Fog of war: how you make decisions without seeing the full map

Fri, 04 Sep 2026 10:00:00 -0300

The first time I played Age of Empires II, I spent the first twenty minutes building in the base without sending a single scout. I knew where I was, I knew what was nearby — and the rest of the map was grey fog. When the enemy arrived, they came from a direction I'd never seen. I was wiped out in ten minutes.

Fog of war is the technical name for the mechanic: the portion of the map that stays hidden because you haven't explored it yet. It's a classic of strategy games — Civilization, StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War — but it appears in less obvious forms in almost every game. And in a completely obvious form in real life.

Uncertainty on Locodigital

Fog of war: how you make decisions without seeing the full map