Quark Games forums

I think attacks with a scholar should not be "fogged". In this way people can be warned when a conquering force comes to attack you. This way you can still try to stop further conquering attacks before they happen. If in this case fog of war would be applied, I could've started again with an hour to conquering another city. You should however still be able to buy "cloak" an item to "fog" a scholar attack as well.
Eg. Player A sends player B seven attacks to kill all units and to be sure no units are left. All these attacks are "fogged" so player B only knew about these attacks after half the march time. As soon as player A sends a scholar along with his attacks, the fog of war will NOT be activated, so player B knows about this attack instantly, thus being able to try and stop the conquering diplomatically. Suppose player A fell for the diplomatic approach. Player C attacking player A after player B's attacks however, bought cloak. He used cloak and could fog his scholar attacks as well. He was sleeping the time player A saw he was going to be attacked, so he was unable to stop his attacks even if he would, thus player C could conquer player A's city, because he launched his five attacks using the "cloak" item.
I don't want to tell you what to do, it's just a suggestion. I like the thought of automatic fog of war, but it should have some restrictions though.

[b]@Vasasalo: [/b]That's an interesting notion: changing the default premise of warfare altogether! And if that happens, then why not introduce a patrol option for scouts that would allow them to unmask incoming attacks? The functionality would be based on how many scouts are deployed at a time, possibly:

[TABLE="class: grid, width: 860"]
[TR]
[TD]# of scouts sent on each patrol wave[/TD]
[TD]Patrol duration[/TD]
[TD]Deploy/recall march time[/TD]
[TD]Can unmask incoming attack waves that are arriving in[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]1 ~ 24[/TD]
[TD]1 hour[/TD]
[TD]1 minute[/TD]
[TD]1 hour or less[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]25 ~ 49[/TD]
[TD]2 hours[/TD]
[TD]3 minutes[/TD]
[TD]5 hours or less[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]50 ~ 99[/TD]
[TD]3 hours[/TD]
[TD]7 minutes[/TD]
[TD]10 hours or less[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]100+[/TD]
[TD]4 hours[/TD]
[TD]10 minutes[/TD]
[TD]20 hours or less[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]




[b]EXAMPLE:[/b]

[list]
[*]I see the "Fog of War" icon on my dash indicating that I am under attack.
[*]From the Rally Point, under the Commands tab, I select 36x scouts and click on a new button, "PATROL"
[*]In the next window, I see the following confirmation window:[/list]
[TABLE="class: outer_border, width: 567"]
[TR]
[TD="width: 75, colspan: 3"]Back
Button[/TD]
[TD="width: 25"][/TD]
[TD="width: 25"][/TD]
[TD="width: 125, colspan: 5"]CONFIRMATION
PAGE[/TD]
[TD="width: 25"][/TD]
[TD="width: 75, colspan: 3"]Date[/TD]
[TD="width: 75, colspan: 3"]?
Button[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD="colspan: 3"]Time[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 4"]Arrival in:[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD="colspan: 3"]0:03:00[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 4"]Origin:[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD="colspan: 7"]City Name (XXX,XXX) RXX >[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 6"]Patrol Duration:[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD="colspan: 3"]2:00:00[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 6"]Effective Patrol Range:[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD="colspan: 3"]5:00:00[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 17"]CONFIRM PATROL[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]



[list]
[*]I click on "CONFIRM PATROL" and my scouts march out. After 3 minutes, they begin their 2 hour patrol.
[*]If the incoming attack wave is within a 5:00 HRS landing-time radius, then I receive a PM saying that "Your scouts have uncovered an attack!"
[*]The "Fog of War" icon on my dash is replaced the standard icon showing how many attacks are incoming.
[*]At that point, I can either choose to wait it out or purchase and apply the "reveal incoming troops" premium feature per usual.[/list]
Of course, this feature isn't guaranteed to yield a successful outcome on the first try:


