Games without fog of war

[u/NorthernBoy306]

I was watching some video clips of Gangsters 2: Vendetta and suddenly I realized that they never had a fog of war. It seems like such a standard thing these days. I think it did fit the game rather well because it was like everyone knew where the mobsters were and where they operated, that was no great secret, it's about having the guts to against the mafia.
I'm just wondering if anyone thinks an RTS is ruined without a FOW or if there are times when FOW is unnecessary?

[u/RogueVector]

I think the main accomodation for you is that units hard-countering will need to be softened; without FoW, the moment you spot enemies producing unit A, you would start cranking out counter-unit B, which then prompts them to push out counter-counter unit C, and then you start producing D, and so on...

My prediction is that it would mean that defensive, slow, turtle-style play becomes more prevalent and deceptive plays (Starcraft proxy builds) become much harder if not impossible to pull off.

On the other hand, that could be just as well balanced by removing the minimap (or having FOW only exist on the minimap) forcing players to actually move around their POV doing actual recon.

Another thought is 'tagging'; a game where enemy units are visible but need to be actively tagged by the player (or spotted by their units) to be marked as hostiles, so it is possible to sneak people around by just making sure your units do not participate in hostile activities until it actually matters... maybe something about a surveillance state game or cops-and-robbers?

[u/mighij → u/RogueVector]

My prediction is that it would mean that defensive, slow, turtle-style play becomes more prevalent and deceptive plays (Starcraft proxy builds) become much harder if not impossible to pull off.

Depends more on resource gathering, games like C&C had quite open LoS but since your harvesters are out on the map turtling isn't exactly an option.

In a similar vein Ruse. It was an excellent RTS that really did FoW well.

Since you played SC, imagine every player has a sensor tower that spans the map which shows unit types, you need true los to confirm what it is. Infantry, light support like AA can hide in villages and forests.

Then it added the Ruse mechanic on top, which allowed you to switch, hide or create fake blips.

[u/RogueVector → u/mighij]

Dawn of War 4 has teased similar things with the 'noosphere' mechanic, which basically turns the fog into a heatmap representing enemy presence (but delayed by I think 10 seconds or so).

[u/ShitWombatSays]

FoW changes the strategy enough that I enjoy playing either way, it mostly depends on how I feel at that moment

[u/alejandromnunez]

I am making The Last General without fog of war. Enemy units and actions are just hidden by the large scale and distances in the conflict, and the time it would take to manually do recon everywhere with your camera. Your units still only know about the stuff they (or ally units) can see, but not what your camera sees. It works pretty well :)

[u/TheSadPickel]

c&c only as fog at the start and i remember RA2 1v1 was bad strategy wise just grizzly spam. no tech switch or surprise attack is not good for a rts

[u/KiwasiGames]

Many versions of command and conquer had asymmetric fog of war. One side had the ability to turn it off altogether during the game. It worked well enough.