In past Civ games, the grid has always been rectangular. Some people like it this way, but some people think a different system would be better. What do you think?

Definitely hexagons. To me, bringing in hexagons is the single most important change that could happen in Civ5. If Civ5 comes with hexagonal grids and no other improvements over Civ4, I'll be happy (well, almost happy. I would still like to see some better colonization and trade features...). Hexagons have all advantages over squares, both gameplay-wise and aesthetical. Maybe you should add the option of staggered squares to your poll, Onionsoilder. It plays like hexagons but is visually more like rectangles. I remember an earlier thread where many people opted for a compromise like that.

Definitely hexagons. To me, bringing in hexagons is the single most important change that could happen in Civ5. If Civ5 comes with hexagonal grids and no other improvements over Civ4, I'll be happy (well, almost happy. I would still like to see some better colonization and trade features...). Hexagons have all advantages over squares, both gameplay-wise and aesthetical.

I agree

Maybe you should add the option of staggered squares to your poll, Onionsoilder. It plays like hexagons but is visually more like rectangles. I remember an earlier thread where many people opted for a compromise like that.

To late now. Anyway, that is what the 'other' option is for.

Okay. I have never posted a poll, so I didn't know whether it was possible to edit it or not. Although I realize now that if you could edit polls you could probably tweak it to any result you wanted...

Anyway, does anyone have any good reasons for wanting squares rather than hexes. I'm merely curious, as I can't see any myself (other than "Civ has always been like that", whish is itself a poor argument IMO).

Maybe they like squares better, since it is similar to chess? Or they like abusing the diagonal movement "feature"?

The main thing I don't like about squares is moving along nodes. It doesn't make sense gameplay wise. Also, a square can now be reached in one move by 8 squares. Hexagonal grid would bring it down to 6 squares. It makes surrounding an enemy doable, and chokepoints would be more common on the map. Most chokepoints that are 1 rectangle wide can now be crossed by diagonal movement. Hexagonal grids wouldn't allow that.

Just say, if the next Civilization game were to have a Rubik's cube type style of game play. How would hexagons replace the cubes? I'm up for hexagons to supersede squares but will it work if the grip level system is divided into air, sea and land?

Maybe they like squares better, since it is similar to chess? Or they like abusing the diagonal movement "feature"?

It's not abuse; it's a basic feature of the underlying strategic model.

Square tiles forever.

Just say, if the next Civilization game were to have a Rubik's cube type style of game play. How would hexagons replace the cubes?

If, by Rubik's Cube, you are referring to a geodesic discrete global grid (ie taking a regular polyhedron (such as a cube) and dividing the faces to create a 3D grid) you can better represent a sphere by using an icosahedron (20 equilateral triangle polyhedron). You can either build a grid of hexagons with 12 pentagons at the vertices, squares/rhomboids (diamonds) by combining pairs of triangles or leave the grid triangular. A Geodesic Discrete Grid would be excellent if implemented, I created one for my dissertation, including a visualisation, although that wasn't perfect.

My argument for a hexagonal grid would be that it displays uniform adjacency, which, as others have said, is the problem with squares, which have neighbours which share vertices and not edges. I could go much further into this, I wrote my dissertation on it!

I'm up for hexagons to supersede squares but will it work if the grip level system is divided into air, sea and land?

I'm not sure what you mean by air, sea and land? Air is above sea and land, sea and land are both surfaces, do you perhaps mean subterranean or sub-surface (as in above, surface and below), in which case you would have three separate grids and would be a waste of time. If you simply mean different tile types, this is not a problem at all, the grid could be of an irregular tiling polygon and that would still be straight forward.

I voted squares. :blush:

Indeed, hexagons would have the same imperfection than squares: a distance distorsion. I explained it in another topic.

The only good reason for hexagons would be to have a round planet, and i'm not sure of its cruciality.

You can't do a round planet with hexagons without distorsions, exactly like squares.

I'm indiferent to the grid system, but I would prefer to keep things as they are, just by laziness.I do remember the time I took to format my mind to the concept of the Civ IV grid, being used to the SMAC and Civ III iso grid...... ;)

You can't do a round planet with hexagons without distorsions, exactly like squares.

You can by adding pentagons on the tops if i'm right. Not what i call a distorsion.