[list]
[*]I see the "Fog of War" icon on my dash indicating that I am under attack. I only have 12x scouts available.
[*]From the Rally Point, under the Commands tab, I select all 12x scouts and send them on patrol.
[*]However, because their effective range is only 1 hour, they find nothing because the attacking wave is further away than 1 hour.
[*]After 1 hour of patrol, the scouts return empty-handed.
[*]In the meantime, I've recruited 20x more scouts, so I send out all 36x scouts.
[*]Even though their effective range is 5 hours (or less), they still find nothing in the first 1 hour of their patrol (attacking wave is further than 5 hours).[/list]
...but the player can always recall the scouts resend them with a additional scouts to increase their effective range:

[list]
[*]Continuing from the example above, I've recruited 14x more scouts.
[*]I recall the the 36x scouts that I sent out previously. After 3 minutes, they all return.
[*]I re-send them out with the new scouts, for a total of 50x scouts.
[*]Within 7 minutes, they start their patrol.
[*]Because their range is 10 hours or less, they immediately see some incoming attack waves and I get a PM notification.
[*]On my dashboard, the standard attack icon appears with the number 3x, but the fog of war icon also remains.
[*]This tells me that, at the moment, I have 3x incoming attacks that will arriving in 10x hours or less, but there are incoming attacks that are further away still.[/list]
... and so forth.

Or, one could purchase the premium "Telescope" function (25x gold, perhaps) to unmask all incoming attack waves within 24x hours:

[list]
[*]I see the "Fog of War" icon on my dash indicating that I am under attack. I purchase and apply the "Telescope" feature.
[*]On my dashboard, the "Fog of War" icon is replaced with the standard incoming attack icon, showing 4x. So I have 4x incoming attacks. If I want to find out more about them, I'd have to purchase and apply (4x) "Instant Reveal" functions.
[*]Within those 24x hours, any incoming attack appears per usual, unmasked.[/list]
Also, the "instant reveal" function cannot be used unless the attack is unmasked. So players are required to unmask the wave by either scout patrol or "telescope".

How's that?
-Kaleel

Yeah that wouldn't be bad to do; however not every buys gold and it shouldn't be a requirement to defend an attack option.
I think every attack should start with the fog of war by default.
Just notify of attack pending but don't mark which city is under attack. Mark which city is the closest to the attack so you can send scouts out of that one.
If you choose not to then, fog of war rules apply; however you could choose the telescope to purchase to instantly lift the fog and see which cities are under attack, when they will hit, and the waves of attackers or you can send scouts from the closest city to scout and if enough scouts are sent to kill the attackers scout it would lift the fog of war effect. This would require that the attacker send scouts with his first attack wave to counter and keep active the fog of war until the set percentage of travel.

What about an extra item to make the fog of war lift faster? If activated your active city can see fogged troops 50% faster for 24 hours. It should be only purchasable with gold. A possible name could be "binoculars" or "telescope". Just give it a thought as well.

Right I know you can't send spies against an approaching army; however, if they I put the fog of war they should input a defensive counter hat you dont have to buy to keep it balanced. And this balance could be the ability to send scouts out to 'scout' the area where you can't see and report back if they have enough to survive.

I thought this was obvious, but to avoid any misunderstandings, the "Fog of War" function ALWAYS dissipates before it arrives at the destination. It's primary goal is to mask the amount of incoming attacks upon a target UPON LAUNCH and render those waves immune from "Instant Reveal" for the 1st portion of the march duration. After that countdown runs out, the waves appear per usual and the defender has the option to use "Instant Reveal" if s/he likes.
-Kaleel

[quote][b]Vasalo: [/b]I'd like to see scouts able to scout [...] If the attacker doesn't put in enough scouts to kill yours then the fog of war would be lifted.[/quote]

...I'm not sure what you mean by that statement. I don't see how the "Fog of War" function prevents scouts from doing their current function (it's not like we can currently send scouts to counter-attack an incoming attack wave in order to perform espionage on that wave anyway).

