To Toggle or Not to Toggle

[soulson]

Be honest! How many of you guys play with shroud off or on? Do you toggle here and there? Curious to know.

[Tyrenia]

I don't play with FOW off, but I do check the map once every couple of turns, or when war breaks out between my allies, so I can see which one is most likely to win. Also, I use it to find a decent match for my princesses.

As for playing the entire time with it off, it would take some of the challenge out of the game I think.

You?

[meese]

I start with it off but eventually keep it on when I simply can't be bothered keeping spies around, when fighting on four fronts becomes a pain, and when those darned rebels are in spots where I don't have generals to build watchtowers.

[Caesar Clivus]

I never play with it FOW off. Takes too much fun out of the game for me. I rarely toggle it on/off during a campaign either. I'm usually swapping map information with other factions anyway so it's not such a high priority for me.

[JorisofHolland]

Yes, that's the way I play too. Cheating may be fun at first, but it really gets boring soon. And it takes the difficulty out of the game.

[Navajo Joe]

I never use it a definate 100% cheat, to make an an analogy your effectively having an Early Warning Radar, you might as well have an AWAC in the air!

[Sir Walter]

I only ever use it for finding princesses to marry my heirs. And that's like once every 50 years.

[soulson]

Ya I must admit I used to toggle and keep it on just to see how the AI reacted to everyone and to see who was going after what settlements. Now it is off on my TO campign. Very different to say the least...

[Byg]

Definitely not in a game. Only when testing.

[JorisofHolland]

Yes, only when testing or trying out something, but not in game. It is cheating and is it so .... like cheating.

[Massive_attack]

Every so often when things become rather boring in my empire and my spies have all been killed off trying to infiltrate this one bloody settlement, i sometimes kick back and open up the console and turn FOW off, just to see what everybody else is up to.

I consider this a sort of "newspaper time" where i go around and see what everybody's up to. I figure its fine since the information i get is only very general, it lacks details like army composition or any of that, and i justify it as agents and sympathizers reporting on the goings on in their respective sphere of influence. Naturally, i turn it off and leave it off for quite a few turns afterward. dont actually even use it for practical purposes, i just like to have a greater understanding of the current state of affairs in the world.

Admittedly, this kind of kills the usefulness of spies as a overall surveillance tool, though i still think them very useful when besieging a settlement, or learning about important army info, such as troop strength and quality.

[Mythlacar]

I use it every so often, never to look at anything of consequence though. For example, in my current Lithuanian Campaign I got a message that the Egyptians lost their Capital...in like turn 26. I popped it on to see what the holy hell had happened, aparantly it rebelled...still no clue why.

Also, I had a prince that was unmarried, the Kieven Rus had 2 princesses, but I had only seen one, who had 0 Charm, but I HAD to get a Marriage with the Kieven Rus. I turned FOW off to check what the other princess was like after 6 turns of not being able to find her with about 10 spies. Turns out she was in Iberia, she had a couple charm so I assassinated the one in my lands and offered a marriage XD

Also, about every 10 or so turns I get curious and turn it off to check how various factions are doing, mostly to look at Ireland and France's Bizzare war. At one point, I you not, Ireland had nothing but Paris, and France had all of Ireland. Not long after, maybe 30 turns, Ireland had all of France, and all france had was Ireland. Its been quite amusing watching them fight

I never use it to look at enemy positions or anything, and any info I get by accident from the minimap (I.E. seeing an enemies territory has expanded) could have been gotten by looking at the Faction Ranking screen and reading their territory count anyway.

[Massive_attack]

You make good points Mythlacar, as far as cheating goes in this game the FOW thing is by far the very least you could do, i know, i tend to use the other ones XD

[Akolythos]

The only time I ever toggled FOW was to check on how powerful the mongols were after I saw they had exterminated yet another faction.

I counted 75 full stack armies, completely ignoring the non-full ones.

I saved the game, quit and sadly never loaded it up again before I lost that hard drive.

Don't toggle FOW. There are things we are not meant to see.

[Tyrenia]

I wholeheartedly agree with Mythlacar. It's just interesting to view the state of affairs in the world at any given time, and if it helps you find Princesses, then that's just a bonus. I don't use it to see enemy troops, or use it to spy on my enemies. And besides, the AI have that money script thing, so being allowed to check up on them is only fair. But don't play with it off completely, that IS cheating...

For example, in my current Lithuanian Campaign I got a message that the Egyptians lost their Capital...in like turn 26. I popped it on to see what the holy hell had happened, aparantly it rebelled...still no clue why.

On that subject, is it just me, or do the AI capitals tend to rebel a lot? Every few turns in most of my campaigns, the capital of an AI faction falls to rebels. Is this normal, or is this just a fluke of the my campaigns?

[Sokar Rostau]

I usually have FoW on but use it to get Agents to their destinations without getting blocked and to find particular Diplomats or Princesses. I also like to have a look around every 20 turns, or so, at the state of the world and when I get a message that a capital has fallen.

As someone has said, sometimes you see totally unexpected things - I once saw Ireland conquer Britain (Scotland was long gone) and France and then picked a fight with Spain, which proved their undoing... Spain took all of Ireland, Caernarvon and Exeter and were sieging London, Rennes, Angers and Paris. That was an interesting war to follow until I got that Horde bug thing that locked the game up and corrupted the saves.

In my current Genoa game I turned on FoW to find the Lithuanian Diplomat that I saw pass through. France and I were at war with HRE and I already had a Spy telling me that France was pressing hard on the Empire's western borders. HRE was also at war, or recently made a truce, with every faction on their borders... I still wasn't expecting to see the huge number of Danish armies wandering around Germany, every Region had at least 1/2 a stack and Venice was seiging two HRE settlements and had obviously just taken another. I turned FoW off, continued what I was doing and over the next three turns HRE made peace with everyone except Genoa, France and Denmark... the Turn after that Venice declared war on me with one stack each to siege Milan, Genoa and Bologna with another headed for Florence and a fourth between Venice and Milan... even with FoW turned off a couple of Turns earlier I didn't see the slightest indication of anything remotely like this happening...

The only time I have used it to my tactical advantage, if you can call it that, was in my last Templar campaign in 6.1. I took Medina, which I thought was the last Egyptian settlement but didn't destroy them. I found them frantically trying to expand a three settlement territory in northern Turkey while fending off the Turks and Mongols so I ignored them. I doubt they would have survived much longer but I switched to 6.2 and can't continue the campaign.

[JorisofHolland]

WOW. I never new so many of you guys use toggle_fow as a newspaper.

[soulson]

It is cool to see whats going on every once in a while, no shame in that. Especially when the AI wont fork over map information after a while.

ps. If anyone knows how to boost diplomats movement let me know cant seem to find the thread.

[dcpuser]

It is cool to see whats going on every once in a while, no shame in that. Especially when the AI wont fork over map information after a while.

ps. If anyone knows how to boost diplomats movement let me know cant seem to find the thread.

Non-cheating way would be getting yourself a Horse Breeders Guild and recruit Diplomats from that city. They have a chance at acquiring the Swift Steed ancillary which boosts movement by 15%.

[Gnostiko]

As others have said, only when checking for vital things such as foreign princesses. I think leaving it on takes away the surprise factor, plus it tends to make the game run slower