Reports and FOW

[Major Spinello]

Quick questions: with FOW on, are the reports about military strength and losses correct? Can I get reports about the enemy´s tech other than through encountering units?

IF (!) FOW affects reports, then how far are they off? And can I influence this somehow (obviously researching Intel wouldn´t affect things here).

[pzgndr]

AFAIK, the reports are accurate regardless of FOW. Being sufficiently broad and covering land, air and naval units in total, it provides useful trend data but nothing specific.

[Major Spinello]

Thanks for the quick answer - the question came up because I noticed that according to the reports the allies had so few units in 1944 (in all categories, especially the US).

[Terif]

Unfortunately in version 1.0 reports are pretty much useless with FoW and you don´t need to have a look at it:

In the report only the units appear you can actually see on the map during this turn, i.e. that are in your sighting range. So you have no additional informations to what you can already see yourself on the map.

Hopefully this will change with a patch in the future since for gameplay and strategic planing this would be a huge step forward - or better: back to the roots - as it was in SC 1 .

[Sombra]

Perhaps if you have a higher intel tech then the enemy you can get the "real" numbers? Would increase the value of intel research

[hellraiser]

@Yoda

A bit of randomness would be good. How on earth could germany know exactly what was behind the Urals for instance, troops, tanks, planes etc? They had little intel penetration in Russia afaik. It doesn't make much sense to 'see' my type of units if you're actually unable to spot them in a way or another (intelligence efforts and/or direct spotting).

[Terif]

If it is historical accurate or not to know about the amount of enemy land, air and sea units - don´t know. Perhaps not for the eastern part ("Ural"). In the west it looks probably different since there were enough ways/informants to get information about enemy forces, especially naval forces.

However, my point of view is gameplay and to have a better strategy game, not so much historical accuracy .

BTW: to know nothing like it is in version 1.0 is certainly also not historical accurate.. .

For the game it would IMHO be much better to have it like in SC 1, where you see how many units the enemy has, so you can plan a strategy accordingly and it would make the game much more interesting if you have a clue how the situation is instead of acting blindly and to trust in luck. Last but not least, SC 2 should be a strategy game, not roulette .

[Major Spinello]

Hmm ... is Pzgndr right or Terif? I think Terif is right because I cannot imagine that the US has no troops/navy/airforce right now in 1944 (I beat back Overlord, but they still should have some stuff).

I think Sombra is wrong that investing in intel tech would do something to improve the reconnaissance situation, however it would be nice if this were actually implemented!

[Lars]

What would be nice is if the screen popup reports were logged.

Sometimes you forget what happened when.

[hellraiser]

Terif, you got me wrong. I like a balance between hist accuracy and playbalance but I definitely do not like the ideea of being unable to deliver surprises. If you know I built 5 subs, you will definitely plan accordingly. The ideea of not knowing at all sucks as well because it rules out completely the ideea of espionnage. Some randomness in the sense that you will know that I increased my navy, but you won't be able to 100% asses my power.

The SC1 model is way too accurate for my taste. Think that a bit of randomness can spice up the game without ruining the strategic aspect of it.

[Edwin P.]

Originally posted by Terif:

Unfortunately in version 1.0 reports are pretty much useless with FoW and you don´t need to have a look at it:

In the report only the units appear you can actually see on the map during this turn, i.e. that are in your sighting range. So you have no additional informations to what you can already see yourself on the map.

I would like to see:

Default - you see only you units you have spotted in this turn or previously, if they have not been destroyed.

[Timskorn]

Air with LR tech does a good job of revealing enemy troops. How much info are people looking to have?

[Terif]

@Hellraiser:

Agreed

@Edwin:

This is how it works at the moment - except without the info from last turn

@Timskorn:

If you take SC 2 as a tactical wargame, yep no more info necessary - but it is (or should be) a strategy game, so it is better to have some grand scale info about enemy troops .

[Timskorn]

Isn't part of the strategy finding that info out for yourself? If you displayed the # of overall enemy units in the report, it would either have to be 100% accurate or not at all, otherwise the info would be pretty useless. If it says Russia has 25 units and I've only seen 5 so far, will that report really affect my strategic thinking if I know that 25 is a wrong number? I'm still going to base my strategy around what I've seen so far, and what I believe my opponent has.

