Fog of war
The fog of war hides the parts of the map your side cannot see. Every match starts with the map covered in black except the ground around your own units and buildings. You uncover the rest by sending units out to look.
The three states
Every part of the map is in one of three states, separately for each player.
| State | What you see | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Unexplored | Black | Nobody on your side has ever seen this ground. |
| Explored | Dimmed | Your side has seen it before, but nothing of yours can see it now. |
| Visible | Clear | One of your units or buildings, or an ally's, can see it right now. |
- Explored ground never turns black again. The map you have uncovered stays uncovered for the rest of the match.
- Visible ground drops back to Explored as soon as nothing of yours can see it.
- A saved game keeps the explored map. When you load it, the ground you had explored is still explored.
What reveals the map
- Every unit and every building you own reveals a circle of ground around it.
- Allies share vision. Your allies' units and buildings uncover the map for you too, and yours do for them.
- Vision is a plain circle. Hills, forests and walls do not block it.
- A building reveals its circle as soon as it stands in the world, including while it is still being built.
Sight range
| Who | Sight range |
|---|---|
| Units | 15 metres |
| Buildings | 18 metres |
| Ranged units | 15 metres, or their attack range plus 2 metres, whichever is larger |
A ranged unit always sees a little further than it can shoot, so it never fires at something its own side cannot see. Today only the Longbowman has a range long enough for this to matter: it sees about 23 metres. Every other unit's range is short enough that 15 metres is already more.
These are the game's default values. See Unconfirmed below.
What the fog hides
| Thing | Unexplored ground | Explored ground | Visible ground |
|---|---|---|---|
| The ground itself | Black | Dimmed | Shown |
| Enemy units | Hidden | Hidden | Shown |
| Enemy buildings | Hidden | Shown | Shown |
| Trees, mines, bushes, fish and animals | Hidden | Shown | Shown |
| Pillars and their charge bars | Hidden | Shown | Shown |
| Your own and your allies' units and buildings | Always shown | Always shown | Always shown |
- Enemy units are shown only while something on your side can see them. Once they walk out of sight, they disappear from your screen.
- Enemy buildings stay on screen once the ground they stand on has been explored, even when nothing of yours is watching them. What you see is the building as it is now, not a remembered picture: a building raised later on ground you explored earlier also shows.
- Resources (trees, gold and stone mines, bushes, fish) and animals stay hidden until their ground is explored. After that they stay shown.
The minimap
The minimap follows the same rules (for clicking on it, see Controls):
- Unexplored ground is covered in black. Explored ground shows the terrain.
- Your own and your allies' units and buildings are always marked.
- An enemy unit is marked only while it is in sight.
- An enemy building is marked once its ground has been explored.
Building in the fog
- You can place a building only on ground you have explored. All four corners of the building's footprint must be on explored ground.
- The ground does not have to be in sight right now. Explored is enough.
- The building preview turns red over unexplored ground, and the host refuses the order even if a modified game sends it anyway.
Map size
The fog works the same way on every map size. Its detail scales with the map, so the edge of your vision is equally sharp on an X-Small and an X-Large map. See Maps and map sizes.
Computer opponents
Computer opponents do not play under the same fog:
- They may place buildings on ground they have never seen.
- They choose what to attack from a large area around their base, not from what they have scouted. See AI difficulty.
- How they find a Pillar depends on their difficulty.
Story missions
Some story missions uncover an area of the map for you as part of the story.
Not in the game
- There is no lobby option to turn the fog off or to start with the map revealed.
- Nothing blocks line of sight: there is no high-ground or forest vision rule.
- There are no scouting abilities, watchtower ranges or vision upgrades that change a unit's sight range.
Unconfirmed
- The sight ranges above are the defaults in the game's code. A unit's or building's own settings could change them, and those settings were not checked for this page.