Local recon FoW setting

[Zanotirn]

When it comes to information on other regimes there is only two options - you either have full fog of war or you know where all regimes are. Both of these options come across as somewhat unrealistic, at least at game start.

Full FoW doesn't really make sense when your people have been living in a place for decades, there's another regime a few days' drive away and there's a road leading from your capital to theirs... but you have no idea they're even there.

On the other hand when at the start of the game your regime is a group with so far local ambitions and problems, they probably don't really pay a lot attention to having the means of telling who controls what hex at the other side of the planet, so partial FoW feels somewhat overpowered.

A possibly more realistic compromise would be having a game start setting of local recon, which
could be chosen with full FoW or "Map Known" and give you the effects of partial FoW within a certain radius of your capital (e.g. 20 hexes) representing the historic information your people gathered by living in the area for many years. It probably wouldn't make sense to keep this local knowledge area indefinitely (in some scenarios you may not even control that place eventually), rather it could make sense to at game start reveal the map for all hexes in this radius (if map is not revealed by default) and give you 1 recon on all regimes and territories which have at least part of their territory in this radius (again, realistically your nation probably does have idea that they exist, which is what 1 recon represents).

[zgrssd]

+1

Also when we are at it, maybe we could get some Recon on the people that are living in the next Regime over?
I would think we know if those guys to the north are Arachnids, Natives or a human settlement - especially if roads are around.

[deMangler]

I always play with full FOW, just a role-playing preference.
However I think it would really multiply the variation in game starts to have more starting FOW options. I would love this.

[Pymous]

+1 I like the idea of a more realistic "recon" situation at the game start. Neighbourhoods cities / knowledge for example like zgrssd highlighted

[Mazth]

+1

I think this is a great suggestion.
Really helps to set up a narrative at the beginning of the game. Is my empire isolated? Do they have some region trading going on etc. Nice replayability and RP options here.