Grids: hex, square or gridless

[Gooblah]

Squares. However nice and fancy Hexes are, they would be extremely unintuitive and hard to code relative to squares. Yes, there's the 'diagonal movement problem', but honestly, how many players would realistically build 'Maginot Lines' and other such Fortifications? I know I don't. You can make such Fortifications now by stringing Forts and tacking on the occasional

XX
X

pattern to deal with diagonal entry.

 

[Trias]

So the circular radius of movement for a unit would really be an elliptical radius of movement? It would be pretty hard to represent/understand movement that didn't conform to a circular radius. And the only way this can be done is through having a flat map, whether it be wraparound or not.

Circles on a sphere are still circles, not ellipses. (Try it on a orange or something) Of course there is the issue of how to project de curved map to your flat screen which will usually mean that there some distortion along the edges of the screen. This all should be rather intuitive because every body has looked at a globe.

Straight lines would be distorted by the above. They would be curved lines. Unless, of course, it were possible to move through the surface of the Earth and emerge at a particular point.

Again depends on how you project. Parallel projection will map geodesics from the center position of the screen, to straightlines on your screen.

So, yeah, a co-ordinate based system may have certain minimal advantages over a tile based system, but you lose more than you gain, and as you say, it wouldn't feel like civ.

I would actually say that there are significant advantages to be gained from a coordinate based system, and you don't really lose anything, you just end up with a very different game with quite different mechanics. Seeing how conservative the civ crowd is, that probably wouldn't fare well. On the other hand, implementing such a system would at once silence all the critics that civ hasn't innovated in the past decade.

 

[Camikaze]

Circles on a sphere are still circles, not ellipses. (Try it on a orange or something) Of course there is the issue of how to project de curved map to your flat screen which will usually mean that there some distortion along the edges of the screen. This all should be rather intuitive because every body has looked at a globe.

Yeah, that's what I was meaning. The distortion of a circle projected onto a circle displayed on a flat screen would be quite confusing. You need to have a 2D map on your screen for the game to be easy to play. And flattening out a sphere would make things pretty confusing.

Again depends on how you project. Parallel projection will map geodesics from the center position of the screen, to straightlines on your screen.

Well, given the 2D projection necessary (well, I think it's necessary to avoid the game looking childish), straight lines would become a problem.

I would actually say that there are significant advantages to be gained from a coordinate based system, and you don't really lose anything, you just end up with a very different game with quite different mechanics. Seeing how conservative the civ crowd is, that probably wouldn't fare well. On the other hand, implementing such a system would at once silence all the critics that civ hasn't innovated in the past decade.

I think having quite different mechanics is a significant loss. And I still don't see what the significant advantages of the system are.

 

[Trias]

Yeah, that's what I was meaning. The distortion of a circle projected onto a circle displayed on a flat screen would be quite confusing. You need to have a 2D map on your screen for the game to be easy to play. And flattening out a sphere would make things pretty confusing.

I don't think anybody finds zooming into google earth confusing. This would be probably be the best way to represent a spherical map, namely as a 3D sphere, that you can zoom in and out on. In close zooms the map would appear to be nearly flat with minor deformation at the edge of the screen. These deformation are intuitively processed by anyone who has every looked at a sphere in real life. Again this not nearly as big a problem as you make it out to be.

Well, given the 2D projection necessary (well, I think it's necessary to avoid the game looking childish), straight lines would become a problem.

Again not that big a problem. Using parallel projection (as described above). Geodesics become straight lines on your 2D screen that slightly bulge away from the center of the screen, which just reminds people that they are looking at a sphere.
In the units would rarely move in straight lines since the the goto path finder algorithm should find the fastest/safest route not the shortest. Due to terrain features these will rarely coincide.

I think having quite different mechanics is a significant loss. And I still don't see what the significant advantages of the system are.

