FoW in global league?

Would it be possible to add fog to the league?
Maybe on a 5 or 10% chance?

For me there are two main reasons:
1. they play quite differently
2. they don't tend to be so much stalemate-games like non fow games.

Didn't there used to be a FoW league? I usually prefer FoW myself and it certainly does play differently.

Yes, but you could call it "close to inactive"

http://awbw.amarriner.com/league.php?leagues_id=8

And it misses the advantage of the global league to have more than one game running in it.

I like fog games as well. Makes games a little more crazy/unpredictable. With enough interest we might be able to create our own unofficial league or something using the forum to coordinate.

I know Walker's made some really solid Fog of War maps in the past, which is surprisingly hard to do.  Adding Fog of War games to the League itself is something I'm mostly against, and I can explain that in a bit, I'm just very tired right now and have to get some stuff done, but I promise I will do that soon.

However, I do like Fog of War as a concept. So in the meantime, I can run some unofficial Fog of War games through the public games that I really, really need to get running tonight, and see what data I can gather from there.  I'll post more here in a bit on Fog of War and League and whatnot, just give me an hour or two.

I was always all for adding FoW games to the League, but only on specified maps. As Mori mentioned, I made some maps that constituted my idea of what a "good" FoW map is, but a lot of people who like FoW don't necessarily agree with my idea.

You would also have to implement a player option to not receive fog games. Not everyone likes FoW (and I think with very good reason in most cases), and shouldn't be forced to play it if they don't wish to.

Anyways, it would take quite a bit of work to implement FoW into the current Global League (both from a map-making and league features point of view), which really makes it hard to do. My opinion at the time was that I would run competitions outside of Global League that featured games like FoW and High Funds and broken COs (all of which can be fun, but shouldn't necessarily be allowed in a more serious competition like Global League). I used the Colosseum for this, and with great success in my opinion. Unfortunately no one carried it on after I decided I had no more interest in organizing competitions on AWBW.

I believe I've just set up a game on your Masked Fury map(looks pretty awesome by the way!). Just out of curiosity what in your opinion what makes a "good" FOW map and why not have FOW games on other maps?

Well that's a rather long explanation, but the gist of it is this:

The main issue is that when you have no information about what your opponent is doing or where they are sending units, you are forced to play ultra-conservatively. You cannot make attacks as easily on isolated units or on properties, because you do not know what is lurking in the shadows. The result of this (especially on heavily forested maps) is stalemates in high-level games. Also, it destroys much of the tactical appeal of Advance Wars and turns it into a much more luck-based crapshoot.

There is also a balance issue using FoW on many maps. In the capture phase of the game, there is often a triangle: (early recon rush) beats (rushing for contested properties with infantry) beats (saving for the early tank first), which beats a recon rush. A key part of AW is being aware of how your opponent is playing the capture phase so you can appropriately counter; then they counter your counter, etc - this is what makes the game fun. In FoW, if you have no information about the capture phase, it is a blind guess. There is no back-and-forth, no countering and counter-countering, just "I hope I guessed right this time".

My solution to fix this was two-fold:
1) Give early information about the opponent's capture phase. On Masked Fury, this is accomplished with a recon behind the bases. You know what your opponent is building from each base for the first 4-5 turns (or longer if you decide not to kill it with a mech, which is another interesting decision), without giving away too much.
2) Use very light terrain (forests), and provide good outposts for infantry vision on mountains. Using forests sparsely turns them into a tile that can be used very interestingly tactically (you must have a unit adjacent to attack), turning them into useful defensive tools. But you still have good information of your enemies' immediate forces if you use recons/infantry properly.

There is a lot more written on this topic on the old forum, which you can peruse if it is ever recovered… Anyways, most "FoW" maps are actually just normal maps with 3x as many forests, which just exacerbates every issue that FoW has in the first place.

Some of my favorite games Ive had on AWBW were fog games, since it feels more like really strategizing for a war rather than a chess board. Id be totally for a some FoW league, but like walker said, I don't think everybody would be for that and would not want their current score skewed because of it. I think it would be cool to get the old FoW league and update it so it would run as smoothly as the current global league. Maybe some of the other old leagues as well for good measure, since some of them had some pretty cool ideas.

