Can't see enemy army composition 5 minutes out....

[darkevil]

I'm sorry but this just doesn't make sense.  How is there no minimum distance that I can see an enemy army composition at?  Even if it is only at 2 minutes before the attack there has to be some way that me sitting in my fortress watching an army march at me could not go, oh look those 25000 soldiers seem to be mostly swordsmen or cavalry or archers.  No matter what level their spies are at, at some point I myself can stand there and see what is coming at me with my own eyes. 

[Madzoism]

Hi, darkevil.
If attacker’s Espionage and defender’s Counter-espionage levels are equal, the defender sees the attacking army’s composition 30 minutes before the impact. For each level difference 10 minutes are added or extracted, respectively. The bonus from Secret agent skill does not take effect.

[darkevil]

I understand this I'm curious whey there isn't a minimum distance at which the defender would see the advancing army.  Perhaps this should be in suggestions.  This is the suggestion. 

Create a minimum distance from which the advancing army can be seen.  lets say 2 minutes out.  This is supposed to be areal time game... isn't it?  In what real time scenario would a defending general never be able to see an enemy army as it takes the field to fight and make a decision to fight or run at that last moment.

I understand that the premiss of this game is that big people attack little people and the big people have all the advantages of espionage, upgrades, and unit type when they attack, but shouldn't the defending general at least be able to make a split decision as to where he wants to fight or not. 2 minutes is not a lot of time in a browser based game.  But it gives a competent person a chance to decide he wants to defend because he sees an army of 20,000 light spears or run because he sees an army of 20,000 Guardians taking the field.

[Madzoism]

Thanks for the suggestion, it will be reviewed.

[Tasilakosil]

technically, you should be able to make pretty accurate decisions by looking at the attacker, his stats and number of units in the attack. if you cant do that, you probably need more experience. being able to conceal your army and exploit that fact to your advantage actually adds some fun to this game. immagine every single information was public domain, it would be like playing against pc instead of real people. just oneclick feed the damn simulator with all data and it will tell you either to evade or fight. where´s the fun in that? it is bad enough as it is that 80% of succes is to play when the other guy is offline. whole game is way more about evading than actually fighting. nothing more frustrating than having 0-400 empty provinces with no army and no resources waiting all day long until someone slips and leaves the account unattended for a couple of minutes. not only it is impossible to perform constantly if you have anything even remotely close to job, relationship hobby or other....form of life but its boring as hell!!

if anything should be worked out, than how to make this game more about fighting and less about evading...