CoH2 Mod, Fog of War and Truesight
Posted: 25 Nov 2016, 23:39
EDIT: Mod description at viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1192&p=12928#p12928
EDIT: Steam link posted at viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1696
Hi,
Since the latest beta patch (4.9.6) has the experimental feature with fog of war, I want to talk about how I've taken a similar concept and successfully (opinion) put it into my mod. While the actually feature is essentially the same, there are some huge differences between BK and my mod that makes it work in my mod but not in BK. But, maybe it can be worked into BK. If not, at least entice you to check out my mod and see the difference in gameplay. Buckle up, it's a long one.
Mechanic:
For those who haven't followed the beta closely, the experimental feature is units are no longer revealed in the fog of war when attacking/using abilities. This essentially means that you can take fire from a unit and never truly know where it is coming from.
Impact on BK Artillery
So for example, you may never know where a howitzer is shooting from while you get bombarded. This makes a lot of gameplay change because it makes counter barraging much harder, making howitzers in general more powerful as they can rain never ending shells from the sky with safety. A lot more criticism and opinions can be found on this post: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1503#p14661
Impact on BK Support Units
The feature doesn't just stop at buffing artillery though. Units like mortars and snipers became the center of controversy as well because they impose more of their already dominating power onto the battlefield. The new fog of war essentially shields them to continue to exert their power. Personally, I haven't felt that buff THAT much yet in BK in the few beta games I've played, but I can imagine the frustration for people who have had that experience.
Impact on my mod Artillery
My mod handles artillery very very differently than BK, which means that the beta fog of war feature has a very different impact on the artillery landscape. Firstly, artillery in my mod is managed through an off-map "request system". My goal in my mod is to create the company scale atmosphere, which means that artillery batteries won't exist on the battlefield. There will be no howitzers or artillery emplacements in my mod, even though the models exist. Artillery is called in by officers, observers, and radiomen that are fielded within your company. In a squad (a group of 9 men) there could be a radio man who can call in artillery based on vision. The observer in the squad will mark the target (using smoke unless you have a veteraned forward observer, which is its unit, who can relay coordinates) for to a dedicated artillery command. Different factions will have different shared cooldowns and artillery call ins based on some historical practices:
http://etloh.8m.com/strategy/artil.html
If the radioman dies, then your squad will not be able to call in artillery. That being said, there is no "off-map ability" that can be casted where ever, no blind firing into the fog of war, and no "artillery in base/basebombing" rule (aka basebombing is fixed because the only time you can basebomb is if you see the base, which normally signifies you have either won or lost and are using artillery to end it).
What fog of war does now is pretty much protects units from artillery more than buffs artillery. With the beta fog of war feature, units are less likely to get mercilessly bombed by "click to kill" abilities. This puts more focus on combat than click to kill abilities. With smoke marked targets and vision requirements, artillery actually became less of a tool for killing and more for forcing forces to move and/or taking out defenses as they were used historically.
Impact on my mod Support Units - Mortars
Similarly to artillery, a lot of supporting units behave differently in my mod and so are affected differently by the fog of war system. The unit that probably has most people concerned are mortars. The way I have made mortars work in my mod is they only bombard with the ability and munition cost. So, they've essentially become what artillery emplacements in BK are, but with much less power. My reasoning is that most mortar systems aren't reactive, but instead rely on a command by a leading element. They can fire into the fog of war with a very long range as they would historically, which really makes them comparable to an artillery emplacement in BK. This makes them pretty powerful, but they still come with quite the trade off. They are expensive, fragile, and require micro for something of relatively less powerful than a howitzer in BK. They are absolutely instrumental and important to a company, as they were historically, but they definitely do not drive the game because they heavily rely on some type of frontline to protect them. So even if you can't see them in the fog of war bombing your units, they are annoyances at most and can be hunted by your units. Just imagine briefing a your soldiers "we are faced by constant shelling, we suspect mortars are hiding in this location. first platoon will recon the area and destroy the mortar."
Impact on my mod Support Units - Snipers/marksmen
Because I changed the scale of the game to a company size, units are much larger and require a whole different philosophy in strategy. In BK, two snipers can cut down a six man squad quickly and force a retreat in fear of a squad wipe, a squad of nine won't think too much about a single sniper except maybe psychologically. Snipers have become support units at most in my mod. They provide extra "damage" and morale affects (damage and health are done differently in my mod) on squads rather than become single operating units themselves. Relative range, they actually have the same as other units but they fire with more accuracy to give that little boost/edge in a fight. In fact, it gets really interesting when you include the "tunnel vision" feature. What I've done in my mod is, if an infantry squad is in combat, they get "tunnel vision" which means they get a cone of vision instead. This coupled with the beta fog of war means that you can divert a unit's attention by engaging in a fire fight, then maneuvering assault units to flank or putting supporting units like snipers on the flanks to pick off units safely behind the beta fog of war. This makes vision heavily dependent on formation. For example, blobs will have huge tradeoffs and can be intentionally or unintentionally. Lets say a player wants to take a clausewitz approach to attacking, they create a huge blob to pressure a single point in an enemy defense. The blob runs the risk of being massacred just from vision because if they all get engaged simultaneously, then a player will be vulnerable to many blind spots.
Anyways back to snipers, if a squad faces a sniper, that squad will put so much fire on the sniper that sniper won't have a chance to cut down a 9 man squad fast enough without getting eaten alive. Snipers are supports at most even with the fog of war.
