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Well in reading Joel Billing's numerous posts on the game it appears the Fog of War will be, to some extent, worked out during play testing. So with the forum being kind of quiet these days, let's open this up and have some discussions...


The most critical points to remember in a Fog of War discussion are:

1. This is a STRATEGIC game, not operational. Decisions are made at a strategic level. These decisions need to be made by an INFORMED player. The historical commanders of the countries did not make strategic decisions in a vaccuum, they had intelligience reports to work from. They knew the disposition of their enemy, they knew the general "strategic direction" an enemy was pursuing. It did not surprise Hitler that the Western Allies had an enormous sea lift capacity in 1944. Churchill was not surprised by the Battle of Britain. If we take away ALL knowledge of the enemy what are we simulating? (The battles of Alexander the Great?)

2. There has to be a "baseline" Fog of War level that the game is play-tested and balanced to. Any deviation from the baseline will have unpredictable results if the players choose to change it. I'm not a big fan of flexibility in Fog of War, because too much flexibility can actually break a game system.

3. Strategic Fog of War can be discussed irrelevant of the actual game system. for the most part my points below could apply to any strategic level (WWII?) game.



Fog of War can probably be discussed in relation to following categories:
(* are my opinion on what the Fog of War should be)

A. Economy
- This constitutes a countries quantity of resources, factories, factory multipliers (?) and industrial points.
* This probably should not have a Fog of War element. It's a metric of the countries potential and is something that can be calculated by opposing players anyway.

B. Production
- This would be the forces that are in the process of being built.
* for a strategic scale this isn't too hard to determine so it probably shouldn't have any Fog of War. The production queue should always be available for any player to inspect.

C. Research
- This is the direction a country is taking on developing their forces technology, equipment, doctrine, etc.
* at any Fog of War level this should be hidden.
* Countries probably should have an Intelligence research project that somehow grants them "peeks" into enemy Research, a "Snapshot" of that moment in time.

D. Ground Forces
- The Ground and Air Forces that are on the map.
* This probably has the most flexibility for Fog of War options. My opinion though is that the baseline should have NO Fog of War. At this scale enemy troop movement was easy to track.

E. Naval Forces
- The Ships and Convoys that are on the map.
* This would be the opposite of ground forces. All Naval Units should be disguised by Task Force markers (min and max size to TF's ?) so the enemy would see the existence of Task Forces but not composition. Task Force composition would be revealed only when combat occurs. In order to not abuse this Fog of War though, Countries maybe should be limited to the qty of task forces they can have on map at any given time? Convoys would be the exception to Fog of War. Convoy markers would be seen by all (if they have a qty per sea area that could be hidden though)


We all have opinions, these are mine. I'm not saying they are bang on perfect but it's a start based on my experiences, to get the ball rolling. Any comments?

Very well presented thoughts, MButtazoni. I agree that FoW definitely needs some discussion from those of us intending to play this game. However, I partly disagree with your historical analysis. While it is true that the strategic leaders of each side were aware of the majority of troop movements and concentrations, their knowledge was limited. For example, the Germans overestimated the Allies amphibious transport capacity throughout the war. They were fooled by Patton's 'dummy army' poised to invade at Calais, holding the German 15th army in place for weeks after Normandy where they were desperately needed. Our landing in N. Africa in '42 was a total surprise, The Russian pincers which collapsed around Stalingrad was composed of Russian forces the Germans were not aware of, and the Russian troops that poured into the Kursk salient just weeks before the German attack in '43 were also a surprise to Hitler. The Germans weren't the only dupes. The Arnhem operation failed because the British 1st airborne dropped on top of a German Panzer division that our intelligence didn't know about. At Midway, the Japanese did not know where our Carrier task force was located, nor did they realized the Yorktown had been refitted for combat after the pummelling it took in the Coral Sea. And while the German Ardennes offensive of '44 was not a complete surprise, we were still caught with our pants down. My recommendation would be for a limited FoW in which you are aware of enemy forces in an area but not there exact composition As far as industry and research, these should be totally unknown. To make it more interesting, have an intelligence option where you can spend money on spies and there is a variable chance that they will provide you with some intelligence, either a snapshot of a countries research or production, or maybe a more accurate picture of troop composition in a particular area. It would be realistic if the intelligence gathered was inconsistent and irregular. Of course it makes the most sense to have a toggle switch for FoW so that players can turn it off or on as they see fit.

