What You Don't See
A tactical map should help you make a call, not hand you the answer. What you know depends on what your side can actually see.
A top-down camera creates an unusual problem for a tactical game.
The player can see a large part of the battlefield at once.
Their soldier cannot.
That difference is fundamental to FLANKED.
If the camera automatically revealed everything happening on screen, buildings would stop hiding enemies, reconnaissance would lose much of its purpose and positioning would become far less important.
So the battlefield has to distinguish between what exists, what the player can see and what their side actually knows.
SEEING THE MAP IS NOT SEEING THE ENEMY
FLANKED is played from above.
That perspective gives players useful spatial awareness. You can understand the shape of a street, the position of nearby buildings or the direction of a hill without needing to physically look at every object.
But spatial awareness is not the same thing as battlefield intelligence.
An enemy standing behind a building may technically be inside the area shown by your camera.
That does not mean your soldier can see them.
Walls, terrain, vegetation and other obstacles need to matter.
If they block a soldier's line of sight, the information behind them should not simply become available because of the camera angle.
This allows us to keep the clarity of a top-down game without giving players omniscience.
LINE OF SIGHT HAS TO MEAN SOMETHING
Line of sight is more than a graphical effect.
It determines whether one unit can actually perceive another.
A soldier looking across an open road should have very different information from one standing behind a wall.
Elevation matters.
Buildings matter.
Terrain matters.
The direction from which a position is observed matters.
That means a defensive position is not useful simply because it provides a statistical cover bonus.
It can be useful because it physically breaks observation.
The same wall that protects you from incoming fire may also prevent you from seeing what is happening on the other side.
That trade-off is part of the battlefield.
INFORMATION BELONGS TO SOMEONE
Knowing that an enemy exists should have a source.
Maybe you saw them yourself.
Maybe another member of your squad did.
Maybe a Squad Leader observed a position.
Maybe somebody reported a contact on the tactical map.
Those are very different situations from the game simply knowing where every unit is and transmitting that information to everyone.
This distinction becomes increasingly important as FLANKED grows beyond individual combat.
Squads need to share information.
Leaders need to make decisions from incomplete information.
A commander should be able to coordinate the battle without becoming an all-seeing observer floating above it.
The tactical map should organise battlefield knowledge, not manufacture it.
A CONTACT IS NOT A TRACKING DEVICE
Enemy markers create another problem.
Once an enemy has been spotted, how long should that information remain accurate?
In a fast-moving battle, the answer cannot be forever.
An infantry marker may represent where somebody was seen.
A vehicle report may indicate the last known position of a tank.
A suspected forward position may be based on limited information rather than direct confirmation.
The map therefore needs to communicate uncertainty.
A reported contact is useful because it gives another player something to act on.
But it should not become a permanent GPS tracker attached to the enemy.
That difference creates decisions.
Is the enemy still there?
Did they move?
Was the original report accurate?
Should another squad investigate?
Information becomes part of the tactical problem rather than a complete solution to it.
THE MAP SHOULD REMEMBER, CAREFULLY
Not all information needs to disappear the moment line of sight is lost.
That would make communication frustrating and would ignore something obvious: players remember what they have seen.
Instead, there is useful space between perfect real-time information and complete darkness.
A last known position can remain relevant.
A reported enemy vehicle can remain marked even after it leaves sight.
A suspected enemy position can continue to influence decisions.
But those markers should communicate that their information may be old.
Time matters.
Confidence matters.
The difference between:
"there is a tank here"
and:
"a tank was reported here"
is tactically important.
The interface should make that distinction understandable without forcing players to read paragraphs of information during a fight.
OBSERVATION IS A ROLE
Better information should sometimes require somebody to go and get it.
That creates a purpose for observation beyond simply finding something to shoot.
A Squad Leader overlooking an area can help their squad understand what is happening ahead.
Binoculars can extend that role by making deliberate observation useful rather than treating every soldier as an equally powerful sensor.
Elevated positions become valuable because of what they reveal.
Reconnaissance becomes useful because uncertainty exists in the first place.
And information can become something squads provide to each other rather than something the game automatically provides to everyone.
These systems are still being developed and tuned, but the principle is already important:
better battlefield knowledge should come from better observation and communication.
FOG OF WAR WITHOUT A BLACK SCREEN
"Fog of war" can suggest an RTS-style map covered by a hard black layer.
That is not necessarily what we want for FLANKED.
Players still need to understand the physical environment around them.
A building does not need to disappear just because nobody is currently looking at it.
The question is not whether the map exists.
The question is what information about the battlefield is currently reliable.
Terrain can remain readable while enemy activity stays uncertain.
Known positions can remain useful without becoming permanently precise.
The result should feel less like uncovering tiles on a strategy map and more like maintaining a shared tactical picture.
THE SAME RULES SHOULD APPLY TO AI
This becomes particularly important when human players and AI soldiers share the battlefield.
Bots should not react to information they could not reasonably possess simply because the simulation knows where every entity is.
Their decisions need to be constrained by perception too.
If an AI soldier cannot see an enemy, that enemy should not automatically become a valid target.
If contact is lost, behaviour needs to change.
If another unit provides useful information, that can influence what happens next.
The exact implementation will continue to evolve, but maintaining that separation between simulation state and perceived information is essential.
Otherwise the AI would be playing a different game from the player.
UNCERTAINTY CREATES TACTICS
Perfect information makes many tactical decisions trivial.
If you always know where the enemy is, reconnaissance becomes unnecessary.
Flanking becomes harder because the defender can watch every approach at once.
Ambushes become unreliable.
Reporting contacts becomes pointless.
Command becomes an exercise in moving markers toward information that is already complete.
Uncertainty changes that.
You have to interpret what you know.
You have to decide whether old information is still useful.
You have to choose when to expose yourself to gain better observation.
You have to communicate what you find.
And sometimes you have to act without knowing exactly what is waiting on the other side of a building.
That is the kind of information problem we want FLANKED to create.
The camera can show you the battlefield.
It should not automatically give you all of its answers.