Can you please clarify with an example or scenario to illustrate your point?

-Kaleel

I'd like to see scouts able to scout. Have the option to sacrifice scouts just like when going after a city. If the attacker doesn't put in enough scouts to kill yours then the fog of war would be lifted.

[b]@Tooltip[/b][b]: [/b]I had a hard time trying to figure this one out, but the way that the "Reveal Incoming Troops" currently works is that you have to be able to select the specific wave you want to reveal. Well, "Fog of War" doesn't let the beseiged player know how many waves are coming at him, so technically, he [u][b]can't[/b][/u] use the "Reveal Incoming Troops" feature until the "Fog of War" dissipates on its own and his able to select a specific wave.

[quote][b]What the enemy sees: [/b]Instead of receiving the formal notification of the crossed-swords-on-a-shield icon showing the number of incoming attack waves, a different icon appears: that of a question mark imposed upon a cloud of fog (I'm just making these up -- I'm sure the developers can be more imaginative).

This is their only indication that they have an incoming attack. But they have no idea how many attacks (unless they are Chaos'd -- see below) or when it will get to them. And the enemy cannot use the the "Reveal Incoming Troops" option, because they would have to pick which wave to reveal, and the Fog of War indiscriminately masks all the waves as one. Instead, they just receive an error message saying, "You cannot permeate the fog of war."[/quote]

To be clear, the enemy is still able to use "Reveal Incoming Troops" on incoming waves which are not masked by "Fog of War". See example below:

[b]GIVEN: [/b]I'm attacking you. I send 10x waves at you but use "Fog of War" on 3x of them (doesn't matter which 3x for this discussion). This is what we see in our respective screens of RALLY POINT >> MOVEMENT:

[u][b]WHAT I SEE:[/b][/u]

[TABLE]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 3"]Outgoing Troops[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"]Arrival In
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Normal Icon[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"]Attack on {target name}[/TD]
[TD]03:58:00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD]Normal Icon[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"]Attack on {target name}[/TD]
[TD]04:00:00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]3[/TD]
[TD][color=#ff8c00]Fog of War Icon[/color][/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"]Attack on {target name}[/TD]
[TD]04:05:00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"][color=#ff8c00]20% cloak: Fog lifts in:[/color]
[/TD]
[TD][color=#ff8c00]00:49:00[/color]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]4[/TD]
[TD]Normal Icon[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"]Attack on {target name}[/TD]
[TD]01:48:00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]5[/TD]
[TD]Normal Icon[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"]Attack on {target name}[/TD]
[TD]01:55:00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]6[/TD]
[TD][color=#ff8c00]Fog of War Icon
[/color][/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"]Attack on {target name}[/TD]
[TD]02:00:00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"][color=#ff8c00]50% cloak: Fog lifts in
[/color][/TD]
[TD][color=#ff8c00]01:00:00[/color]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD][color=#ff8c00]Fog of War Icon[/color][/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"]Attack on {target name}[/TD]
[TD]09:50:00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"][color=#ff8c00]40% cloak: Fog lifts in
[/color][/TD]
[TD][color=#ff8c00]03:55:48[/color]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]8[/TD]
[TD]Normal Icon[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"]Attack on {target name}
[/TD]
[TD]05:00:00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]9[/TD]
[TD]Normal Icon[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"]Attack on {target name}[/TD]
[TD]05:05:00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]10[/TD]
[TD]Normal Icon[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"]Attack on {target name}[/TD]
[TD]05:07:00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]







[u][b]WHAT YOU SEE[/b][/u]