If we're talking about giving 100% accurate feedback on the # of enemy troops, then it becomes more like chess in that you determine your moves precisely based on what your opponent has and what he's currently doing with them. If the report says he has 15 units, and I see 5 around Moscow and 10 scattered around Rostov/Stalingrad, I'll know exactly what I can get away with around Moscow.

I suppose some people want that level of strategy, and I agree that less randomness is better in strategy games, but SC2 is not a pure strategy game. There's a ton of random factors that can determine the outcome of the game. Maybe it would be funner knowing the exact amount of troops my opponent has, but I think with the type of game SC2 is and the uncertainty of war in general, not knowing all of this info is PART of the strategy, and getting as much of it as you can through scouting helps your overall strategy.

[Lars]

Why fix what ain't broke?

You want all that info, just turn FOW off.

[Blashy]

I agree with Lars, turn FOW off for this type of play.

I would actually prefer that you do NOT SEE further with Air fleets or long range air. You can attack further, but not see EVERYTHING behind enemy lines.

I would also like it if you do not see WHERE an air attack is coming from, you get attacked by air units, you have no clue where their base is. That would be a great feature.

[Major Spinello]

I do not agree that there is only the alternative between a 100% correct and a totally wrong number of units. The number could be an estimate within a standard deviation range. Then it could make sense to reduce that range through development of intel.

Anyway, I do not know who is meant with "some people" who want to have 100% exact info in the reports. No one in this thread suggested that.

[Terif]

@Lars/Blashy:

Sorry, but FOW off is no real option in multiplayer and takes away the fun, but I am sure you are aware of this .

Hiding all informations is perhaps good for a small scale game, but not for a strategy game IMO.

Already now it has not much to do any more with a strategy game without the possibility to defend on the one side and no information about how strong the enemy is so you can plan offensives/strategies on the other side.

Sorry, but not seeing enemy strength or where an attack came from is no great feature for me - I want to play a strategy game where you can think and make decisions, not just to move forward and hope you are lucky, how it is played at the moment...

[Edwin P.]

Comments on FOW

1.In real life if you spotted the Bismarck before the war you know that it exists, even if you can't spot it now, until you know that you have sunk it. From what I am reading in this post Intel reports only show currently spotted units.

I would like the Intel reports to show the status of units that have been spotted to date, and those that you started the game with.

2. If you want to make it interesting let each side select a single Intel Focus - Air, Naval or Land.

For the focused military arm you see the total number of units of that type, if you have an Intel advantage. For other military arms, or if you have an Intel Disadvantage, you see only what you have spotted.

[ June 01, 2006, 10:14 AM: Message edited by: Edwin P. ]

[Lars]

And in real life the Germans had destroyed every single Russian division that their pre-war intel had told them about before they even reached the gates of Moscow.

Oops.

[SeaMonkey]

Edwin and Terif are both right. The game engine should track from the beginning the number and types of units that have been encountered. If they haven't been spotted then they are not part of the "Report".

The "Intel" level should provide a degree of randomness to reports. Sides with a greater intel level should have more accuracy and more consistency in their reports. A greater intel level allows for a quicker update of intel reports also, accounting for destroyed and disbanded enemy units on a more immediate basis, instead of perhaps a lapse of a few turns when it is low.

As it is now, with FoW on, "Reports" provide nothing to the game. I never access them, they are useless except for a quick summation of known deployments.

[Timskorn]

It sounds like some people are wanting more visual feedback of enemy units so they're not surprised by some flank attack, or so they can spot a weakness somewhere in the enemy defense easier. Others are looking for simply more feedback from the Reports, giving general overall unit strength of each country. To me these are pretty different requests.

Personally I feel there is enough ability to scout enemy positions right now. Russia is the only real place that I think people have trouble with because it's so huge. In France and North Africa, it's not very difficult to get a visual on pretty much every enemy unit in the area.

I'm in favor of making the Reports more useful, but I'm against revealing any more of the FoW. The more you can visually see of your opponents forces the closer you get to a non-FoW game, which would play out more like a game of chess.

[Major Spinello]

Actually, thats how I see things, too. I´m really fine with what I see on the map if FOW is on (as was said, long-range airfleets help alot here), but I would like the reports feature to be more useful. That´s why I think it is a good idea to have them reports deliver "fuzzy" information that gets more and more precise once your intel research goes up.