Petition: Stop Fog-of-War for friendly units when playing vs AI

[Don Bowen]

ORIGINAL: Templer

One more issue.

If I atack a sub, it´s usally dived. So why can I see wich sub (name) do I atack? We are with FOW aren´t we?

(deleted)

[rockmedic109]

I've just had a report of BB Maryland sinking in the Ops reports.  I was perplexed, and looked it up after the turn ran and found Maryland happily pumping water out of herself at a drydock in Pearl Harbor.  I am assuming that this was the enemies FOW telling them errorneously that the old battlewagon had sunk.  Should I see that info?  Or just chalk it up to good signals intel that overheard a couple of admirals congratulating themselves over the sinking?

[Don Bowen]

ORIGINAL: rockmedic109

I've just had a report of BB Maryland sinking in the Ops reports.  I was perplexed, and looked it up after the turn ran and found Maryland happily pumping water out of herself at a drydock in Pearl Harbor.  I am assuming that this was the enemies FOW telling them errorneously that the old battlewagon had sunk.  Should I see that info?  Or just chalk it up to good signals intel that overheard a couple of admirals congratulating themselves over the sinking?

How are you playing?

[rockmedic109]

ORIGINAL: Don Bowen

ORIGINAL: rockmedic109

I've just had a report of BB Maryland sinking in the Ops reports.  I was perplexed, and looked it up after the turn ran and found Maryland happily pumping water out of herself at a drydock in Pearl Harbor.  I am assuming that this was the enemies FOW telling them errorneously that the old battlewagon had sunk.  Should I see that info?  Or just chalk it up to good signals intel that overheard a couple of admirals congratulating themselves over the sinking?

How are you playing?

Poorly?[:D] I am playing Scenario 1 against the AI.

It's not a big issue and can be explained away as above, but I thought I would bring it up just in case it wasn't supposed to happen.

[Steely Glint]

ORIGINAL: CV Zuikaku

FOW for enemy units/ships/planes -YES
FOW for friendly units/ships/planes -NO

Exactly. HQ's get accurate daily reports on friendly units/ships/planes via radio.

If the game does otherwise then IMO the game is broken.

[Steely Glint]

ORIGINAL: rockmedic109

I've just had a report of BB Maryland sinking in the Ops reports. I was perplexed, and looked it up after the turn ran and found Maryland happily pumping water out of herself at a drydock in Pearl Harbor. I am assuming that this was the enemies FOW telling them errorneously that the old battlewagon had sunk. Should I see that info? Or just chalk it up to good signals intel that overheard a couple of admirals congratulating themselves over the sinking?

This kind of nonsense is intolerable. Matrix: fix this bug ASAP.

[fbs]

Can we get a position from the developers if removing FOW for your own units when playing against the AI will be considered for some patch, please?

Thanks,
fbs

[Zebedee]

Can I respectfully disagree with the sentiments of many on this thread?

I can't play PBEM. So I get my thrills where I can with the AI. And I really, really enjoy the tension of not knowing what exactly has gone on during the turn until it has processed. While I can appreciate many would want to click straight away on the individual eg ship or get cross about missing it when it sinks, I've found checking damage levels using the ship listing tools within the game an excellent way to minimise pointless clicking and identifying 'real' casualties.

If you can persuade the devs to make this an optional toggle for AI games, then it caters for all tastes and more power to your elbow. Removing it fullstop strikes me as being exceptionally unfair on people who can only play the AI (for whatever reason) and do enjoy the fog of war being implemented during the turn resolution.

A very strong nay from me if this is an either/or request for changing something I genuinely am enjoying and which adds no extra micromanagement to my turn routine whatsoever.

[fbs]

ORIGINAL: Zebedee

Can I respectfully disagree with the sentiments of many on this thread?

I can't play PBEM. So I get my thrills where I can with the AI. And I really, really enjoy the tension of not knowing what exactly has gone on during the turn until it has processed. While I can appreciate many would want to click straight away on the individual eg ship or get cross about missing it when it sinks, I've found checking damage levels using the ship listing tools within the game an excellent way to minimise pointless clicking and identifying 'real' casualties.

If you can persuade the devs to make this an optional toggle for AI games, then it caters for all tastes and more power to your elbow. Removing it fullstop strikes me as being exceptionally unfair on people who can only play the AI (for whatever reason) and do enjoy the fog of war being implemented during the turn resolution.