MButtazoni makes some great points for a good discussion.

I agree with Cheeshead on the force strength and disposition issue. It wasn't just that the Germans didn't see the Russian Pincers on the Volga, it's that they vastly underestimated Russian manpower. Seems like I remember a quote from Halder's diary in late '41 saying that before the war they estimated the Sovs had 200 (?) divisions, and that they had already destroyed 100, and were encountering 300 more, or something like that.

It seems to me that the degree of fog of war should also depend on the country. 'Closed' countries like Russia, China, and Japan, should have greater fog of war than open ones like the U.S., Britain, and Germany--that is, it should be harder for other countries to know what the closed countries are producing and researching.

Totally agree with MButtazoni on the sea fog of war issue. Task forces and convoys should be invisible until detected.

Task forces and convoys should be invisible until detected

actually i didn't mean that, i meant ships can be concealed in TF's but TF's and Convoys should always be seen in a strategic game.

i'll state again, for the record, i am not a fan of FoW for cases A, B, and D (above) at this scale of game.

it's 3 month turns, in 3 months Armies can probe, plan, conduct MAJOR offensives, react to the enemy's defensive plan, regroup, change point of attack, stand down, recieve replacements...

it just seams silly for a game of cat and mouse at this scale. (ie. haha! you wasted 3 months attacking my token force, you still can't find me...)

that said, Joel B. has hinted at a phased combat sequence so this may be a moot point for case D in GG:WaW (will find out soon) but, nonetheless that's how i feel about strategic scale games.

ORIGINAL: Rummy
Seems like I remember a quote from Halder's diary in late '41 saying that before the war they estimated the Sovs had 200 (?) divisions, and that they had already destroyed 100, and were encountering 300 more, or something like that.

There is a book called Inside The Soviet Army written in the 1980s by a high-ranking Soviet defector. Although it dealt with the current state of the army then, it touched upon WWII for some background. If I recall correctly, the book was saying the Soviet army had a system under which 1 division could split into 2 new ones.

As a baseline I don't think there should be any FoW on A, and D. I think B and C should have some with the possibility of the player being able to declare certain production and research activities as "secret" activities (ie Manhattan Project etc.) with the level of secrecy being based on how much the player spends on covert activities.At the same time an opposing player could offset those expendatures by purchasing his own spies etc.

Since we haven't yet seen the game in test I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Based on who it's coming from I don't think it will be a dog.

ORIGINAL: MButtazoni
1. This is a STRATEGIC game, not operational. Decisions are made at a strategic level. These decisions need to be made by an INFORMED player. The historical commanders of the countries did not make strategic decisions in a vaccuum, they had intelligience reports to work from. They knew the disposition of their enemy, they knew the general "strategic direction" an enemy was pursuing. It did not surprise Hitler that the Western Allies had an enormous sea lift capacity in 1944. Churchill was not surprised by the Battle of Britain. If we take away ALL knowledge of the enemy what are we simulating? (The battles of Alexander the Great?)

Of course, then the question becomes do you adjust for the historical differences in intelligence? Pre-41, Germany had fantastic intelligence re the USSR, while Stalin ignored a large amount of intelligence re Germany. After the invasion, Germany's knowledge of Russian strength grew steadily worse (and by 43 was miserable), while the USSR's capabilities grew better (including more reliance by Stalin on "Lucy"). You can find parallels in the other theaters. Ultimately, if the justification for getting information is historical reality, then the Axis should be at a marked disadvantage.

IMO, historical reality should not be the driver for FoW and intelligence, but rather playability.

