BoA rules - Fog of War mechanic

[Pocus]

Fog of War, Detection and Hide Value.

When the region is in gray it means you have 0 detection points in the region. If the region is not labelled as being in FoW, it means you have at least 1 point.

Points are generated by 3 sources:

a) you have at least 51% in military control: you get 2 points.
b) you have at least 51% in population loyalty: you get 2 points
c) you have troops: the troops with the highest Detection rating give you his points (Add indians or rangers with a regular army, it can be useful!)

these 3 sources are not cumulative, instead the highest is used.

Note that in case of c), each group (an army or a fleet) has a detection value against land units, and one against sea units.

Once the sources are computed, the engine checks if regions adjacents to a source can benefits from it, by using either the highest value between the region, or the best adjacent source detection points with a penalty of 1.

A source won't be able to give points farther than 1 region away (ie adjacents to it).

Being detected, or not:

If a group is in a region with a structure (your or enemy) and is not in passive posture, the Hide Value is 1, and nothing else is checked. This has been done to solve several problems, like a sneaky rangers in defensive outside a structure, who can go unnoticed but still able to prevent the capture of the structure... or indians besieging you, and being so stealthy that you can't even see who is the offending besieger, etc.

A group has the hide value of the unit with the lowest hide value in its rank.

Modifiers:
If you have only leaders, +1
If you have 2 or less units (leaders not counted), +1. This is the number of units a one-star leader can command.
If you have more than 12 units (leaders not counted) -1. This is the number of units + one more than a 3-stars leader can command.
Being in a region with sneak terrain (wilderness, mountain, ...) +1
Harsh weather such has blizzard: +1

The 2 values are checked against each other. If you have a detection value equal to the hide value, you detect the enemy, but with reduced accuracy (you know that there is x leaders and y regulars for example)

Based on the excess of detection points which you possess, the accuracy of the intelligence information you will receive will increase. The game recognizes four distinct levels of intelligence quality.
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[MarkShot]

Tonight, I was experimenting (hot seat) with the system to see how these FOW rules work. It was interesting to see that enemy militia units can exist undetected in regions for which there is no FOW. In fact, they can even exist undetected in regions with a friendly stack which has an offensive posture.

However, going back to the rollover text for the map which says for a region "in fog of war" or says "". I find this a little bit misleading, since the situation is such that some regions are in complete fog of war and some regions may be in varying degrees of incomplete fog or war. Perhaps, only regions with structures where you have some detection capability have absolutely no fog of war. Thus, the region rollover text which you use along with whether the province is dim or not give the player (especially the untrained novice), the false impression that FOW for a region is a simple binary situation. But, in fact, this is not the case.

[Pocus]

yup, it remind me of Stars! where you have your detection filter tweakable, so you can know in which area you can spot midly stealthy ships, or super stealthy ships

This would be a cool option.

by the way, this variable gradient is the reason why there is in the region tooltip the amount of detection points you have ("In Fog of War" meaning you have 0), and why you can get the hide value even of enemy units, so that you understand progressively the notion of variable amount of detection.