[TABLE]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 3"]Incoming Troops[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 3"]Arrival In[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Normal Icon[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"]Attack from {source name}[/TD]
[TD]<Instant Report>[/TD]
[TD]03:58:00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD]Normal Icon[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"]Attack from {source name}[/TD]
[TD]<Instant Report>[/TD]
[TD]04:00:00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]3[/TD]
[TD]Normal Icon[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"]Attack from {source name}[/TD]
[TD]<Instant Report>[/TD]
[TD]01:48:00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]4[/TD]
[TD]Normal Icon[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"]Attack from {source name}[/TD]
[TD]<Instant Report>[/TD]
[TD]01:55:00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]5[/TD]
[TD]Normal Icon[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"]Attack from {source name}[/TD]
[TD]<Instant Report>[/TD]
[TD]05:00:00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]6[/TD]
[TD]Normal Icon[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"]Attack from {source name}[/TD]
[TD]<Instant Report>[/TD]
[TD]05:05:00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]Normal Icon[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"]Attack from {source name}[/TD]
[TD]<Instant Report>[/TD]
[TD]05:07:00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][color=#ff8c00]???
[/color][/TD]
[TD][color=#ff8c00]Fog of War Icon[/color][/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"][color=#ff8c00]Attack from ???
[/color][/TD]
[TD]<Instant Report>[/TD]
[TD][color=#ff8c00]??:??:??[/color][/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

... so if you are being attacked, you can still use instant report on waves #1-7, but if you try to apply it to the "Fog of War" wave, you get the error message stated above. And the reason I don't recommend disabling the Instant Report function on the Fog of War line is to avoid a bunch of people complaining to the helpdesk saying "The Reveal Troops icon isn't work properly, it doesn't appear on all incoming attacks, fix this."

After 1 hour goes, two of the shortest "Fog of War" durations will expire, so your screen will now show the following (the lines in blue represent which wave was cloaked by "Fog of War"):

[TABLE]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 3"]Incoming Troops
[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 3"]Arrival In[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]1[/TD]
[TD]Normal Icon[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"]Attack from {source name}[/TD]
[TD]<Instant Report>[/TD]
[TD]02:58:00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]2[/TD]
[TD]Normal Icon[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"]Attack from {source name}[/TD]
[TD]<Instant Report>[/TD]
[TD]03:00:00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]3[/TD]
[TD][color=#0000ff]Normal Icon
[/color][/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"][color=#0000ff]Attack from {source name}[/color][/TD]
[TD][color=#0000ff]<Instant Report>[/color][/TD]
[TD][color=#0000ff]03:05:00[/color]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]4[/TD]
[TD]Normal Icon[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"]Attack from {source name}[/TD]
[TD]<Instant Report>[/TD]
[TD]00:48:00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]5[/TD]
[TD]Normal Icon[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"]Attack from {source name}[/TD]
[TD]<Instant Report>[/TD]
[TD]00:55:00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]6
[/TD]
[TD][color=#0000ff]Normal Icon
[/color][/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"][color=#0000ff]Attack from {source name}[/color][/TD]
[TD][color=#0000ff]<Instant Report>[/color][/TD]
[TD][color=#0000ff]01:00:00
[/color][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]7[/TD]
[TD]Normal Icon
[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"]Attack from {source name}
[/TD]
[TD]<Instant Report>[/TD]
[TD]04:00:00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]8[/TD]
[TD]Normal Icon
[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"]Attack from {source name}
[/TD]
[TD]<Instant Report>
[/TD]
[TD]04:06:00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]9
[/TD]
[TD]Normal Icon
[/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"]Attack from {source name}
[/TD]
[TD]<Instant Report>
[/TD]
[TD]04:07:00
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD][color=#ff8c00]???
[/color][/TD]
[TD][color=#ff8c00]Fog of War Icon
[/color][/TD]
[TD="colspan: 2"][color=#ff8c00]Attack from ???
[/color][/TD]
[TD][color=#ff8c00]<Instant Report>
[/color][/TD]
[TD][color=#ff8c00]??:??:??
[/color][/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

... and so forth.

Does this help?
-Kaleel

How should Reveal Troops interact with Fog of War?