A very strong nay from me if this is an either/or request for changing something I genuinely am enjoying and which adds no extra micromanagement to my turn routine whatsoever.

Zebedee,

Do you read the combat reports?

Cheers [:D]
fbs

[Zebedee]

ORIGINAL: fbs
Zebedee,

Do you read the combat reports?

Cheers [:D]
fbs

I do indeed. It saves me posting up bugs which don't exist [:D]

[Don Bowen]

I have yet to find any process by which this occurs. I need a save. Post me a save just before the false report. One just after too, but really need before.

Else there is not much I can do.

[Klahn]

I'm assuming that means there shouldn't be any friendly FOW then?

[fbs]

ORIGINAL: Don Bowen

I have yet to find any process by which this occurs. I need a save. Post me a save just before the false report. One just after too, but really need before.

Else there is not much I can do.

This thread ended up mixing two different issues.

The issue that was originally raised is this: are the combat results for friendly forces fogged on the combat reports or not? That is, the combat report saying that a squadron lost 10 P-40 when only 1 was lost. Or Akagi being sunk (for Jap player) when it wasn't. In WITP friendly forces are fogged, and it seems that they still are here in AE; the petition is to remove FOW on combat reports for friendly forces when playing against the AI, and that's a change. The rationale for the change is that the commander of the squadron will know how many aircrafts he has in his base, so he knows how many were shot down.

A separate issue is ships sinking and getting damage for no apparent reason. This may or may not be related to the FOW for friendly forces; or may be related to ships being hit by patrol aircrafts; or may be a bug. The example I have is my AMc Condor being sunk by a 60kg bomb without ever being in any combat report. I think that the relevant question about this is: which existing game mechanism can make a ship to be damaged/sunk in 1 turn and not reported in the combat reports? patrol aircrafts? search aircrafts? or is this a bug?

Thanks!
fbs7

[fbs]

ORIGINAL: Zebedee

ORIGINAL: fbs

Do you read the combat reports?

I do indeed. It saves me posting up bugs which don't exist [:D]

So how valuable do you find the combat reports if their results are inaccurate? It may print that your ship had heavy damage, but when you check it it has no damage at all; or your ship was sunk when it wasn't; or the wrong ship was sunk; or you lost 30 aircrafts but you check the squadron and it lost 1 aircraft in fact.

I'm just trying to understand the rationale that you use when reading the combat reports. What I do is to check the actual ships and groups involved one by one, then reload the last turn and compare your air groups one by one, in order to find out how many of my assets I lost.


Thanks!
fbs

[Don Bowen]

A save????

[Chris21wen]

ORIGINAL: CV Zuikaku

It is not problem in the subs. I allways check any sub that has been under attack. Problem is in the merchants- they got hit by patrol planes and we don't get any message. Problem is when your TF commander sends wrong reports about his own ships hit and sunk- that is the major problem. Let me know if Tonan maru is hit by Do-24 so I can try to save her- not just to got message after 3 turns "Tonan maru have sunk". By what? By who? How? Alliens? [:@]

You may not get a ops report but listing all ship and sorting by damge works fine for me. Sunk ships is different, a roport should be generated even if it say ship xxx is missing or some such meassage.

[fbs]

ORIGINAL: Don Bowen


A save????

Don, I got a save of Dec 8, 1941 on Tech Support as "FOW for friendly forces + unreported ship sunk". It has all cases discussed here:

(a) A friendly air group with losses incorrectly reported on Combat Reports (this is not a bug, this is intended behavior, but we're asking to change it)

(b) A friendly air group with losses not reported anywhere in Combat Reports (looks like a bug)

(c) A ship being sunk not reported anywhere in Combat Reports (looks like a bug)

Thanks
fbs

[Zebedee]

ORIGINAL: fbs
So how valuable do you find the combat reports if their results are inaccurate? It may print that your ship had heavy damage, but when you check it it has no damage at all; or your ship was sunk when it wasn't; or the wrong ship was sunk; or you lost 30 aircrafts but you check the squadron and it lost 1 aircraft in fact.

I'm just trying to understand the rationale that you use when reading the combat reports. What I do is to check the actual ships and groups involved one by one, then reload the last turn and compare your air groups one by one, in order to find out how many of my assets I lost.