2. There has to be a "baseline" Fog of War level that the game is play-tested and balanced to. Any deviation from the baseline will have unpredictable results if the players choose to change it. I'm not a big fan of flexibility in Fog of War, because too much flexibility can actually break a game system.

True, but options (Extreme FOW, Full FOW, No FOW) are nice too. Certainly in tactical games it's possible to have this; in a strategic game one would think that you balance for no FOW and then expect that adding FOW makes the game more difficult, no?

Fog of War can probably be discussed in relation to following categories:
(* are my opinion on what the Fog of War should be)

A. Economy
- This constitutes a countries quantity of resources, factories, factory multipliers (?) and industrial points.
* This probably should not have a Fog of War element. It's a metric of the countries potential and is something that can be calculated by opposing players anyway.

Maybe, but consider whether there are variables that *are* going to be affected by FOW and that have an effect on production. For example, if Player A destroys all the factories in a territory, but cannot hold the territory -- Player B retakes it. Now, assume that factories increase the economy of the territory. If factory building behind the lines is under FoW, then the effect of those factories should be under FOW as well.

B. Production
- This would be the forces that are in the process of being built.
* for a strategic scale this isn't too hard to determine so it probably shouldn't have any Fog of War. The production queue should always be available for any player to inspect.

I totally disagree on this one, just from a playability standpoint. It enables a player to see what his opponent is building, and start building counters -- you turn the game into a rock, paper, scissors game based totally on the production queue. Not my idea of fun, really.

C. Research
- This is the direction a country is taking on developing their forces technology, equipment, doctrine, etc.
* at any Fog of War level this should be hidden.
* Countries probably should have an Intelligence research project that somehow grants them "peeks" into enemy Research, a "Snapshot" of that moment in time.

Agreed. What I would like to see are some sort of spies or such that could be used to investigate a territory for research, production, factory and troops, etc. The scale of the game is too big for these to be individual units, so maybe you can spend points to do this?

D. Ground Forces
- The Ground and Air Forces that are on the map.
* This probably has the most flexibility for Fog of War options. My opinion though is that the baseline should have NO Fog of War. At this scale enemy troop movement was easy to track.

Thoroughly disagree. For example, the Soviets successfully hid all of their troop deployment for Operation Uranus. At this scale, I would assume that would mean that all troops moving in the region around Stalingrad were mostly invisible to the Germans. Sure, they might spot a unit or two, but the historical reality is that Manstein had no idea the amount of strength deployed against him. Similarly, the Trans-Siberian railroad allowed Siberian reinforcements to be brought to the front lines in 41 with the Germans mostly unaware (they believed the Russian troop strength to be totally depleted in Oct. 41, which it would have been if not for the reinforcements).

On the other hand, a total absence of knowledge is not historically accurate, either. In most cases, troop movement at scale would be known -- at least on the front lines.

This really raises the playability v. history argument. Is the game more or less playable with troop strength hidden? IMO, it enhances playability to hide most troop strength behind the lines, because it will add tension - how strong is my enemy? What troops will I really need if he has reinforcements?

On the other hand, no knowledge of what troops are at the front lines will lead to pure frustration, as players feel that they are just taking shots in the dark with their forces.

Maybe the "board game" portion of Shogun and Medieval got this part right: troop movement in the areas that you can "see" i.e., areas adjacent to your forces, is visible, but movement behind the lines is not.

E. Naval Forces
- The Ships and Convoys that are on the map.
* This would be the opposite of ground forces. All Naval Units should be disguised by Task Force markers (min and max size to TF's ?) so the enemy would see the existence of Task Forces but not composition. Task Force composition would be revealed only when combat occurs. In order to not abuse this Fog of War though, Countries maybe should be limited to the qty of task forces they can have on map at any given time? Convoys would be the exception to Fog of War. Convoy markers would be seen by all (if they have a qty per sea area that could be hidden though)

Agreed.

We all have opinions, these are mine. I'm not saying they are bang on perfect but it's a start based on my experiences, to get the ball rolling. Any comments?

