How hard would it be to make an invisible enemy map/game?
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How hard would it be to make a game map where you can't see the other sides units?
I am not a programmer so have no clue how these wonderful game engines and maps are created. I just loved the original A&A board game and then from that when online found Triple A many years ago. I ended up liking the expanded map and game play of Big World 1942 and further more liked v3 so I started to only play that map.
I've often dreamed of the scenario where you could not see the enemies units after start of game - with one game tweak. Fighters could also be used as scout planes - i.e. start of each countries turn after the purchase phase before combat movement phase you could select any fighters you have on map and select a root for them to fly within there movement capability - they have to take off and land from yours or allied territory/aircraft carriers. Then the enemy gets any AA guns (or in this case a new rule for battleships who also get 1 shot each - if more than one battleship - but has to role a 1 - like an AA gun does on land but unlike land guns where you only get 1 shot per territory regardless of how many guns are stationed there battleships get 1 shot each). If planes hit they lost shot down. However if missed - any survive - upon landing photos they took in recon are considered developed and all squares flown over everything inside is revealed for that turn. Any fighters used as recon air can not be used again that round in combat - they are stuck where they landed after their recon flight. So in effect fighters become like your eyes. You then do your combat movement phase as normal but the info revealed can be really useful in where to attack or if to attack or what units to move up in non combat phase for defence. This I feel would make an awesome game especially as navy's could be secretly built up and try to sail undetected. Other than the above tweaks for fighters and battleships all other game rules would remain the same. Oh and the defender would be shown an orange flash on any territory wherever it had a shot at a recon plane - regardless of if it hit or missed. It could even flash red if it had a hit. The orange though would give an idea of where a plane had come from as you know a plane can only fly 4 or 6 (with tech) spaces total so gives an idea for when it is there turn where plane could have landed or that enemy carriers must be about if in middle of sea and to far from enemy land territories.
That has been my dream forever so at least I have managed to share this somewhere thanks to this forum. No idea how complicated that would be but that is my dream game scenario and map. Thanks for reading.
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@bluelionman basically "the fog of war". many solo video games have it and maybe even a couple of multi-player games. we tried doing it live with subs, we wouldnt place the subs on the board but we would write on a piece of paper what sea zone they were in and put the paper under the game board, and if an enemy ship entered that sea zone, we would say "wait" and pull out the paper and reveal we have a sub in that sea zone.
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Try the game "Wars Across the World" which does support the fog of war.
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@GenerationKILL and I have wanted this as well - I like it for secret fleets breaking out in the Atlantic, and we wanted to use it for sneaking ballistic subs in a World War 3 type game.
One problem for TripleA specifically would be the ability for the other player, even if the fighter or sub was hidden from their view, to see the other player's actions in the forum posts, summaries, and game history. But maybe just have an
isStealthattribute for units and log it in the game history as such and just have it be "honor code" that the other player doesn't click through to their opponents' turn (though I often do that to simulate future battles and run odds...)- Player A placed 1 stealth unit in a secret location
- Player A moved 2 stealth units from a secret location to a secret location
- Player B attacks Player A in Territory A and reveals stealth unit Submarine
Something like that could work
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The classic hindrance for this feature has been the ability to save and then load a game locally, which would reveal any hidden units if you simply change seats.
Currently it's in progress to redo the networking stack of TripleA. Supporting such a feature would be reliant on that. Once that is done, we could potentially have part of the game be hosted on a bot and truly not shared with the other two games. This would imply an ability to have a cloud-save as well and not being able to play the other side. There is a lot to this feature, it would be a long ways away before being possible.
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Thanks for replying guys - not being a programmer or thinking about logs revealing stuff I just had no idea. Thanks for explaining why it's so hard. If I was rich and had a den I'd have someone build me such a set up with 3 boards one for the overseer-er higher up and only they can see the full picture and below them 2 boards with a partition between them and monitors high up on a far wall to show dice rolls and other info. It's really hard to explain but its all in my head.
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It's basically what you have described. The game server would have to keep the full game state and the two clients would only be allowed to have partial game state with some level of authentication to resume a save. Splitting up the game data like that is super-non trivial. It'll be more feasible FWIW when we have overhauled the networking technology. There are certainly some thoughts about having a partial system like that where the 'main' server is responsible for rolling dice. Having there be more responsibility on that server to support 'fog of war' would be a logical next step (and there has been quite a bit of demand for fog of war). For expectations, we are talking months of full time work, I can't say for sure it would ever happen.
