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FE8 Fog of War

Fog of War in The Sacred Stones.

“This is no good. If the fog thickens, we'll be blind in battle. It will be difficult to fight what we cannot see. ”
Kent

Fog of War (戦場の霧, Senjō no Kiri) is a battlefield condition introduced in Fire Emblem: Thracia 776.

Overview[]

'Fog of War' is a term to describe when the battlefield is obscured for reasons such as it being a nighttime battle, or the presence of adverse weather conditions such as sandstorms or actual fog. In fog of war missions, all regions of the battlefield outside of the vision range of the player's units are obscured. Traditionally, units such as thieves, rogues, and assassins have a much greater vision range in fog of war situations and are ideal for scouting unseen portions of the map.

Units equipped with a torch also have a wider vision range and will reveal more of the map around them. Some games with fog of war also feature the Torch staff, which can light up an area of the map not centered on the user. Similarly, in Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn and Fire Emblem Engage, there are Watch Fires that expand the visual range of the surrounding area for as long as they burn.

If a unit moving into obscured territory bumps into an enemy in their path, movement is automatically halted. A basic tactic of fog of war maps is to advance slowly to minimize surprise encounters that a given unit may be unprepared for.

When first introduced in Thracia 776, a bug in the AI resulted in an imbalance where enemy units were unaffected by the fog condition and acted with full visibility of the map. Later games addressed this behavior so that the AI could not effectively cheat against the player in these scenarios.

In Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon, multiplayer WiFi battles use fog of war. Because both players are affected by the same conditions, tactics may be tailored with the knowledge that neither side has a full view of the battle.

Etymology[]

The phrase 'fog of war' is used to describe real-life military scenarios in which commanders have a total lack of clarity regarding the state of enemy and allied positions, strength, and tactics. The specific phrase 'Fog of War' dates back at least to the 1896 military text The Fog of War by Sir Lonsdale Augustus Hale.

Trivia[]

  • Advance Wars, another strategy series with entries developed by Intelligent Systems, also features the fog of war mechanic, with the same restrictions. Earlier entries featured a bug similar to that in Thracia 776 in which enemy units are unaffected by the fog condition, but this was correct starting with Advance Wars: Dual Strike.
  • In The Sacred Stones, a variant of the Enemy control glitch can be achieved on foggy maps by soft resetting the game after placing a unit on the tile that Torch was used on, as the game ends up considering it an action tile. However, the player will not be able to see enemy units and have to hover across the map to find them.

Gallery[]

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