Autoplacing buildings doesn't work in the fog of war

The feature that lets you place buildings quickly by choosing automatically available spots is awesome: like for example, building a windmill and then placing all the farms by clicking contruct while aiming to the mill.

This feature tho, is not working when you try to do it in already discovered map places that are in the fog of war; so basically discovered but not on view at that moment: AoE IV - Autoplacing inside fog of war bug - YouTube

2 Likes

This is an interesting one.

If, for instance, an enemy was sneaking up and had started building a Keep where you were trying to place a house, how would you expect this fog-of-war placement to work? Should players be able to place at all in the fog of war without needing to get a current visual on the land first? I do sort of agree that if one is able to place at all, then auto-place should work. But it is always nice to be able to take feedback in addition to bugs, when appropriate.

Discuss! :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

1 Like

This sounds somewhat similar to palisade wall scanning from AoE2. IIRC that tactic was done away with somehow, but I forget how?
Regardless, it seems like it’d be a huge hassle if FoW placement was removed, especially when it comes to placing resource drop-off points when expanding your economy. How does the game currently handle this situation? IMO, FoW auto-placement ought to handle it the same way.

I think that building placement should be only visible to you (and your allies!) prior to construction starting. Since building placement (not sure about walls), is attached to the terrain, I don’t see why you shouldn’t be able to place a building in the fog-of-war, despite there being a potential conflicting entity in the way. When the villager arrives and attempts to build and something is in the way, the building should be canceled. Or if having line of sight remove the fog-of-war reveals a conflict, the building should also be canceled.

If two opposing (or even allied) players were to place overlapping buildings, but neither have been built yet, then both placements should remain valid until one of the villagers starts construction. If line is sight is available, then the other placement should be immediately canceled, but if still fog of war, then the placement should remain until line of sight reveals a conflict.

Related to the idea of seeing allied building placements (ghosts? blueprints?). These should be colorized to match the player color who owns the placement.

1 Like

Exactly like @TheBajamba described it is how I would like it to work! I also believe it’s what feels the most natural and how most players would expect it to work, but let’s keep the discussion going :smiley:

Thanks, all! I’ll take this feedback to the team. We all really appreciate your input and understanding as we work to make things better.

1 Like