Of course, then the question becomes do you adjust for the historical differences in intelligence? Pre-41, Germany had fantastic intelligence re the USSR, while Stalin ignored a large amount of intelligence re Germany. After the invasion, Germany's knowledge of Russian strength grew steadily worse (and by 43 was miserable),

Wrong, the germans had very good intel but it was largely ignored by High Command.
There is a complete copy of the German Army High Command War Diary availible, unfortunatly only in german.

http://www.weltbild.de/artikel.php?mode ... 190846&r=4

ORIGINAL: soeren

Of course, then the question becomes do you adjust for the historical differences in intelligence? Pre-41, Germany had fantastic intelligence re the USSR, while Stalin ignored a large amount of intelligence re Germany. After the invasion, Germany's knowledge of Russian strength grew steadily worse (and by 43 was miserable),

Wrong, the germans had very good intel but it was largely ignored by High Command.
There is a complete copy of the German Army High Command War Diary availible, unfortunatly only in german.

http://www.weltbild.de/artikel.php?mode ... 190846&r=4

Is that not the same result? I don't dispute that someone knew what was arrayed against the Wehrmacht on the Russian step, but Manstein & Co. certainly never heard about it, so I'm not sure it matters...

Becket,

Not to hijack a thread here-only to weigh in on a few points.
The germans had good knowledge of the soviet disposition and strength in 1941 from the frontier up to about the dnepr river line. this they calculated to be about 180 divisions with an additional 120 in reserve i believe. total mobilization numbers they totally underestimated.

Operation Uranus-the germans knew there would be a soviet operation in the south but not nearly in the force amount that was deployed and the quality.quantity and scope of operation (encirclement of 6 army + cutting off german forces in the cacausus -operation gallop and star-that did not materialize) involved, the reason for this was that the soviets had the abiluty to attack along the enotre front effectively pinning down german reinforcements and not allowing the transfer of forces to relieve the encirlement. Operation Mars ( the attack against AGC in the 2nd winter of the war was unsuccessfull-coordinated largely by Zhukov) Field marshal von Manstein only took over operational command after the encirclement was completed.

not to nitpick your above comments.

ORIGINAL: j campbell

Becket,

Not to hijack a thread here-only to weigh in on a few points.
The germans had good knowledge of the soviet disposition and strength in 1941 from the frontier up to about the dnepr river line. this they calculated to be about 180 divisions with an additional 120 in reserve i believe. total mobilization numbers they totally underestimated.

Operation Uranus-the germans knew there would be a soviet operation in the south but not nearly in the force amount that was deployed and the quality.quantity and scope of operation (encirclement of 6 army + cutting off german forces in the cacausus -operation gallop and star-that did not materialize) involved, the reason for this was that the soviets had the abiluty to attack along the enotre front effectively pinning down german reinforcements and not allowing the transfer of forces to relieve the encirlement. Operation Mars ( the attack against AGC in the 2nd winter of the war was unsuccessfull-coordinated largely by Zhukov) Field marshal von Manstein only took over operational command after the encirclement was completed.

not to nitpick your above comments.

Not at all, your points are well taken.

in response to Becket:

2. There has to be a "baseline" Fog of War level that the game is play-tested and balanced to. Any deviation from the baseline will have unpredictable results if the players choose to change it. I'm not a big fan of flexibility in Fog of War, because too much flexibility can actually break a game system.

True, but options (Extreme FOW, Full FOW, No FOW) are nice too. Certainly in tactical games it's possible to have this; in a strategic game one would think that you balance for no FOW and then expect that adding FOW makes the game more difficult, no?

But what if FoW tips the balance in favour of the Attacker (for instance). In the early part of the game this obviously favour's the Axis and it may cause an imbalance that the allows the Axis such gains and devastation that the Allies will never recover from it. i still believe FoW flexibility can break a game.

Fog of War can probably be discussed in relation to following categories:
(* are my opinion on what the Fog of War should be)

A. Economy
- This constitutes a countries quantity of resources, factories, factory multipliers (?) and industrial points.
* This probably should not have a Fog of War element. It's a metric of the countries potential and is something that can be calculated by opposing players anyway.

