Please integrate fog of war

[Stray952]

Truie's Fog of War mod has the right idea, but its clear this needs to be in the base game. People like to gain information at times and at others they like to wade into the unknown. Providing perfect information robs us of both. Adding these mechanics will keep players from being blind and reinvigorate a sense of discovery and player agency. I think implementing this spin on Truie's mod concept will make the world feel more adventurous and less like a board game.

Firstly, I think we need to define the difference between intelligence and information (relative to this game). Information is data without assessment or importance, i.e. troop numbers, while intelligence is something that has been analyzed, like relative combat effectiveness between you and an enemy ruler, or that ruler's plans. Given that this is a videogame, enemy ruler's plans are always 100% knowable.

Now we need to divide information into different categories.

Millitary Information
No 'players' on the map should have access to perfect military information. Truie's mod offers a mechanic where you can have the spymaster construct intelligence gathering networks in other countries. This is a great idea.
* Too many games reduce this to clicking "build spy network" button and waiting, which is SO boring and SUCH a waste of potential.

- Here's how I would implement it:
Spymaster task - build spy network (replaces gather secrets) - spymaster starts with network in owned-holds.
Tier 1 - Network in enemy/vassal holds provides complete, local military and economic information relative enemy combat power. Is free domestically, but costs very small gold to maintain abroad. Provides awareness of targeted ruler's vassals and court, which can now be targeted.
Tier 2 - Spymaster seeks to recruit spy in court. Kicks off event stream that allows players to choose quality/risk of spy. Grants player "gathering secrets"-like ability and has 100% information on courtiers/vassals in this court as long as spy remains.
Tier 3 - Spymaster seeks to recruit a member of enemy council or first-tier associate. Also kicks off event stream. Once recruited, player gains global awareness of enemy troop locations and %chance to learn of enemy plans. Meaning you will get a notification.

Diplomatic information.

Having perfect information on every court down to the specific genetic traits of courtiers makes the game SO BORING. This should function similarly to the building spy networks but be much faster and free. Replace the Diplomacy do-nothing button with targeted 'build diplomatic ties' button. Without diplomatic ties established, immediately adjacent cultures are only visible as highest level ruler and/or vassal who is bordering you. Distant cultures are only visible by cultural identity.
Tier 1 - Emissaries - Very quick ~2 weeks. Gives all official diplomatic information, i.e. truce, war, allies, targeted ruler's council. Kicks off event stream that can have big impacts on cultural/foreign ruler opinion if handled poorly.
Tier 2 - Diplomatic presence - Gives visibility on targeted ruler's vassals and neighbors once established, kicks off diplomatic event stream where players can choose to improve relations. Now that vassals and neighbors are visible, they can be sent emissaries.
Tier 3 - Embassy - Fuzzy on this one. Provides complete diplomatic information on kingdom and vassals as well as bordering rulers/vassals, kicks off event stream with options to advocate for player interests.

[Tebeas]

If the AI was not changed to follow the rules of fog of war it would get even more unfair advantages over the player. If it did get adjusted for fog of war it would be even more brain dead. Implementing such mechanics would require more or less rewriting all of the AI code hence that will never happen. Civ 5 had fog of war and the AI did not cheat which means the player had a large advantage over it. Of course a competent AI that does not cheat can be programmed yet that is not an easy and cheap task not to mention not many humans care about that stuff hence it rarely gets coded.

[Stray952]

Disagree entirely. Let the AI have it, who cares. AI is not very good in this game, so not really a difficulty issue

You say that like when you fight a group of aliens in Halo the game is modeling all of their individual perspectives... its not. The AI is modeled to give the player a specific perception or experience.

Additionally, the AI already *doesn't* pour through records to find potential mates with Herculean or Genius traits to pull into their secret breeding programs. If anything, this puts the player down to a cognizance more fair to the AI we all stomp all over.

[Tebeas]

Originally posted by Stray952:

Disagree entirely. Let the AI have it, who cares. AI is not very good in this game, so not really a difficulty issue

You say that like when you fight a group of aliens in Halo the game is modeling all of their individual perspectives... its not. The AI is modeled to give the player a specific perception or experience.

Additionally, the AI already *doesn't* pour through records to find potential mates with Herculean or Genius traits to pull into their secret breeding programs. If anything, this puts the player down to a cognizance more fair to the AI we all stomp all over.

I can assure you the moment an AI deathstack walks outs of the mist and targets your divided army groups terminator style you will get angry. The AI already ignores attrition and can change moving directions like 5 times without moving out of a tile. If you wanted to be clever you could have said scripting. If we go into technical details the game has no AI to begin with. That aside it would be a very, very bad idea because as I said the rest of the games mechanics would not be adjusted. The AI would attempt 5% succees chance murder schemes due to a 'lack of info' and entire dynasties would jail each other.

The games AI either does not or barely utilizes the mechanics we have now. Adding so many additional layers of code would make the game unplayable. Running eugenics programs and having heat vision are completely different things btw.

[pauloandrade224]

i hope we dont get that mod basekit that would suck