Simulating the Fog of War

[krusader74]

Simulating the Fog of War

I just read a great article called Simulating the Fog of War (1989) by John K Setear, published by the RAND Corporation. It's 26 pages (only 19 pages excluding title page, preface, endpages).

It originally appeared in the wargaming magazine, Fire & Movement, in the Oct-Nov 1988 issue.



In the thread, Be a FKR!, I already mentioned that simulating the Fog of War was an important consideration differentiating Free Kriegsspiel from it's predecessor Strict Kriegsspiel. This article from F&M goes into exhaustive detail describing how wargames approach this goal.

I want to provide a quick summary of the article. It may be of use, not only to wargamers, but also to role players. Indeed, you'll notice that CHAINMAIL and D&D both use some of these methods, but not all of them. Introducing some of these ideas may help improve your game!

I. Introduction

The article starts by listing examples from real battles, showing the practical importance of the fog of war:

Late in the day at Waterloo, Napolean sees clouds of men in blue in the woods to his right and cannot tell whether Grouchy has at last arrived or the Prussians have come to turn his flank. George B. McClellan, though a brilliant organizer, is paralyzed in the field by legions of phantom Confederates that he forever sees behind the rebel lines. In a nameless war, a battle-hardened captain halts a company of troops and tries to divine what -- or who -- is behind the next ridge, and wonders where the devil the sergeant is with the support he asked for hours ago. The commander of an American armored cavalry regiment in the Fulda Gap wonders how long he can really delay a Soviet Motorized Rifle Division. Thick is the fog of war.

II. The Fog of War

Next we get several paragraphs defining the term.

The Fog of War is uncertainty about...

• the enemy:
  
  • intention (is he trying to destroy my army or capture my capital? or is it all a trap?)
  • position
  • strength
• environment (literal fog)
• friendly forces (effective communication and leadership)
• laws of war (not the Geneva convention, but the relationships between men, space, time, and weapons, e.g., how far can you really march in a day? or how frequently can a destroyer really find a sub?)

III. The Designer's Toolbox

What tools are available for designers to simulate the fog of war? What are some examples of their use? Here is a summary of fifteen methods that most stood out to me:

1. An omniscient but neutral referee who guards any knowledge that's unknown by one or both sides. A computer referee may be more impartial than a human. However, referees (real and simulated) aren't strictly necessary in a one-on-one game. And there are even solo wargames structured like Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, where each hex on the map is numbered, and whenever you move units into a hex, you lookup the corresponding entry in the gamebook and follow the instructions.
2. A referee with limited knowledge.
3. Double map: The players are separated, and each player has his own map. (In von Verdy's actual play report, Beitrag zum Kriegsspiel (1876), it seems as though there are 3 maps: One for each player, plus one for use use by the referee that contains all the information.)
4. Scouts: Combat or cavalry units probe/search ahead. Dice to see if they find something, and to see if their observations contain errors.
5. Dummy units:
   
   • 2-sided counters: one side is marked with a question mark (?), and the other side has the troop type. You flip a counter over to reveal its strength only after making contact with it.
   • Each enemy counter represents an indeterminate number of troops until you make contact with it.
6. Leadership and communication: Players must plan moves over an extended period of time (not just 1 turn)
7. Movement:
   
   • Dicing to determine how many units may move in a given turn
   • Dicing to see whether each unit may move in a given turn
   • An "economy" of action scheme in which a unit can either move or shoot in a given turn, but not both
8. Dicing to determine whether and when reinforcements arrive. A CHAINMAIL variation: In the Battle of Browns Hills, Gary diced to see when a wandering dragon arrived and who it attacked! D&D uses wandering monster checks in the wilderness and underground.
9. Victory conditions may change mid-game (due to complications and reversals)
10. Time: Variable-length game turns. Dice to determine how long it takes to move or perform some operation. You can do this infrequently (a few times per game) or frequently (every turn). Mongoose Traveller builds time into skill checks. Taking more time to aim decreases the target number on the die roll; trying to chart a hyperspace jump very quickly will increase the target number. Also, exceeding the target number by a significant amount (like a critical hit) gives the player an advantage, possibly reducing the amount of time the action took, leaving more time to do something else like move or attack.
11. Surprise check, and possibly one or more surprise rounds.
12. Morale/panic rules.
13. Weather. CHAINMAIL has optional weather rules that may effect movement, fatigue.
14. Uncertainty in terrain. We tend to think that the terrain is a known. In some cases it may be an unknown. For example, conquistadors exploring jungles in the new world, or adventurers exploring a dark underground dungeon. Use a blank map and a grease pencil; dice to determine terrain features; use dungeon tiles. After reading this section, I thought about events that might radically alter the terrain during play: A dam breaks, a volcano erupts, a meteorite crashes into the middle of the play area!
15. Rule changes mid-game! This simulates that no one knew the effectiveness of new weapons like tanks or machine guns before they got used the first time.

[howandwhy99]

All dice rolls (never checks) are part of fog of war in any game. We can know the distributive probabilities prior to rolling, but the results are unknown to everyone even the referee until the roll.

Check "systems" (not game systems at all of course) aren't part of fog of war as the referee invents a result for the dice after the roll. Inventing results moments before doesn't matter either. The dice probability patterns must be built into the game prior to play for them to be part of a game. Otherwise there is not a self-contained design for the players to be deciphering (aka gaming). This pre-play baseline is already the case for any common dicing games. It should also be the case when implemented in fog of war games.

Also, many of the wargame mechanics you point out are defined in simulation terms not mechanical ones. Try thinking in terms of the actual mechanics of the game instead of a depiction for it. I think it becomes clear that (almost?) any game mechanic can be hidden from *direct* observation of a player and be customized for fog of war games.