Well, that is another cup of tea :D

But only hexagons is impossible.

If, by Rubik's Cube, you are referring to a geodesic discrete global grid (ie taking a regular polyhedron (such as a cube) and dividing the faces to create a 3D grid) you can better represent a sphere by using an icosahedron (20 equilateral triangle polyhedron). You can either build a grid of hexagons with 12 pentagons at the vertices, squares/rhomboids (diamonds) by combining pairs of triangles or leave the grid triangular. A Geodesic Discrete Grid would be excellent if implemented, I created one for my dissertation, including a visualisation, although that wasn't perfect.


A Rubik's cube has 27 cubes and that was all I was referring to. No spheres, pentagons or other 3D shape from your dissertation.


My argument for a hexagonal grid would be that it displays uniform adjacency, which, as others have said, is the problem with squares, which have neighbours which share vertices and not edges. I could go much further into this, I wrote my dissertation on it!


Dude, this is topic on a grid for Civ5 and not about your dissertation.


I'm not sure what you mean by air, sea and land? Air is above sea and land, sea and land are both surfaces, do you perhaps mean subterranean or sub-surface (as in above, surface and below), in which case you would have three separate grids and would be a waste of time. If you simply mean different tile types, this is not a problem at all, the grid could be of an irregular tiling polygon and that would still be straight forward.

You obviously have not played the entire civilization game series to understand how units move on the current square grid.

Both undersea & above sea would be one level of grid. Mountains, hills, rivers, forests, etc. would be another level of the grid. Planes, missiles, gunships & airships would be the last level of the grid.

rofl
those arent layers in an anything, its a scripted way of movement, it has almost no bearing that i can think of on the grid system

rofl
those arent layers in an anything, its a scripted way of movement, it has almost no bearing that i can think of on the grid system

Some of us favour the notion of air units that move as actual units (and not stupid Civ III/IV missions) in a different layer of (square) grid existing above the land/sea level grid, so it seems relevant to the discussion here to me.

You obviously have not played the entire civilization game series to understand how units move on the current square grid.
I have only played Civ 3 and 4 yes, not 1 & 2, so only 5 years of gameplay. And being a software engineer I don't have ANY understanding of how the game works.

Both undersea & above sea would be one level of grid. Mountains, hills, rivers, forests, etc. would be another level of the grid. Planes, missiles, gunships & airships would be the last level of the grid.

Like Chiyochan says those aren't layers of the grid, and have nothing to do with it. Think of the grid as Lat and Long, your position, your height/depth is irrelevant. Each cell has a terrain type, Ice, Ocean, Sea, Coast, Dessert Tundra, Plains, Mountain, Hills, these base types have modifiers, such as forests, rivers to the north or east, resources. But all of that has no bearing on the grid, like I said! What you may be getting confused with is where I suggested having three levels of grid for each, this was if you wanted a game like Metal Fatigue where you could go under ground. However its got nothing to do with Civ, I agree.

As for my dissertation I created a spherical grid of land, mountian and sea tiles, with objects that moved around on it, I would say this is precisely relevant to Civilisation, also the fact that I referenced Civ IV code in it, and used Civ as the main benchmark to evaluate it against I think I know what I am talking about!

Icosahedrons (http://www.answers.com/icosahedron?ff=1), look it up, its really not that scary!

I voted squares. :blush:

Indeed, hexagons would have the same imperfection than squares: a distance distorsion. I explained it in another topic.

The only good reason for hexagons would be to have a round planet, and i'm not sure of its cruciality.

You misunderstand me, hexagons do NOT have the imperfection of squares, each neighbour IS the same distance. It is called Uniform Adjacency.

A plain hexagonal grid would not be spherical.

Any grid trying approximate a sphere using a regular pattern will have distortions, try looking at Buckminster Fullers work on Discretising the sphere.

Some of us favour the notion of air units that move as actual units (and not stupid Civ III/IV missions) in a different layer of (square) grid existing above the land/sea level grid, so it seems relevant to the discussion here to me.

In Civ1 & Civ2, a bomber unit could occupy a space for one turn and prevent land units from entering that square. Basically, you could cover all the squares an opposing city used for resources. The few ways to remove the bomber was to attack it with fighters. Land units could not attack a bomber and were therefore limited.

