What type of grid system would you like in Civilization?

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.

Wimsey said:

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.

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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.

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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?

Onionsoilder said:

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

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

Square tiles forever.

exhile said:

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?

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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!

exhile said:

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

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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.

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......

r_rolo1 said:

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

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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

But only hexagons is impossible.

Scilly_guy said:

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.

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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.

Scilly_guy said:

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!

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

Scilly_guy said:

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.

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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

Chiyochan said:

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

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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.

exhile said:

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

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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.

exhile said:

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.

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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, look it up, its really not that scary!

Naokaukodem said:

I voted squares.

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.

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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.

rysmiel said:

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.

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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?

Scilly_guy said:

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.

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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.

exhile said:

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.

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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.