I'm trying to figure out what the rationale is for not allowing the viewing of history during a fogged game? I'm not sure if this is a default and/or an option that is soley in the hands of the map designer to select.  Regardless, I can't see the valid purpose of it, and so I'm suggesting that it not be made the default or an option at all.

For one, it's a significant advantage to the last player who joins a game, or the player who moves first, because they can immediately see the begin state of a game.    If you're moving near the end, you can lose a lot of information for no other reason than that you moved later in the order. 

But, in general, I don't see what purpose it serves to hide information that you could see if you happen to be in front of the map during other players' turns, or are willing to refresh the screen during other players' turns as I do in real-time games.   It's not like being able to view the history would unveil fogged information that you couldn't otherwise see.

So, even if it turns out to solely be the designer's choice, why make it an option?  What purpose does it server other than to unnecessarily complicate a game and give an unfair advantage to those who move first?  

At the very least, to be fair, all players should be able to see the initial state of the map.

Agreed with you.

It's a designer option like in Colossal Crusade. This is why I don't like this board, which would be a good one otherwise. 

The rationale is that some don't want people to learn from viewing what your strategy is. Also, it's right you might play in a different manner if you know no one will be able to watch the history. But in this case, as you said, someone could be watching live with the refresh button, or between turns. Best is to avoid these boards.

Mostly Harmless wrote:

At the very least, to be fair, all players should be able to see the initial state of the map.

I'm in favor of fogged games; however, I do agree with this point.

Agree with this. I like to think about the real world analogue. Fog is supposed to (obviously) represent the fog of war. Your scouts/radar/spies/view from a very tall tree only tell you so much about the world. Based on this limited information, you act. You also keep track of this information. When Toto's scouts see Mostly Harmless's army marching south through the desert, they report that back to command. Command doesn't neglect this fact based on contingent timing. War is not fought by a bunch of folks with short-term memory loss. They know which territory they took last year, and when they lose a territory they know when it happened and who took it. (Usually).

Toto is right that the choice could effect play, but perhaps the power to view history should be default on, or at least be an option for the game creator rather than the game designer. 

Is the rule connected to the maps? or to the fog option?

The designer has no control over these matters.. They can mandate that there is only one fog option for the game, or otherwise set a default.

I can follow the logic regarding the RW analogue, but I submit that right from the start of many wars, there are sometimes more unknowns than during the middle parts.  Noone saw the Trojan Horse or Pearl Harbor coming. Regardless, I think settings such as Light Fog reasonably satisfies the requirements you speak of.  It's good enough to know who occupies what, but troop strength is generally a closely guarded secret before any battle.

A good designer can create scenarios (with lots of fog) where everything (or many things) are well known before the start of the game even if you can't see them.  Any game board with fixed starting positions is an example of this.  Anyone that's played Waterloo a few times, or taken the time to look at the Board Explorer knows the opening enemy positions even if they can't see them from the start.

Beyond that, there are many boards, such as Pangea (Rise of the Chimps) where lots of opening fog is preferred to satisfy the backstory.

Cut to the chase: I think this could be nice Designer feature (I probably would have used it in Waterloo), and possibly a game Creator feature, but there are so many ways to implement it that I doubt we'd reach consensus in the community regarding how it would work.  FWIW, I think the Designer community would put this pretty low on the long list of requests ..but I could be wrong - we're a fickle bunch.

History is viewable in fogged games - the distinction is games where the Designer has set 'Game History' to Hide. Generally I'm not a fan of that setting but I think it has it's uses on maps where players can use unique strategies and hide them from post-game analysis.

Colossal Crusade is an example where Game History is disabled on the Default scenario but Enabled on the Solar scenario.

tom wrote:

History is viewable in fogged games - the distinction is games where the Designer has set 'Game History' to Hide. Generally I'm not a fan of that setting but I think it has it's uses on maps where players can use unique strategies and hide them from post-game analysis.

Colossal Crusade is an example where Game History is disabled on the Default scenario but Enabled on the Solar scenario.

Would it be difficult to program it so that you only see the board on your turn? 

Or even better, that when you go to history you can see the board as it was at set-up (your field of view) and scroll through the history to only see what the board looked like on your own turns (fogged at all other times?).

If you log on fairly often you can screenshot the board at various times in these type of games.  Making it so you can only see the board on your own turn would help hide this type of information and be truer to the purpose of the setting.

I second what Andernut is suggesting. The hide history is not as strict as it could be. Another hole is that a hidden history should only track luck stats of rolls you or your team made on your turns. I've used luck stats in Arm Wrestle to achieve near certain knowledge of my opponent's forces. It's a silly game, but the only way to give it any nuance is to not give away so much information.

Hugh wrote:

 I've used luck stats in Arm Wrestle to achieve near certain knowledge of my opponent's forces. It's a silly game, but the only way to give it any nuance is to not give away so much information.

You snake!  Very nice.

Even "Fog" is not as foggy as it could be since looking at how many fogged turns happen in between turns you can see can give you vital information.  I've also been tempted in Colossal Crusade games to log in often and screen shot the boards. 

I don't think there are any boards where "special tactics" exist that warrant the "hide history forever" setting. 

Reading some of the last points make me realize that I should have better worded my original post that started this thread...

I should have said... I don't understand the purpose of the not allowing the viewing of the history in a fogged game... when it is not evenly applied (example, those who move first have an advantage) or can be partially circumvented by frequent refreshing/reviewing of the game.

There have been some recent good suggestions for closing the loopholes that would satisfy both the intent of hiding the history and keeping it fair.

Andernut's suggestion was a good one... to only allow you to see the state of the map on your turn.  But, I like to think about the game between turns and I wouldn't be able to refer to the map during that time.  So, that's why I think his other suggestion would have to be used in conjunction,  to show the history, but only your history with no indication of how many other turns were taken in between.   

I'm a little confused because even when history is hidden, you can view it after the game. So, I'm not sure when it is that you can't view the post-game history.  That's not the scenario I was describing. 

The only other thing I'd add is that all players should be able to see the state of the map at the beginning of the game, not just the first player. 

So, in summary, my suggestion is:

In the case where history is hidden during a game but not afterwards, I would fog the whole map when it's not your turn and change the definition of "hiding the history" to mean that the history of all other players is hidden so that you can't even tell how many turns were taken by other players in between yours... And I also would include the opening set up step to be visible to all players in their history.   Since one could conceivably screen-shot and save each of their turns, this solution is not defeating the current implementation, only making it easier in the same way that providing a summary of bonuses to premium players doesn't give them any more information, just makes it easier to collect.

An additional usability feature if the history is going to show all your turns right after each might be to offer some kind of delineation in the history so you could see when  each of your turns began and ended.   (I know you can look at timestamps and figure this out, but it'd be easier if it was more clearly marked).  Even when the full history is available, I always thought it'd be nice if it was easier to jump to specific turns (warfish has this feature, maybe it's time to re-visit that site  ;-)  Just kidding.).

Mostly Harmless wrote:

Andernut's suggestion was a good one... to only allow you to see the state of the map on your turn.  But, I like to think about the game between turns and I wouldn't be able to refer to the map during that time.  So, that's why I think his other suggestion would have to be used in conjunction,  to show the history, but only your history with no indication of how many other turns were taken in between.   

 

This doesn't seem too difficult to remedy.. Just have it so that whenever you check a map when it is not your turn, it shows the position at the end of your last turn.