Damien Thorn wrote:This will only affect what you see. If you are playing PBEM then your opponent would have to change the files on his computer too or else he will still see the color-based information.
That’s what I was talking about, both players must change colors of their icons. Of course you have to trust your opponent in this case. I trust my opponents, so I play without multi-color icons and without no-fly symbol and I don’t look at mini-map during reaction phase, I’m sure that my opponents do so also. If you don’t believe in fair play you can start worry that your opponent cracked the file and got your password… who knows?
Damien Thorn wrote: I think a bigger fog of war breaker is that the EXACT number of planes killed each day is always listed on the report screen. Why even have fog of war if you are goin to show that information.
Right, but this is just top of an iceberg of FoW flaws(or shortcoming) in UV.
1) As you said, number and type of enemy a/c destroyed, with knowledge of replacement rates this really helps.
2) Number of enemy troops/equipment destroyed.
3) Number of enemy sortie flown, one day it can jump unusually high, right! enemy carriers left port and probably approach your base.
4) No-fly symbol can show you location of undetected enemy TF or enemy ground unit outside a base. Example- as soon as Kanga Force leaves Wau enemy detect this and then monitor unit's movement during bad weather days.
5) You know when his ships hit mines, and what troops were picked up from a sea on rescue mission.
6) You can say from what exactly enemy base air raid has arrived. Well in UV this doesn’t really matter, but in WitP will be a problem.
7) You can always say what damage your air/bombardment raid did to enemy base, how many bombs/shells hit what, percent of supplies destroyed can be calculated, what a/c were destroyed, number of ground personnel killed (this can be only eng or AA units) what ships caught shells in port. In reality this is subject of guesstimates.
8) Level of damage suffered by enemy ships in combat is almost always surprisingly correct.
9) You get hard data on all enemy sunk within 60 days.
10) You can see all enemy surface TFs on mini-map during reaction phase.
11) You don’t have to recon enemy base to discover how fast build-up of airbase and port proceed there, just place a mouse pointer on a base icon.
12) Air reconnaissance gives you unrealistic details on enemy troops in certain hex, how many units (although it is not always accurate) and what these units are, eng or infantry, AA or artillery. Then player who can count and played for opposite side before can tell what enemy troops where.
13) During combat animation sequences you can see what exactly enemy air groups participate in attack, so you aware of a fresh units and if these are carrier borne a/c you can figure out what exactly enemy CVs launched this attack.
14) Wherever enemy land his troops, at base or in undeveloped hex you can see them.
15) Airfield/port/troops symbols give you information on enemy aircraft/ships/troops presence at any of his base, with color gradation for better determination.
16) TF on ‘retirement allowed’ receive super-radar, which can detect enemy carriers 300-400 miles away, then TF successfully retreats ‘TF xxx retreating from enemy carriers’, it doesn’t matter that player is actually unaware of enemy CVs presence. 90% of CV battles are head-on egagements because of it.
17) You always know a number of enemy personnel, guns, vehicles in a hex where ground combat take place, as well as composition of enemy troops.
…and so on.
This is not a bug list, I understand that many of these points are shortcomings of a turn-hex-based game engine, but some can be easily removed from the game.