Do you think there will be fog of war in the final game? After what we have seen so far the whole map seems to be revealed at all times. Fog of war would add some more depth to the combat and more danger to the adventures. Also some pretty interesting new cards could be made having line of sight in mind (goggles, smoke screens, illumination magic etc.). Your thoughts?
My early thoughts are recorded here. (There's some more discussion on the next page as well.) Having seen more of the game since then, I could support fog/darkness as a terrain attachment for determining line of sight (=which tiles you can target) and a movement hindrance (double cost as you feel your way forward) but not necessarily as a "danger" element where the figurines themselves are hidden and could surprise you.
I imagine that Blue Manchu will keep the "strategy of handling unknowns" dedicated to the decks and campaign structure, not visibility on the field. The mightiest mushroom of all, as noted, once asked your question: the answer was . . . I suspect that this answer has not changed. First, as A Bear acknowledged back then, it would defy the "boardgame played with friends" metaphor (though there are some boardgame exceptions). Second, line of sight itself is already implemented, without "physically hiding any characters," so most of the strategy is already available. Things like a "fog" tile, sure, would be possible. Third, now that we've seen more of the game, I think adding an "exploration" mechanic wouldn't really add "depth"; it would just slow down the fight for a few seconds as characters use their default move card. (Once.) The levels are intended to be played very quickly, so there will be few situations where fog of war would add something to the game that line-of-sight doesn't already cover.
Our underlying network model relies on replicating as much of the battle state as possible, which has a bunch of wonderful advantages and a couple of drawbacks. One drawback is that hidden information can only be managed through awful mind bending hacks, so we try to avoid it where possible. We currently use such trickery for revealing your opponent's cards as they're played (or otherwise made visible) rather than as they're drawn, so you can't packet sniff to see what your opponent is holding. So, with that in mind I'd think that fog-of-war which obscures characters isn't something we're likely to pursue in the immediate future.
While I know Card Hunter isn't a one-for-one digital manifestation of a board game, I always figured the boardgame roots of CH would translate into having no fog of war. I mean, in real life its not like parts of a game board can be easily hidden by big movable clouds.