This probably gave way to the Civ III / Civ IV missions.

I'm not sure how a Rubik's cube grid system would allow units to occupy a space. Can Team Red's Bomber be in a cube that is above Team Blue's Land unit?

Like Chiyochan says those aren't layers of the grid, and have nothing to do with it. Think of the grid as Lat and Long, your position, your height/depth is irrelevant. Each cell has a terrain type, Ice, Ocean, Sea, Coast, Dessert Tundra, Plains, Mountain, Hills, these base types have modifiers, such as forests, rivers to the north or east, resources. But all of that has no bearing on the grid, like I said! What you may be getting confused with is where I suggested having three levels of grid for each, this was if you wanted a game like Metal Fatigue where you could go under ground. However its got nothing to do with Civ, I agree.
With the lat & long, altitude is another co-ordinate that has not been included. Altitude has bearing on sea level so in a sense underground would be relevant to an altitude under sea level or inside terrain such as mountains.

The thumb, point finger and middle finger are your x, y & z points.

With the lat & long, altitude is another co-ordinate that has not been included. Altitude has bearing on sea level so in a sense underground would be relevant to an altitude under sea level or inside terrain such as mountains.

The thumb, point finger and middle finger are your x, y & z points.

the Z quardinate has nothing to do with the grid. each unit of space could be a dodecahedron for all it matters, this is offtopic.

To give a good idea of what kind of grid system I want, I want one like in Age of wonders II/shadow magic. It's a hexagon grid, with height incorporated somehow. Also, it has such a combat system, that when a unit is attacked, all the stacks on the bordering hexagons are involved in battle, and there's a stack limit of 8. This means that a 20 unit army would need 3 hexagons of space. There's a maximum of 7 stacks involved in any battle.

In Civ1 & Civ2, a bomber unit could occupy a space for one turn and prevent land units from entering that square. Basically, you could cover all the squares an opposing city used for resources. The few ways to remove the bomber was to attack it with fighters. Land units could not attack a bomber and were therefore limited.
This probably gave way to the Civ III / Civ IV missions.


Which is a design decision on a par with taking a thorn out of your finger by cutting your arm off, IMO.


I'm not sure how a Rubik's cube grid system would allow units to occupy a space. Can Team Red's Bomber be in a cube that is above Team Blue's Land unit?

Why on earth not ?

You don't need a new grid to achieve that though, simple game logic would suffice!

You don't need a new grid to achieve that though, simple game logic would suffice!

You need some way of registering the different levels in order to have a difference between "this bomber is passing through this square above this land unit" and "this bomber is attacking this unit", and if you don't have that you're back into the bomber-blockading problem exhile identifies.

I think exactly the same logic applies to submarines, fwiw; if they can;t pass directly under enemy ships without attacking, they're quite a bit less use than they might be,

The grid level system won't be evident until air units such as airships and submerged units come into play. I guess the Civ5 engine is gonna need a lot more computer resources once the industrial age hits. As for the air combat system, it will need a huge redesign if this system is implemented. For example, the SAM ground units for both infantry and mobile will now have ranges at the air level that are suppose to intercept aircraft. It's like a SAM will have an air & ground combat factor to counter both ground and air units. This multi-level combat will also apply to destroyers (stealth or not) & battleships which theoretically can attack and defend against air, submerged and other sea vessels. Stealth shouldn't be a problem since an enemy doesn't know that a bomber or destroyer is either beside or above them.

In the end, the game should be simple and not complex. However if there's more fun in gameplay then why not. Don't mind me, I'm just rambling...

It would require less resources (computer resources not in-game) to simply add an attribute (as in member variable) to aeroplanes and submarines rather than have an entire new grid!

I have not experienced this other method of controlling aircraft and I think the missions make sense, however having to keep destroying the mine as soon as my enemy has built it does become a little tedious. It would be nice if there was a mission to keep tile(s) from being worked rather than having to keep issuing orders. The missions do make sense though, aircraft need a base of operations and have a limited range from it. However that is off topic. So too, is whether there needs to be another grid or not, but I still remain adamant that for Civs needs there DOES NOT.

hexagonal/isometric

The grid level system won't be evident until air units such as airships and submerged units come into play. I guess the Civ5 engine is gonna need a lot more computer resources once the industrial age hits. As for the air combat system, it will need a huge redesign if this system is implemented. For example, the SAM ground units for both infantry and mobile will now have ranges at the air level that are suppose to intercept aircraft. It's like a SAM will have an air & ground combat factor to counter both ground and air units.