EDIT: Steam link posted at viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1696
Hi,
Since the latest beta patch (4.9.6) has the experimental feature with fog of war, I want to talk about how I've taken a similar concept and successfully (opinion) put it into my mod. While the actually feature is essentially the same, there are some huge differences between BK and my mod that makes it work in my mod but not in BK. But, maybe it can be worked into BK. If not, at least entice you to check out my mod and see the difference in gameplay. Buckle up, it's a long one.
Mechanic:
For those who haven't followed the beta closely, the experimental feature is units are no longer revealed in the fog of war when attacking/using abilities. This essentially means that you can take fire from a unit and never truly know where it is coming from.
Impact on BK Artillery
So for example, you may never know where a howitzer is shooting from while you get bombarded. This makes a lot of gameplay change because it makes counter barraging much harder, making howitzers in general more powerful as they can rain never ending shells from the sky with safety. A lot more criticism and opinions can be found on this post: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1503#p14661
Impact on BK Support Units
The feature doesn't just stop at buffing artillery though. Units like mortars and snipers became the center of controversy as well because they impose more of their already dominating power onto the battlefield. The new fog of war essentially shields them to continue to exert their power. Personally, I haven't felt that buff THAT much yet in BK in the few beta games I've played, but I can imagine the frustration for people who have had that experience.
Impact on my mod Artillery
My mod handles artillery very very differently than BK, which means that the beta fog of war feature has a very different impact on the artillery landscape. Firstly, artillery in my mod is managed through an off-map "request system". My goal in my mod is to create the company scale atmosphere, which means that artillery batteries won't exist on the battlefield. There will be no howitzers or artillery emplacements in my mod, even though the models exist. Artillery is called in by officers, observers, and radiomen that are fielded within your company. In a squad (a group of 9 men) there could be a radio man who can call in artillery based on vision. The observer in the squad will mark the target (using smoke unless you have a veteraned forward observer, which is its unit, who can relay coordinates) for to a dedicated artillery command. Different factions will have different shared cooldowns and artillery call ins based on some historical practices:
http://etloh.8m.com/strategy/artil.html
If the radioman dies, then your squad will not be able to call in artillery. That being said, there is no "off-map ability" that can be casted where ever, no blind firing into the fog of war, and no "artillery in base/basebombing" rule (aka basebombing is fixed because the only time you can basebomb is if you see the base, which normally signifies you have either won or lost and are using artillery to end it).
What fog of war does now is pretty much protects units from artillery more than buffs artillery. With the beta fog of war feature, units are less likely to get mercilessly bombed by "click to kill" abilities. This puts more focus on combat than click to kill abilities. With smoke marked targets and vision requirements, artillery actually became less of a tool for killing and more for forcing forces to move and/or taking out defenses as they were used historically.
Impact on my mod Support Units - Mortars
Similarly to artillery, a lot of supporting units behave differently in my mod and so are affected differently by the fog of war system. The unit that probably has most people concerned are mortars. The way I have made mortars work in my mod is they only bombard with the ability and munition cost. So, they've essentially become what artillery emplacements in BK are, but with much less power. My reasoning is that most mortar systems aren't reactive, but instead rely on a command by a leading element. They can fire into the fog of war with a very long range as they would historically, which really makes them comparable to an artillery emplacement in BK. This makes them pretty powerful, but they still come with quite the trade off. They are expensive, fragile, and require micro for something of relatively less powerful than a howitzer in BK. They are absolutely instrumental and important to a company, as they were historically, but they definitely do not drive the game because they heavily rely on some type of frontline to protect them. So even if you can't see them in the fog of war bombing your units, they are annoyances at most and can be hunted by your units. Just imagine briefing a your soldiers "we are faced by constant shelling, we suspect mortars are hiding in this location. first platoon will recon the area and destroy the mortar."
Impact on my mod Support Units - Snipers/marksmen
Because I changed the scale of the game to a company size, units are much larger and require a whole different philosophy in strategy. In BK, two snipers can cut down a six man squad quickly and force a retreat in fear of a squad wipe, a squad of nine won't think too much about a single sniper except maybe psychologically. Snipers have become support units at most in my mod. They provide extra "damage" and morale affects (damage and health are done differently in my mod) on squads rather than become single operating units themselves. Relative range, they actually have the same as other units but they fire with more accuracy to give that little boost/edge in a fight. In fact, it gets really interesting when you include the "tunnel vision" feature. What I've done in my mod is, if an infantry squad is in combat, they get "tunnel vision" which means they get a cone of vision instead. This coupled with the beta fog of war means that you can divert a unit's attention by engaging in a fire fight, then maneuvering assault units to flank or putting supporting units like snipers on the flanks to pick off units safely behind the beta fog of war. This makes vision heavily dependent on formation. For example, blobs will have huge tradeoffs and can be intentionally or unintentionally. Lets say a player wants to take a clausewitz approach to attacking, they create a huge blob to pressure a single point in an enemy defense. The blob runs the risk of being massacred just from vision because if they all get engaged simultaneously, then a player will be vulnerable to many blind spots.
Anyways back to snipers, if a squad faces a sniper, that squad will put so much fire on the sniper that sniper won't have a chance to cut down a 9 man squad fast enough without getting eaten alive. Snipers are supports at most even with the fog of war.