Thanks!
fbs

First I watch the combat animation. Very useful for spotting what went on precisely. Gives a lot of information which can be translated to altering CAP levels, bombing heights, judging how many escorts are required etc.

Then the combat report pops up which summarises some of the information gleaned from the animations. Is it accurate? No. It's a summary of the combat animation which is also inaccurate for both sides. I'll find out what really happened later - in the case of air units, I'd need to check for ops losses post combat later anyways, for ships I'd want to check on ammo levels too or system damage, so it's hardly adding to my workload. Just giving a bit of tension when I see a CV sunk in the combat report or seeing 20 zeros shot down by Hurricanes etc.

My turn routine is to filter all ships by damage. Newly damaged ships are fairly easily spotted. Investigate any which are sufficiently eye catching (tends to be any ship which has crossed the 10 system damage level or worse) and take action. Check air losses, then filter groups according to air type to spot which are down from previous turn, also I identify units with pilots overly fatigued at this point. For LCU units, I run through the units which were involved in combat to get an idea of disruption and fatigue levels. I'll check every unit in a malarial zone weekly.

This is the same routine as WitP for me. These are things I'd check every turn anyway because not all your air losses will be from combat, not all your ships' damage will be caused by enemy action and not all losses to LCU are a result of enemy activity.

The only inconvenience the combat report adds for me is a slight delay in my desire to know exactly what the results for each combat were precisely. This information might perhaps be of more use if I did not watch the combat animations (of which it is a bastardised summary in any case) but the combat animations reveal differences in skill and equipment quite well enough without this, and in addition some losses relevant to the combat in question won't be tallied by the game until later in the processing of the turn in any case.

In return, the fog of war increases the enjoyability of the game by introducing a tension into a game which now actually has an AI capable of surprising the human player (in a good way now!) strategically, operationally and also tactically. It might be a little thing but I'll take my cheap thrills where I can find them.

Where I would agree with you is that there should be some ingame notification that something has happened (so no mysterious sinkings). Perhaps when such things are absent, this is a bug? Of course, the notification does not need to be exact, but there should be some indication or link (however vague) to be able to spot what has happened. eg I don't need to know that a Catalina has put a torpedo into my xAK while on naval search, but it would be good to know that a ship has either seen a plane in the area or reports being hit by something.

Hope that gives you an insight into why I don't find FoW during combat animations/reports problematic but instead find them an additional factor in my enjoyment of the game. I can appreciate where you guys are coming from, but would ask you to consider that not everyone zips through the combat resolutions at high speed and that a middle way would cater for all of us while your current 'petition' caters only for your way of playing.

[fbs]

ORIGINAL: Zebedee
I can appreciate where you guys are coming from, but would ask you to consider that not everyone zips through the combat resolutions at high speed and that a middle way would cater for all of us while your current 'petition' caters only for your way of playing.

I also appreciate where you're coming from, but the way I see it it's no a matter of way of playing. It's a matter of realism: it makes no sense that the commander of an air group doesn't know how many aircrafts he lost: he can count how many aircraft are in his airfield at any moment. It was argued that some commanders knew his losses but lied when reporting to superiors, but that's difficult to model. I'd rather see the experience, morale and fatigue of the crews being fogged than the combat results -- that's more realistic, as these measures are, by definition, estimates.

I'd like to see fog of war being implemented in a realistic way: submarines should not report they were sunk (they were underwater, hahaha), and should have some mechanism for fogging their position and stats. Task forces on "radio silence" should also fog themselves quit a bit; and isolated units, specially small ones, should be fogged too. Moreover, "human dimensions" should show an indicative like "Very low" for 0-30xp, "Low" for 31-50xp, and so forth, instead of a clear-value number.

These are realistic things; but combat reports have no relationship whatsoever with reality, and I doubt they were created that way to increase playing satisfaction either. They are this way just because the same report is shared by both sides on PBEM, so all results are fogged. The approach is arbitrary and unrealistic, and I'm happy someone has fun going through that.

Cheers! [:D]
fbs

[Don Bowen]

Sorry guys, I need more help.

This is a very difficult issue to find - a little tweak somewhere down in the guts. A save after it happens is not any good. I need a save just before it happens, along with a hint of what ship and where.