I would call the realization of spherical maps a major advantages as this has been a long held wish of the civ community.
The discussion about river movement in a parallel thread another good example. Implementing the effects of rivers on movement is basically obstructed by the tile based system. In a coordinated based tileless system it would be incredibly easy to implement movement bonusses along the river and movement penalites for crossing it. (Hell you could even base the movement penalty continuously on the river width.) Navigateble rivers would also be very easy to implement.
In the end a tileless system IS much more flexible, than the very rigid tile system used by civ.

 

[frekk]

However nice and fancy Hexes are, they would be extremely unintuitive and hard to code relative to squares.

There's no particular difference in how intuitive hexes or squares are. Squares are actually less intuitive in many senses, such as the fort problem you describe, or the "big fat cross" of the cities (hexes do radius much better - 2 hexes in every direction describes a rough sphere, rather than a boxy square which has to have the corners cut off to make it seem more spherical).

And no, they aren't more difficult to code at all. There are many early computer wargames from the late 1980s and early 1990s, meant to run on DOS machines with ram measured in Kb, which use hexes. In Civ, there would be a difficulty achieving horizontal wrap of the whole globe (ie n-s wrap across the poles as well as e-w). It certainly could be done but it would be a big draw on computing power. However, Civ doesn't do horizontal wrap on the globe as things stand now and it would add very little to the game to have it do that. A wrap in one direction is easy and simple, and was done frequently on the old dos-based wargames.

 

[Camikaze]

@Trias- I still disagree, but I'll settle to agree to disagree on which system would be more flexible/easy to use. I'll just say that changing from a tile based system would just not be civ. It would necessitate too many major changes to be all that good as the fifth instalment in the series.

 

[rysmiel]

I don't think anybody finds zooming into google earth confusing.

No, but it would be a huge pain in the behind for playing Civ.

 

[Rusty Edge]

On the other hand there are many gameplay concepts on a tile based map that don't have a clear reinterpretation in a coordinate based system. Many gameplay elements of civ would have to be rethought in such a system including combat, tile improvements and yields and more. In the end I wonder if such game would in anyway 'feel' like civ, which is why I am not advocating implementing such a system in the next civ game.

You're very perceptive.

Creator Soren Johnson was explaining on a video interview included with some version ( Civ Gold ? ) that in their in-house experimentaion and playtesting with CIV IV they learned something interesting. I don't know if they went as far as a point coordinates, but in their efforts to make maps more worldlike you could no longer tell at a glance whether a spot was fish or fowl , hill or forest or grassland, because they blended together to become hybrids, and players could no longer optimize their movement, defensive bonuses, production, etc. The consensus was that the game was no longer CIV. The conclusion was that more than a turn-based strategy game, CIV is a TILE-based strategy game.

 

[Tholish]

Then there's staggered squares. In relations with other tiles are essentiallly the same as hexes, except within the tile the shape is a square. The straight lines could be latitude. You could even have the polar regions go to double width tile.

 

[Trias]

There's no particular difference in how intuitive hexes or squares are. Squares are actually less intuitive in many senses, such as the fort problem you describe, or the "big fat cross" of the cities (hexes do radius much better - 2 hexes in every direction describes a rough sphere, rather than a boxy square which has to have the corners cut off to make it seem more spherical).

And no, they aren't more difficult to code at all. There are many early computer wargames from the late 1980s and early 1990s, meant to run on DOS machines with ram measured in Kb, which use hexes. In Civ, there would be a difficulty achieving horizontal wrap of the whole globe (ie n-s wrap across the poles as well as e-w). It certainly could be done but it would be a big draw on computing power. However, Civ doesn't do horizontal wrap on the globe as things stand now and it would add very little to the game to have it do that. A wrap in one direction is easy and simple, and was done frequently on the old dos-based wargames.

Actually civ4 has the option of doing a toroidal wrap. I don't see why it would be much harder to do a toroidal wrap of hexes than a toroidal wrap of squares. It comes down to the same thing programming wise, but I might be missing something on how the computer deals with the wrap.

