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- For the documentary film, see The Fog of War.
The fog of war is the lack of knowledge that occurs during a war. Most importantly, it refers to each side's uncertainty about the enemy's capabilities and plans, but it also includes the chaos that can occur in one's own forces, for instance when a unit misinterprets its orders, or takes a wrong turn and becomes lost.
The term is ascribed to the Prussian military analyst Carl von Clausewitz, who wrote: "The great uncertainty of all data in war is a peculiar difficulty, because all action must, to a certain extent, be planned in a mere twilight, which in addition not infrequently — like the effect of a fog or moonshine — gives to things exaggerated dimensions and unnatural appearance."
Experienced soldiers often liken it to following a technical conversation when drunk.
Some people think the term originates from the fog-like smoke that would be created by the use of gunpowder during a battle. During such battles commanders would often find it difficult to observe their enemies, their allies and even their own forces. In some cases the fog occasionally meant that regiments or battalions or companies would charge at each other only to miss and become lost in the smoke. Also some commanders would deliberately recreate this fog by the use of gunpowder-based weapons and/or the burning of the landscape as to hide the activities of their forces.
Much of the modern military's technological efforts, under the rubric of command and control, seeks to reduce the fog of war, although even the most advanced technology does not eliminate it.
In gaming
In video games, particularly real time strategy games, the fog of war is sometimes depicted as a literal fog which allows enemy units to pass through unoccupied or unexplored sections of the map without being seen. Its first appearance may be in the 1986 game Patton Versus Rommel designed by Chris Crawford, where both human and computer players were subject to fog of war. An earlier example is "Expedition Amazon, a game designed by Willard Phillips (game designer) and published by Penquin Software in 1983.
This feature is often available as an option in multiplayer games, though its use may be enforced in the single-player campaign missions of games such as the Advance Wars series. In these circumstances, computer players are often not affected by the fog of war, giving them a significant advantage. In other games, such as the Age of Empires series, both sides are victims to fog of war, and a considerable part of the game is building outposts and towers with far-reaching line-of-sight that help minimize the fog of war.
In most of the games belonging to the Command and Conquer series the map starts off as black, then as it's explored it becomes its regular color, instead of the misty grey fog of war in other computer games, and in general terrain can't be "un-explored" (so if an area of the map is no longer occupied by a unit it will remain revealed). Within the Command and Conquer series the term "shroud" is used to describe this type of fog of war.
In many of the Command and Conquer games (particularly those belonging to the Red Alert series) there are still several ways to return shroud to the map, despite revealed areas being ostensibly permanent. Gap Generators, for example, will create areas of shroud that continuously regenerate (so your enemies must constantly re-scout those areas). Spies can be sent into enemy radar facilities to reshroud their entire map, forcing opponents to scout the whole thing again. Most of the C&C games also contain many units that can only be revealed fully under special circumstances: cloaked units (Stealth Tanks - or any units hidden under Stealth Generators), submerged units (Submarines, as well as Dolphins and Squids in Red Alert 2) or disguised units (Spies and Mirage tanks). Because dedicated detection units are rare or often completely absent in the C&C games (compared to StarCraft) these units are often very useful.
Generally fog of war (which is used in the majority of modern RTS titles) is seen as more strategic than shroud (which was used almost exclusively in Command and Conquer titles until the latest iteration of the series, Generals) because it requires players to constantly re-scout or rely on units specifically designed for reconnaisance or observation. Intelligent players can deliberately conceal their progress up the tech tree or use a perceived lack of map awareness on the part of their opponent to engage in ambushes and other surprise attacks.
On the other hand in the fast-paced games Command and Conquer typifies, preventing your opponent's initial scouting attempt in the first minute or two of the game can often decide the outcome of the match, so remains an important part of the game (and so-called "anti-scouting" is a vital component of play). Also, not being able to see much of your opponent's army and base for most of the game (which is often the case in games using fog of war, even when many scouting options are available) arguably leads to an increase in luck, if not at the very top level of play.
Application in non-strategy games
Outside of strategy games, fog of war is seldom used, partially due to lack of technological capability but mainly due to lack of purpose.Fog of war is often represented as a "shroud" in role-playing games with reasonable exploration elements, such as Diablo, which features a transparent map that is blank until the area has been explored. Combined with randomly generated maps, this forces players to explore maps for important locations rather than "rushing" through levels as quickly as possible.
First-person shooters rarely contain such shrouding due to the extensive amount of graphic processing technology required, which combined with increasing screen resolutions results in very clear battlefield conditions where a player can see another player perfectly almost a kilometre away. However, with increasing graphical capabilities, developers are utilising new particle and weather effects to simulate realistic combat conditions. Call of Duty 2, for example, makes use of snow, smoke, fog and heat waves to obscure what would otherwise be clear vision. In earlier games a form of the fog of war effect was provided by distance fog, an option that reduces how far the player can see, usually to improve system performance.
In the tactical game Full Spectrum Warrior, fog of war is defined as any area that is not direct line of sight of friendly soldiers. When setting lines of sight, fog of war is represented by a monotone shade instead of the full colour of known areas.
Board games
Some board games also simulates fog of war. An example is Land Battle Chess.
External links
- Diablo II maphack - A description of fog of war, maphacks, and their impact
"Fog of war"