It seems simple to me. Air units are units. You move them around like ground units. You attack ground targets with them if they can do that, you attack other air units with them if they can do that. Ground units attack them on their turn if they are capable of it.


In the end, the game should be simple and not complex.


I really strong;ly disagree with that notion; there's yet to be a version of Civ that's felt any more than about two-thirds as complex as I would ideally like it to be.

It seems simple to me. Air units are units. You move them around like ground units. You attack ground targets with them if they can do that, you attack other air units with them if they can do that. Ground units attack them on their turn if they are capable of it.

That was one of the most annoying "featuers" of the old games. Giving your aircraft missions makes so much more sense than actually moving them on the map as units. After all, does your bomber really occupy that space for a year and then return home? No!

The only thing the Civ4 air combat system needs now is Dale's air superiority mission, so you can send your fighters in to intercept other people's fighters.

Errrrrm you can, its called "Intercept"!!!

I voted other..

I would like a grid system of nodes where the number of nodes was large relative to the smallest move possible (not one for one as in civ). Say 10:1 ratio. So for example an artillery piece would (without roads etc) would be able to move 10 nodes. spacial distortions from a grid system could be countered by applying pythogoras theorem to diagonal moves. So a diagonal move from one node to the next would use up square root of (1**2 + 1**2) or 1.4 mov points (instead of 1 for horizontal/vertical movement). So for example an artillery piece could move 10 nodes horizontally or 7 nodes diagonally with both looking like the same distance on the map.

This would massively add to the computational burden on the PC but then PCs are getting ever more powerful....

This would also be nice for making more natural looking terrain. Forts could be small like 2x2 nodes and farmlands larger clumps of irregular nodes and so on.

Think of the centre of each cell of a grid as your "nodes" there is no difference. You still need a pattern to the nodes!

Think of the centre of each cell of a grid as your "nodes" there is no difference. You still need a pattern to the nodes!

Yes i am aware of that. The grid of cells/nodes would be just like a chessboard or civboard BUT with a much finer 'grain' and as i said before daigonal moves using up more move points (in accordance with pythogorus theorem) so diagonal moves would be the same distance as horizontal.

Yes this a grid of squares but there is enough qualitive difference from a chessboard that it merits being 'other'. didn't stalin say 'quantity has a quality all of its own'.

That was one of the most annoying "featuers" of the old games. Giving your aircraft missions makes so much more sense than actually moving them on the map as units. After all, does your bomber really occupy that space for a year and then return home? No!


Do any of your other units ? It's an abstraction.

Do any of your other units?
Yes, they do.

Yes, they do.

I happen to think it's unreasonable to hold air units to a standard of "realism" that means having to land them every turn or two while at the same time allowing land or sea units to occupy squares indefinitely, and air units should behave like other units in this regard; if you want to object to that on logistical grounds, I do not think that holds without applying the same standards to land and sea units, which leads into ideas like needing to keep supply trains moving to units in the field and so forth, of which I very much do not approve.

Well I think it goes without saying that we want the biggest grid possible! However hardware constraints will always limit this, games will just get too slow and too big (in RAM).

Well, think of it this way. Infantry in the field to not travel back and forth from bases every time they complete an operation. Ships on the ocean do not either, since they are going from point A to point B, then staying there to launch missions. Aircraft, however, travel to and from the base they are stationed at to get more ammo, refuel, let the pilots sleep, eat, etc.

Well, think of it this way. Infantry in the field to not travel back and forth from bases every time they complete an operation. Ships on the ocean do not either, since they are going from point A to point B, then staying there to launch missions. Aircraft, however, travel to and from the base they are stationed at to get more ammo, refuel, let the pilots sleep, eat, etc.

It depends on the scale which you see turns and tiles representing.

If you want units to represent actual units, to go back to base and refuel and so forth, you are talking tactical combat, which is not what I want from Civ, even if it could be represented on any reasonable scale. (Even I balk at micromanagement enough to control every individual unit of a 20th century army separately.)