 

[Vael]

You're very perceptive.

Creator Soren Johnson was explaining on a video interview included with some version ( Civ Gold ? ) that in their in-house experimentaion and playtesting with CIV IV they learned something interesting. I don't know if they went as far as a point coordinates, but in their efforts to make maps more worldlike you could no longer tell at a glance whether a spot was fish or fowl , hill or forest or grassland, because they blended together to become hybrids, and players could no longer optimize their movement, defensive bonuses, production, etc. The consensus was that the game was no longer CIV. The conclusion was that more than a turn-based strategy game, CIV is a TILE-based strategy game.

I agree with this completely. I don't really care whether the next civ game uses squares or hexes but I'd much prefer EITHER to a "tileless" system. The reason why civ has always worked is because it's easy to understand "my unit is in a tile, there's wheat in the tile next to it." If you have to calculate stuff using radii the game becomes more about matching up your little circle with other little circles in the game. That might be a fun game for some people but it sure doesn't sound like something I'd enjoy playing.

 

[Gamemaster77]

Would an octogon shape be possible? Therefore eleminating the drwback of hexes to having 6 ways to go instead of one.

 

[Gamemaster77]

Scratch that. It would be the exact same thing as a square grid with edges cut or a weird grid with two types of tiles depending on how you interpret it.

 

[Camikaze]

I just realised that I haven't actually said what I wanted yet, but I think I'd go for squares over hexes. Narrowly. Really, I don't mind either way. I'm quite happy with the way the tile system works currently, and the only real advantages (that I can think of) you are going to get out of hexes are a bit of realism in diagonal movement and the ability to get a better map scale. It's not really worth the change, which would involve changing game aspects based of the square tile system.

 

[Trias]

I just realised that I haven't actually said what I wanted yet, but I think I'd go for squares over hexes. Narrowly. Really, I don't mind either way. I'm quite happy with the way the tile system works currently, and the only real advantages (that I can think of) you are going to get out of hexes are a bit of realism in diagonal movement and the ability to get a better map scale. It's not really worth the change, which would involve changing game aspects based of the square tile system.

There actually only very few game aspects that change between hex and square tiles. The main ones being the city BFC and unit movement. (and keyboard controls) For the rest the change is mostly cosmetic. Being realistic this probably means that the devs will stick with squares since there is not that much to be gained.

 

[Camikaze]

But what are the advantages of the hex system? If there aren't many actual changes, what is the point, unless there are big advantages?

 

[Trias]

But what are the advantages of the hex system? If there aren't many actual changes, what is the point, unless there are big advantages?

*There are some cosmetic benefits like you can create more natural looking rivers on the edges of a hex grid. (How many times have you seen a river make a 90 degree turn?)
*Diagonal movements on a square grid cause several ambiguities in playing the game. For example, take the following situation:

L|W
-+-
W|L

(with L denoting land tiles and W denoting water tiles.) Should you be able to cross this daigonal with land units? Should you be able to cross it with water units?
In civ2 it was both, in civ4 it is only the former (I think) and I don't remember how civ3 dealt with it. But the fact alone that different civ versions have come up with different solutions illustrates the fact that none of these options is completely intuitive. Since such situations cannot occur on a hex grid this problem is solved.

There are similar problems with diagonally placed units, etc. This problems however do not in any way affect the core game mechanics, which are the same on both grids (unlike a gridless system).

*The BFC is more naturally round on a hex grid. It actually really is a radius 2 circle on the grid metric, unlike the current BFC on the square grid, which needed to have its corners cut to appear round.

----
But in the end the differences are indeed minor.

 

[killmeplease]

woted for squares but now i see hexes are much better

 

[moscaverde]

In CIV IV the mountais are impassable, but you can pass a chain of mountais with diagonal crossing, with is very weird.

 

[HanWuDi]

That probably represents a mountain pass.