Fog of War Philosophy?

[Burkowski]

Hi all.

I've had UV about a year and have completed 3 games vs. AI.. so I am not a veteran by community standards... my question regards Fog of War... I have always used FOW because I assume this is the "real-life" situation (as much as possible..)... would folks be willing to comment on how they play the simulation re: FOW and why?

Superficially, I guess the only reasons to not use or disable FOW would be technical? Game-testing? Theories about AI behavior, etc? Are there any of you who play w/o FOW and why? What's the game experience like then? When y'all play PBEM, is it always FOW on?

As a relative nug, I just wonder if I'm missing anything or just haven't considered all aspects... this was prompted by reading Mogami's late-war test AAR over on the WitP pages (he talked about "peeking" [:'(])...

Thought a review might help other newbies, too, maybe...

Any wisdom?


TNX

Burkowski

[redman1]

I'm a relative newbie too, but I have yet to hear of anyone here playing a "real" game with FOW off. I think you're correct in that the only times it would make sense to turn it off would be to play test or perhaps to educate oneself about how the game works.

[madflava13]

Redman's right - I think the consensus is that everyone plays with FOW on... When Mogami talked about "peeking", I assume he meant loading the save up from the other side so he could see the disposition of the enemy. I often did that in UV when I was testing a theory or tactic against the AI - I wanted to see how much damage I did, or what ships sank, etc...

[crsutton]

As a long time board gamer I can say that FOW was the bane of all wargamers until the advent of the computer. It was almost impossible to do when you were dealing with cardboard.

The jump in wargaming technology that the computer introduced is sort of like the difference between life before and after germ theory was discovered.[;)] When given the option, I always play FOW. I just can't go back to the old way.