Maybe, but consider whether there are variables that *are* going to be affected by FOW and that have an effect on production. For example, if Player A destroys all the factories in a territory, but cannot hold the territory -- Player B retakes it. Now, assume that factories increase the economy of the territory. If factory building behind the lines is under FoW, then the effect of those factories should be under FOW as well.

again a question of scale. at the scale of this game it would be easy for an enemy to determine if an area is "producing" war materiels. flurry of activity, stockpiles, bellowing smoke,...

B. Production
- This would be the forces that are in the process of being built.
* for a strategic scale this isn't too hard to determine so it probably shouldn't have any Fog of War. The production queue should always be available for any player to inspect.

I totally disagree on this one, just from a playability standpoint. It enables a player to see what his opponent is building, and start building counters -- you turn the game into a rock, paper, scissors game based totally on the production queue. Not my idea of fun, really.

interesting, because i think that it turns into a rock, paper, scissors when you can hide your production (which is impossible for naval production), you start playing the game of "i'm gonna build product X because if he doesn't expect it and builds product Y, i'll have him begging for mercy"

D. Ground Forces
- The Ground and Air Forces that are on the map.
* This probably has the most flexibility for Fog of War options. My opinion though is that the baseline should have NO Fog of War. At this scale enemy troop movement was easy to track.

Thoroughly disagree. For example, the Soviets successfully hid all of their troop deployment for Operation Uranus. At this scale, I would assume that would mean that all troops moving in the region around Stalingrad were mostly invisible to the Germans. Sure, they might spot a unit or two, but the historical reality is that Manstein had no idea the amount of strength deployed against him. Similarly, the Trans-Siberian railroad allowed Siberian reinforcements to be brought to the front lines in 41 with the Germans mostly unaware (they believed the Russian troop strength to be totally depleted in Oct. 41, which it would have been if not for the reinforcements).

On the other hand, a total absence of knowledge is not historically accurate, either. In most cases, troop movement at scale would be known -- at least on the front lines.

This really raises the playability v. history argument. Is the game more or less playable with troop strength hidden? IMO, it enhances playability to hide most troop strength behind the lines, because it will add tension - how strong is my enemy? What troops will I really need if he has reinforcements?

On the other hand, no knowledge of what troops are at the front lines will lead to pure frustration, as players feel that they are just taking shots in the dark with their forces.

Maybe the "board game" portion of Shogun and Medieval got this part right: troop movement in the areas that you can "see" i.e., areas adjacent to your forces, is visible, but movement behind the lines is not.

yah i'd be ok with full knowledge of adjacent forces, and limited knowledge of rear areas.

ORIGINAL: Rummy

It seems to me that the degree of fog of war should also depend on the country. 'Closed' countries like Russia, China, and Japan, should have greater fog of war than open ones like the U.S., Britain, and Germany--that is, it should be harder for other countries to know what the closed countries are producing and researching.

Excellent point. The Germany knew the strength of the British before the war and the Allies knew the strength of the Germans. Neither knew for sure the strength of the Russians, Chinese Revolutionaries or the Japanese.

Another issue to consider is that Naval Ships are hard to hide from observers. There are only a certain number of ports where they can be built and they are most likely to be seen when they are sent out on test cruises and newspapers of the day often reported the launching of new ships as they were built.

However, the Japanese were able to conceal the capabilities of their naval construction (Yamato class). The Western powers knew that the IJN was building something big behind those bamboo/wicker screens, but everything else about the details was pure speculation.

A yard worker one drunken night blabbed about just the expected displacement of the ship under construction, and was later dragged off by the police and executed.

The Unryu/Katsuragi class CV's, just about, but not quite, completed at the end of the war, were completely new and unknown to the allies until the carrier raids on the home islands in '45.

Even the capabilities of the Zero/Zeke fighter, in service for about a year before the Pacific war broke out, stunned the "experts", and were mainly speculated on until a working model was captured in the Aleutians.

