Fog of War

The “fog of war” represents the visibility of your units, as well as tactical information that you have gathered throughout the course of the mission.

The dithered areas are under the fog of war, whereas the totally black areas have not yet been explored.

At the start of a mission, most of the map will be black, except for where your units stand, the location of your base, and certain strategic targets that have been scouted out for you in advance. The black areas of the map represent places where you have absolutely no knowledge. You don’t know what lies there, neither regarding the terrain nor placement of enemy forces.

As your units move around the map, they uncover areas of the map according to each one’s individual sight range, which is a circle around the unit representing how far it can see. Units can see in all directions regardless of which way they are facing; however, terrain features such as cliffs, trees, and slopes may hinder their sight range. You can see these terrain effects by watching how the fog of war reacts to them as a unit moves around. Units on lower ground have a difficult time seeing higher ground; units on cliffs have a hard time seeing the very bottom edge of that cliff; and solid obstacles such as trees and mountains can block line of sight entirely.

Any area where you once gathered reconnaissance, yet is not presently within the sight range of one of your units or structures, will be “fogged.” Fogged areas display a darkened shroud over the terrain. You retain knowledge of the terrain and any enemy structures that were there, but you cannot see enemy unit movements. Also, any enemy buildings under the fog of war are frozen in time; you knew they were there at one point, but changes that occur to those buildings are not updated on your map until you once again uncover the fog of war over that area. A building might have been destroyed in the meantime, or the enemy may have put up additional structures; but the only way to know is to get a unit over there to take a look at the situation.

The fog of war mechanism requires that you actively scout areas to keep tabs on what is taking place around the map. The first part to any well-waged war is reconnaissance. Furthermore, units cannot shoot into the fog of war; thus, anyone who can successfully manage to hide outside of the sight range of his enemy cannot be retaliated against.