Looking at open games recently more and more are fogged. I feel like the last of the unfoggers. Maybe I don't take enough time to play each game and analyze the layers the fog adds. I have a hard enough time with no fog!

Most of the games I create are 3 days, curious what is the sweet spot for some of you? i like 3 days in case I miss a day on here bit it seems like some boards are considered too slow and some of players want one day.

Well, if you remember our last game on Hawaii it was poised to become an endless marathon 3-man ending when the 3rd man finally lost patience and lost the game for himself and me. Fog prevents those sort of endings in most cases.

3-day games are good enough for me. I enter 1, 2 and 3-day games without being too fussed about what it is, but I only create 3-day to allow in players who might struggle to log on every day.

I've noticed the same. The percentage of no fog open games seems to have decreased.

Guess we unfoggers need to create more games to keep up with the foggers.

Litotes wrote:..it was poised to become an endless marathon 3-man ending when the 3rd man finally lost patience and lost the game for himself and me. Fog prevents those sort of endings in most cases.

A big +1. When you can see everything on the board, in some ways the games is harder (especially with good players) because it becomes all about taking out weak players whilst maintaining a balance of power. But these games tend to be tactically monochromatic, discourage creativity, and as @L pointed out, become drawn out and end up being quite boring.

It's like playing 5 card stud with all cards up. There's just no bluffing and the person with the best knowledge of the hand odds has an advantage. A great way to learn the game, but BOOORRRING, especially for good players.

I will agree that un-fogged games are generally best for beginners because it's the best way to learn the mechanics of game, but my guess is that well over 95% of the top-tier players (i.e. players better than me) on this site prefer fogged games. That should tell you something right there.

There are other advantages of fogged games. For example, because you can't be sure of the veracity of a player's claims, fog discourages alliances - and I'm one of those people who find that alliances ruin the game. I also find that fog adds a touch of realism. After all, you shouldn't be able to see what's not next to you or in your line of sight. I'm sure there are exceptions, but fog just makes most boards a MUCH better game. I "one of those people" who avoids all un-fogged games unless I'm teaching someone how a board works.

It's also worth mentioning there are boards that all but require fog to be fully functional. One of the most popular boards on the site, Invention, comes to mind. One of my board designs, Renaissance Wars needs fog for the spies to work.

My advice once you become comfortable with the game ..come on over to the dark side 🕶 ;)

M57, great advice, will take to heart. I have hard enough time winning without fog but see your point, will dip toes going forward and see how it goes.

Thanks

Silver Fox, if you after trying it still don't like fog, you can try Pratik's favourite type of boards and see if you like those. We have some strategic diceless boards where using fog very rarely if at all happens, also between top players, like Five, Seven, Seven Redux, Octagon, Hex, Ten-Propagate and Go-Geared. Of course, all of those are just two player games.

If you don't like those either and really want to play fogless then I recommend bigger games (in terms of number of players) on smaller boards with and escalating card scale. Playing Wargear Warfare fogless with 10 player rarely leads to a stalemate (although it can happen).