If you are considering tiles as being ten to a hundred miles across and turns as being a year or so long, a "unit" is not representing an individual tank or whatever, but a force thereof with logistical support, no ? Hence it seems reasonable to me to count an air unit similarly.

Icosahedral Hexagonal Grid

See here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geodesic_grid)

...and here (http://blog.earthbrowser.com/2007_02_01_archive.html)

The second shows a pretty good picture of Earth.

I voted other..

I would like a grid system of nodes where the number of nodes was large relative to the smallest move possible (not one for one as in civ). Say 10:1 ratio. ...

You are describing a square grid with proper diagonal cost.

Whatever tile shape, it would be possible to approximate a better planet projection using diagonal wrap. The Northwest corner and Southeast corner are the poles and the equator goes from the Southwest corner to the Northeast corner.

In this primitive graphic the letters represent points on the edge of the map that are essentially the same point. So, if you go off the top edge at C you come back in at the left edge at the other C.

_ABCDE
A ------E
B-------F
C-------G
D-------H
E-------I
_EFGHI

Maps with this kind of wrap should be available maybe as an option.

Edited much later.

If you cut the squares into triangles across one diagonal you could do the same thing yet also stretch out the equator axis compared to the polar axis. Maybe superimpose this division just for movement, retaining the normal squares for economic stuff.

I would like a Civ game with no grid. Aesthetically, maps would be tremendously accurate, & the spacing for improvements & cities might as well be based on a distance scale. Movement costs would also be based on distances.

Also, a grid-free map would allow for a planet to be truly spherical, adding for some interesting gameplay & realism (imagine being the first to circumnavigate the world for following the "maximum circle" route instead of the only-latitudinal trajectory used on cylinders & cylindrical maps).

Some possible drawbacks to this would be that map scripting & making would get much more complicated, & that it would take up much more RAM than the grid systems.

In the case of city placement, the space required may be based on total land area required for the city, limited also by the linear distance for the farthest lands the city controlls.

I would like a Civ game with no grid. Aesthetically, maps would be tremendously accurate, & the spacing for improvements & cities might as well be based on a distance scale. Movement costs would also be based on distances.


And to represent this internally in the computer you still need a grid, just a much finer one; I think this is a lousy idea.

Call me old fashioned, but I'm happy with the grid the way it is.

And to represent this internally in the computer you still need a grid, just a much finer one; I think this is a lousy idea.

Well, it happens that Sid Meier's Railroads! works with no formal grid system.

I'm happy with it the way it is.

But I'd like hexes better. Never mind about the diagonal movement being more accurate; that's not why (who really cares about that?)

I have three main reasons. The first is aesthetic. With nice graphics, things blend better, the terrain is more sort of rounded and less, well, square. Individual tiles don't look quite as discrete in a hex grid (when the grid's off). Coastlines, especially, could look much nicer.

The second is chokepoints. With a hex map, there's going to be more chokepoints - no diagonal sliding by a single tile.

Finally, there's the Big Fat Cross. It's a pain in the butt!! I know some people like nothing better than counting squares all day to determine the perfect layout for their civ. It's not my cup of tea. With a hex system, you'd have a two-tile radius in all directions, period. Much easier. And looking more like a proper radius, sort of spherical, not like a cross.

Finally, there's the Big Fat Cross. It's a pain in the butt!! I know some people like nothing better than counting squares all day to determine the perfect layout for their civ. It's not my cup of tea. With a hex system, you'd have a two-tile radius in all directions, period. Much easier. And looking more like a proper radius, sort of spherical, not like a cross.

I just drew a hexagon grid to check the differences between the "fat cross" & the corresponding hexagonal layout. The sqare grid works better in the sense that it allows for 8-20 surrounding tiles per city, while the hex system allows for 6-18 tiles. I find such difference to be important in the late game, but convenient on the early one (it will limit your city's growth due to lack of tiles to work), but it's also more comfortable for uniform city spacing (especially useful in maps with large landmasses).

I also have this other idea: how about an hex-grid map in which workable city borders extend up to an almost 3 tile radius? To better understand it, check the diagram I include here. The basic radius is in dark green, the 1st expanded radius is in dark red, & an optional workable radio for the hexagonal grid is in blue (although it's not necessary for the map concept). That adittional radio expansion would add up to a total 30 workable tiles for a city, whereas the 2-tile radio in the hex grid would allow for 18 (cultural expansion would become more important, & it could be a nice add-up for the single city for human players challenge). For those who may want to know how many tiles a full 3-tile workable radio, it's a total of 36, perhaps too many (unless the maps were enlarged, that is).