You can still join the old leagues and compete with some others. But the range of players is kinda limited. It seems each league has only around 3-10 (active) players in it. And ofc you can only have one match at a time.

I made a solid fog of war league map, I may be blowing my own horn here.

http://awbw.amarriner.com/prevmaps.php?maps_id=36928

http://awbw.amarriner.com/prevmaps.php?maps_id=39735

These two work well in fog.

When I first came to AWBW I always and almost only ever played fog. At least my first hundred games or so. Mostly public games and nearly everytime on new maps. It was always very exciting games never knowing what tricks people might try, and playing always on new and unusual maps added to the fun. When they put the fog league i got more involved in awbw tourneys and nonfog too. However nonfog games I always find it is necessary to play more conservatively and therefore less fun.

Initially  I could barely understand how people could play non-fog as your opponent would see what you were doing and so it would be easy to counteract and end up in a stalemate. In fog and on unusual maps the possibilities to be creative are greater. Its not just about rock paper scissors as some argue. I think that it more about gaining strategical advantage rather than just grabbing cities. It is often necessary first to get the forest, or vision from hill,.... not just grab a city hoping your opponent is elsewhere.
Many nonfog games between similar strength good players can end in big build up of forces and stalemate situations, and many examples were posted in jest in the old forum. However it hardly occurs in fog , I never saw anyone give any similar example from a real fog game of a massive standoff.

I think to play fog well it is necessary to take certain measured risks. Playing conservatively just isnt strong enough on average. And it is whoever estimates the risks , balancing pros and cons, who comes out on top. In any game one must expect several uncertain confrontations on different fronts. It is not simply luck, but a matter of who deals on average with these various confrontations who generally comes out best. I suppose it could be possible that on a small map or something that one lucky shot could decide the result. But in my considerable fog experience I dont recall any win or loss due to luck. More due to hard concentration and trying to think of something to surprise the opponent, or with losses due to lazy or overconfident /overly risky play.
Complex and unusual maps with pipe and sea and misiles and stuff also require more thought and creativity. Some unusual strategem may win against standard play. Fog multiplies any such complexity as new ideas can be developed further before they are seen.
Unfortunately i think there is a tendancy for top players after a time to become accustomed to their preferred kind of maps and conditions where their winning methods work .  And I think its inevitable they will try to resist anything which takes them out of their comfort zone.  Thiis is kind of paradoxical that good thinkers end up getting lazy and prefer to use their old stuff rather than having to think anew.  
Experienced players must not then be given too much control over choosing game conditions and maps!
It is inevitable they will gravitate toward what suits their experiences best.

AW maps and settings must be continually explored. AW is at least 10 to the power of a big number more complex than chess. It took centuries for top chess  players to get a grip on chess strategy. AW should be the chess of the future but we must not let it get bogged down in a tiny corner.

The fog league and the other special leagues need to be supported, (and get rid of the bugged neverending games therein).

We need a high funds league too. And also a league with highly unusual maps to boot. That would be fun and sort out the chickens.
And we could also have a " bring a map tourney, where each player can bring a map of his own choice (within reason).

I do agree with a lot of what you're saying. I certainly don't think FoW gets enough recognition either.

For me, I never owned the games but when I played with my cousin, most of the time we played without fog. Then I started playing with fog on AWBW and it made so much more sense to me and seemed more realistic in a lot of ways. Once I started playing league games a few years later, the concept of not playing with FoW seemed dumb to me for the same reasons you mentioned- "But I can see everything they're doing and they can see everything I'm doing... how can you get sneaky with that? And this is how the league does it?"

I understand the reasons why they don't, but I don't understand the reasons why *The* league is without fog and there is no equivalent league with fog on a similarly recognized level.

Either way, if the site keeps up with its problems, it will be a bit of a moot point, won't it?

I think the site is dead

RIP