Fog of War in 0.9.1

Anything else to do with MoM IME
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Implode
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Fog of War in 0.9.1

Post by Implode »

Now I’m getting very close to finishing 0.8.9, I’m starting to look at how I’m planning to have Fog of War work, which is the first major thing I need to work on for 0.9.0. Once Fog of War is done, it will then be possible to add in attacking units walking around the map, and attacking cities.

For each player, various bits of the map can be in one of 3 states. Either you can see it right now (you have a city or unit there, or you have a Awareness cast and you’re looking near a city), you’ve never seen it, or you’ve seen it at one time but now can’t (say, you sent a unit out across the map scouting, and it got killed so now there’s a fair size area you can no longer see).

The first two of these are straightforward, its the areas you’ve seen at one stage but can no longer see that are interesting. There’s a bunch of different items that I’m wondering how to handle, and I’m not sure how the original MoM handles most of these either, and its very difficult to test these when you can’t play the original MoM multiplayer. So if anyone can clarify any of these or has any other thoughts about them, I’d appreciate the feedback.

Terrain (the landscape, minerals, monster lairs, nodes and towers of wizardry): This can be changed by Change Terrain, Transmute, Corruption, Great Wasting, Raise Volcano, Armageddon and similar spells, as well as new mineral deposits being discovered and old ones drying up, and monster lairs being captured. If you’ve say scouted an enemy city in the desert, can no longer see it, and the enemy starts casting Change Terrain to change it to grasslands, should you be able to see it until you send another scout there? If you’ve scouted a monster lair with Great Drakes in it (so you didn’t feel like attacking it!) should you be able to see when another wizard successfully clears it without looking at that map area again? I would say not. I’ve no idea how the original MoM works.

Cities: If you’ve say scouted an enemy city when it was an outpost, should you know without looking at it again that its now grown to population 20,000? Or monsters have levelled it? Or another player captured it or razed it? Or know what buildings they’ve built there? Or know what spells they’ve cast there? I would say not. I’ve no idea how the original MoM works.

Units: If you’ve seen enemy units walking around, and you then run away or get killed, should the game remember for you that you had seen units there, even though you can’t see there anymore so don’t know if they’re still in the same place or not? I believe in the original MoM, any units you can’t see anymore simply disappear, and I’m thinking I’ll do this the same way.

Nodes: If you’ve seen a node but can’t see it anymore, should you be able to tell when someone else clears out the node and takes it with a magic spirit? Or say you’ve seen a node captured by one enemy, but another enemy wizard manages to take it over with their own spirit, should you be able to tell when you don’t have a unit there to see it? I would say not. I’ve no idea how the original MoM works.

There are several interesting side effects of this. If you can’t see when someone casts Raise Volcano and you try to send units there, the path finding routine will have to pick the shortest route based on what terrain you *think* is there, not what is actually there. If you’ve seen an enemy city, but can no longer see it, then you won’t be able to cast Famine, Call the Void, etc. on it because you don’t really know the city is even still there – someone could have captured and razed it.

Any thoughts/feedback?

Thanks,

Implode.
Last edited by Implode on Wed Jan 17, 2007 4:50 am, edited 1 time in total.
VM
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Post by VM »

In the original, it always looks like the state you checked last. So a lair that another wizard has cleared stays a lair until you approach it with a unit. If a unit could see it, it vanishes. Same with everything else.
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Post by Implode »

I don't think it does - I just gave it a test. I started a game, summoned a Guardian Spirit, cast Endurance on it and scouted around a bit, finding two enemy wizards. Then came back and camped out in my original city, just building defence and not sending out any more units. I just sat and watched what I could see the enemy wizards doing, even though I didn't have any units anywhere near them anymore.

Even though I didn't have any units to see the areas where the two enemy wizards were anymore, I could see:
  • Those cities grow in population
    All the new buildings added to those cities
    New cities the wizards settled
    When a city was taken over by another wizard (one of the enemy wizards captured a Raiders city)
So I think how the original MoM works is that once you've seen an area, you can see *everything* that happens there, even though you don't have a unit there to see it. The only thing you cannot see is what enemy units are there.

So I think this is going to be another of those things where I'll provide a 'Like original MoM' option and a 'Recommended' option, where 'recommended' is that you can't see what's going on in an area you've visted unless you still have a unit there to see it.

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Post by VM »

No, what you say is true for cities only. Lairs taken out by someone else dont disappear until you send someone there to actually see it.
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Post by ikanreed »

VM wrote:No, what you say is true for cities only. Lairs taken out by someone else dont disappear until you send someone there to actually see it.
stop lying to the man. One can see terrain changes immediatly. It even plays the raise volcano and corruption animations on squares you can't see.

Other alterations, such as city creations, road enchantments, node dominations, purifications, and towers being opened are all visible immediately. (I've never paid much attention to what happens to lairs, but my presumption is it's the same there as that shows up the surveyor screen).

Things I'm certain do depend on being able to see the square: units, and that's it.