Now I'm kinda understanding better why would most people here would prefer an alternate hex grid.

How many tiles are workable is not a big issue ... that just requires a little balancing of the numbers to account for having 2 fewer tiles.

Colonization does away with a whole 12 tiles from the usual city radius, but it's balanced to handle that.

I don't like the 3 grid radius shown above because it wrecks easy uniform placement of cities, a principal advantage of the hex system. With a 2-tile radius, all your city radii can interlock with no gaps, and it's really simple to do. It's basically just a larger grid of new hexes.

You could have a 3 tile radius that maintains the overall hex shape, with an equal distance of 3 tiles in all directions. Or 4, or 5. Like here you've got a shape that would give 5 hexes in all directions and maintains the good, interlockable shape:

http://g.imagehost.org/0916/hexmap.gif

It doesn't really matter exactly what the radius is - 1, 2, 3, whatever, as long as it's equal in all directions.

Well, it happens that Sid Meier's Railroads! works with no formal grid system.

It has one, it's just incredibly tiny and doesn't make itself apparent to the player. The program needs it to be able to calculate areas and distances.

I think that Hex grid should work better for CIV 5.
I find diagonal movement confusing at times.

I think that with Hex grid the BFC should allow for 3 tiles in all direction (up to 36 tiles).
However, cities should still be limited to 20 tiles.
This will allow players to spread their cities further away from each other and have more options on which tiles to work on.
That will also add more flexibility because players can then switch back and forth between food tiles and hammer tiles.
Players will also have more room to exchange tiles between two near by cities.

This will add more strategy to the game…..

Rectangular is what is has been, and rectangular is what it should be.

Rectangular is what is has been, and rectangular is what it should be.

So far the majority in this thread prefers Hexagonal. ;)

Different player group. Rectangular also makes it much less complicated and easier to understand. With the rectangular pattern, it's easy to tell where your units are and what's next to them. It's harder to using a hexagonal grid, if you've ever played chinese checkers you'll know what I mean.

It's harder to using a hexagonal grid, if you've ever played chinese checkers you'll know what I mean.

I think that whoever is smart enough to play Civ 4 is more than capable to deal with Hexagonal grid. ;)

Haha, you have to be smarter to do well in Civ3, and do you see a hexagonal grid there? It makes it easier on the terrain and unit creators as well.

Beta test a hex grid to get real feedback because you never know what bugs might sprout out. Maybe even a backlash to return to square grid might occur.

I don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet, but having a hexagonal grid would make it a lot harder to play the game due to the obsolescence of the numpad to move units.

I don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet, but having a hexagonal grid would make it a lot harder to play the game due to the obsolescence of the numpad to move units.

The numpad is of no use, except "cheating" in multiplayer. PLus, there's a mean to use numpad with an hex grid, with counter-momentum as i explained years ago in some topic.

Numpad? I don't use it much anymore, but for those who do, it wouldn't be hard to adapt to something like:
T,Y
F,(G - centre),H
V,B

The numpad thing doesn't seem to me to be reason enough to block the implementation of a new feature.

I'll warrant that there may be other problems, or people might just not like it. I'd agree that it really ought to be seriously beta tested before implementation was even considered. But I don't think people would really have a very difficult time with it.

In Civ3, it is not 'cheating' but just another way to move units. Sure, you can go into sea or ocean squares with a coastal boat, but you can do that by using the mouse too. I don't know how that would be 'cheating' in civ4, but I don't see why you shouldn't be able to use it.

In Civ3, it is not 'cheating' but just another way to move units. Sure, you can go into sea or ocean squares with a coastal boat, but you can do that by using the mouse too. I don't know how that would be 'cheating' in civ4, but I don't see why you shouldn't be able to use it.

"Cheating" only in multiplayer, because you can move your units faster with the numpad. If you press continuously the 6 key when the timer is at 0, your unit will move during the AI turn, or not far from it. Well it's not really cheating, but that's rather a trick.

It's using what you have. I get what you mean though.