn, yet colorfully depicted the terrain a few shades darker than terrain you have vision of, that would be amazing.

 

[Xur]

A game is always prettier and easier to "read" when it's on your PC and not seen via youtube/twitch. But I tend to agree that the FOW is a bit too stylized - but maybe that changes when I get to play it.

 

[Al Bundy]

I like them both, but it is true that they could find a better contrast for color blindness.

 

[elitetroops]

I also dislike it. They are giving up functionality for aesthetics, which is always a bad choice in my opinion. Nor do I even like the aesthetics that much.

My biggest complaint is that resource icons also all come in a shade of brown, which makes them much harder to distinguish. I want to be able to see in one brief glance where different resources are, not to focus on every single one separately to tell them apart.

 

[Bkeela]

I don't like it. I particularly don't like it on ocean tiles. The pleasure for me of exploring ocean tiles is exposing that big beautiful blue. Units outside of visibility range simply shouldn't be visible - no need for that ugly carpet of beige.

The astrological map at the edge of the world should also be black - not blue. The blue clashes with the blue of the ocean unpleasantly.

 

[Windsor]

I'm not colorblind, but I really don't like the FoW too. It's a cool idea, but I feel it fails on both aesthetics and functionality. As qadams said, FoW should be closer to the visible map than to the unexplored map.

Hopefully this can be modded to a more basic shadow-FoW. One option would actually be a multi-level FoW, where you first only get a slighty darker map(like normal FoW), and then if you haven't had vision on a tile for a number of turns it becomes this new "paper-FoW".

 

[Aheadatime]

My biggest complaint is that resource icons also all come in a shade of brown, which makes them much harder to distinguish. I want to be able to see in one brief glance where different resources are, not to focus on every single one separately to tell them apart.

This caught my attention too. When we got our first look at Civ6 some time ago, I figured it was an 'early build' issue, but looks like it's here to stay.

 

[Aheadatime]

Bumping this after having played the game for a couple of hours today. Not only does the fog make the terrain harder to decipher (plains vs grassland, resource icons, hills vs flat, etc), but it also gives an isolated feeling to it. Areas that have been explored but aren't currently revealed feel detached from the areas that I currently have vision of, and it's terribly immersion breaking. Just feels bad all around.

 

[Hipshot]

I couldn't agree more here. I like the "shroud map", but the "fog-of-war map" is terrible. When I started to watch videos of this game some weeks ago, I had my doubts and now when I've played the game (even if it's a short time), I really dislike it. It looks bad too, with the mix of differently shaded models and the flat shaded ground.