Marla_Singer
United in diversity
I won't come back on the heavy divide between Civ4 and Civ5 fans: hexagons or squares, 1UPT vs SOD and so on and so forth. The fact is that no matter on which side you are, obviously both approaches have their limits.
Hence a simple idea: what about no tile at all?
I used to believe that tiles were necessary for a game like Civilization, just like I believed they were necessary for a city builder. But then, Cities: Skylines arrived and totally changed my perception of things.
Tiles are not really necessary for a game like Civilization. Granted we need squares for production, but those can be set up and oriented freely on a 3D map, exactly like the buildings shown on the image above. If a production tile would be 65% on grassland and 35% on plains, then it would produce 65% of the food of a grassland tile and 35% of the food of a plain tile. It's just simple math.
It's essential Civilization remain a turn-based game, otherwise it would simply kill the concept. However, tiles are not necessary to apprehend limited movements in a turn-based game. The length a unit could walk by on a no-tile map could simply be limited. And the same applies for the rest: city radius, culture radius, fog-of-war and so on and so forth.
As a matter of fact, tiles (no matter if they are squared or hexed) are actually more restrictions than they really serve the gameplay. And no matter the approach, they do limit considerably the realism of the strategies used by players. Getting rid of tiles would also allow the world map to actually be a sphere.
The more I think about, the better I find the idea.
And what about you? Do you see anything which really makes tiles that necessary?
Hence a simple idea: what about no tile at all?
I used to believe that tiles were necessary for a game like Civilization, just like I believed they were necessary for a city builder. But then, Cities: Skylines arrived and totally changed my perception of things.
Tiles are not really necessary for a game like Civilization. Granted we need squares for production, but those can be set up and oriented freely on a 3D map, exactly like the buildings shown on the image above. If a production tile would be 65% on grassland and 35% on plains, then it would produce 65% of the food of a grassland tile and 35% of the food of a plain tile. It's just simple math.
It's essential Civilization remain a turn-based game, otherwise it would simply kill the concept. However, tiles are not necessary to apprehend limited movements in a turn-based game. The length a unit could walk by on a no-tile map could simply be limited. And the same applies for the rest: city radius, culture radius, fog-of-war and so on and so forth.
As a matter of fact, tiles (no matter if they are squared or hexed) are actually more restrictions than they really serve the gameplay. And no matter the approach, they do limit considerably the realism of the strategies used by players. Getting rid of tiles would also allow the world map to actually be a sphere.
The more I think about, the better I find the idea.
And what about you? Do you see anything which really makes tiles that necessary?