The reason that it happens this way is because any other way would be abusive towards memory(requiring a duplication of terrain data for each player, rather than just an int representing the level of knowledge for each player on the square). Back in the days of EMS, there was n reasonable way to manage that.

The rationalization I've always given myself is that some people go everywhere that's part of your territory, and changes in the terrain wouldn't go unnoticed. Not the best excuse, but it makes some sense.
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Post by Coyote »

I think someone needs to test the lairs, because I thought I remembered the same as VM but I could be wrong - and while they're at it, test and see if you can tell when an enemy wizard builds a settlement in an area you've explored, but can't actively "see" anymore. Does the settlement pop up automatically, or do you have to walk near it?


Part of the confusion may be because of MoM's fog of war is similar in nature to Civilization, which does keep those changes hidden from you.


While I'm thinking of lairs, does anyone remember if lairs show up on the overland cartographer map?
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Post by Implode »

Coyote wrote:I think someone needs to test the lairs
I might try it when I get a chance - the problem is the AI doesn't actively attack lairs, so you could playing a for long time without proving anything either way.
Coyote wrote:test and see if you can tell when an enemy wizard builds a settlement in an area you've explored, but can't actively "see" anymore. Does the settlement pop up automatically, or do you have to walk near it?
It pops up automatically, for sure, I tried this recently (see post above).

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Post by Virm »

From recent games of playing original MoM (v1.31):

The lairs are removed if conquered and previously but not currently watched. If the lair's mosters are killed but the attacking wizzard doesn't keep an overland unit alive in doing so, the lair will persist and no longer be defended (empty lair), but the surveyer will still show the previous monster that had inhabited it (assuming that it has been scouted before).

All terrain effects (Change Terrain, road cunstruction, Enchant Road, Transmute, etc.) will display immediately.

City information is always available in previously discovered areas, though units are hidden or unknown if not directly visible. Units disappear from sight as soon as they exit direct vision. No memory of their whereabouts is maintained.

Nodes changes are only shown if another wizard melds with it. Until a node is revisited (or at least seen again) the surveyor will continue to show the (previously) known monster to be present (even after enemy melding, I believe).
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Post by Lupinedreams »

Despite how the original MoM seems to handle fog of war, it'd be excellent for the recommended option Implode talked about to actually have fog of war that obscures vision (only shows what you saw last) if that's not a huge pain in the ass to code - otherwise it loses a lot of meaning (though not being able to see enemy units is still a huge deal)

It makes scouting and whatnot far more important - but what about earth lore? I'm not sure how it worked with the original MoM, but would it count as you having a scout there for purposes of seeing enemy units, or not? Or perhaps it does for the initial turn on which you cast it? I will have to test...
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Post by Implode »

Lupinedreams wrote:Despite how the original MoM seems to handle fog of war, it'd be excellent for the recommended option Implode talked about to actually have fog of war that obscures vision (only shows what you saw last) if that's not a huge pain in the ass to code
Hah, I'm the type who'll write it like that just BECAUSE its a pain in the ass to code just so I feel a sense of accomplishment when I get it to work :)

But yes, plan is to be able to configure fog of war like the rest of the options on the "new game" screen, so it either remembers what you last saw e.g. at am enemy city (so you won't see it grow unless you re-scout it), or work like the original MoM. Units are going to be an exception, units will only appear when you have a scout to see them (which is just like in the original MoM actually). At least for now anyway - maybe later I'll add something in so it'll record markers for where your scouts spied out units that you can no longer see.

BTW, re: Earth Lore, I'm not sure this reveals units at all (anyone fancy testing that out in the original MoM?) - only terrain (and cities, lairs, etc.). After all, its a nature spell and its "Earth" Lore, i.e. it reveals the Earth :) So basically it will reveal an area as if you had scouted it, but don't have anyone there to see it right now.

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earth lore

Post by Lupinedreams »

I believe you're right, it earth lore unshrouds an area as if you had scouted it, but do not have a scout there at the moment, so it shows cities and minerals and lairs etc, but no units.
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Post by Implode »

I've done the tab for configuring Fog of War when starting a New Game on the server. In the screenshot below, settings are as in the original MoM, so you can see terrain and city changes even without a unit there to see them, but units disappear as soon as you don't have anyone there to see them.

Any thoughts/comments? I know the tab is a bit wordy, but I had to try to explain clearly but briefly exactly what these options do!

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Post by hammer »

Hi, i was wondering if a shroud option will exist in the fog of war tab?
Basically the shroud is like the "Forget What Was Seen", but in addition it hides a size of unseen map (again) after each turn where no allied unit exists.
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Post by Implode »

That's what I mean by "Forget what was seen", i.e. if you had a unit walking along, the blackness would close in behind them. At any time, you would literally only be able to see the areas immediately around where you currently have units and around your cities. Did you mean something different to this?

As opposed to "Remember what was seen" where you'd be able to see what terrain you had walked over and so it will be greyed out somehow so you can tell the information you're seeing there isn't up to date. You wouldn't see changes to it (like someone casting Change Terrain or clearing out a monster lair).

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Post by hammer »

Exactly what i ment, okay so i guess we are talking of the same thing ;)
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