While granted, Japan had an easier time with counter-intel ops (arrest any non japanese near factory X or dockyard Y), it is conceivable to hide things from foreign powers, even in Europe.

It has been several months since these posts, has any progress been made on deciding how FOW will be implemented?

It seems presumptious, not having played, to make a suggestion. But I have read just about every post, which must buy me an inkling of credibility. So here it is anyway.

For force disposition and production, I would suggest 3 types of knowledge

(1) Visibility to full state of the opponent (forces and production) at the _beginning_ of the opponents' last turn. Effectively, this is a 3 month delay in information.

(2) Visibility to all opponent's forces that have been revealed since that time, e.g. forces that attacked, defended, or retreated. I would assume visibility to factory production (ahead of the usual 3 month delay) would only come about in those opposition territories attacked (excluding strategic bombing) by the current player (or by another allied [i.e. Ally or Axis] players) . A possible (but significantly complicating) addition to this is "major force movements" which occur within the opponents' territories, presumably observed by human intel on the ground (very complicating, because what is "major", how precise should this info be, etc.).

(3) Force probing, which I would suggest as a sub-move prior to major force movement, and it should entail the potential loss/damage of units. A small number of units would be sent on a probe, and may or may not make it back or be available to subsequent combat. For naval units, these probing units would presumably have to be aircraft, or at least units that cannot return to starting position after probing (in contrast to land units, which should be capable of returning after a probe). I think this somewhat realistically captures the need to risk units to gain information, and the need for air patrols to find naval task forces.

Of course, the disposition knowledge would have to be classified according to (1), (2) or (3), so that the player may judge how stale it is.

I would suggest Research status remain secret until discovered in combat, with the exception of "espionage" (paid for like research) that can determine opponents' research status.

And I would assume that Allies know all Allied dispositions (WA know SU, etc) and same for Axis. But friendlies could easily be treated as above as well. I would suggest the mechanics be exactly the same for both Allies and Axis.

My thinking has little to do with history, but playability. Major force movements would be readily apparent with a 3 month information delay, and yet a real element of surprise would remain. It seems that the mechanics can be relatively simple and easily understood by the player.

This game looks ....... awe inspiring. I am waiting with great impatience.

Thanks for the public PBEMs, it's great visibility.

I like WanderHead's idea. Also, there needs to be some sort of mechanism for limited FoW. Operation Market-Garden (failure of intelligence to pick up the SS panzer units in the area), the Ardennes Offensive (again, intelligence failure), Stalingrad, and, Midway come to mind. Maybe there should be some sort of "Intelligence" points to spend to obtain "better" intelligence in an area, or mask unit identities from the enemy. Just a thought.

Brad

i was confused for a sec but then realized this is an old post that got bumped. I wrote my thoughts above before Matrix had even picked play testers for GGWAW, now i work for Matrix Games.

that was then, this is how FoW is in GGWAW:
- FoW is either On or Off. (no varying levels of FoW)
- Each player nation (GE, JA, SU, CH, WA) can have Fow on or off independantly
- with FoW on:
-- adjacent enemy units can be seen
-- enemy units within 2 areas of friendly air units can be seen
-- on the Military Forces screen you can not see the qty of enemy units in production.
-- on the Unit Data screen you can not see what attributes are being researched by the enemy.

I'm going to weigh in here on the side of "Reality". This is what we simulation cravers are advocates of. Obviously the "game " is not reality, but we are trying to create a reasonable facsimile. How is this accomplished in a simulation? Simply create the environment of reality, I call "The Search". The search for the truth, usually our lifetime quest in the model of this game. Cheesehead is right on...we will call this feature "intelligence/espionage", for it is the accumulation of knowledge and then the dissemination of the pieces into a clear picture of the facts. It will require an investment of resources and it will not always be fruitful, sometimes even obscurring the truth, but it is never the less, reality, as all you posters have declared above. Now it only remains the job of 2by3 to incorporate it into this game.