Hex vs squares

[GoGerbilGo!]

Hello. I just registered here because, now that Civ5 is nearing release, I am starting to scour the forum here to search for any information on the game's features. I have not played previous Civ games for as long as many of you here. The flaws in previous games made me tire of playing them for long. But fanmade Civ4 mods have kept me engrossed. And so I am hopeful that user generated mods will make Civ5 another game worth buying. The two mods I play most are "Fall From Heaven 2" and its modmods and Liambane's "[BTS 3.19] Earth 35 Civilizations MOD (v2.4)."

I would like to comment on the naval-land simultaneous diagonal crossing ability. Several posters to this thread seem to believe that this is not possible in Civ4. I can verify that in Liambane's Earth 35 Mod, this is indeed possible. There are several places on this Civ4 Earth map where this terrain exists and the simultaneous movement is possible, including Greece-Turkey/Black Sea-Aegean Sea; two double bridges at the Isthmus of Panama/Pacific Ocean-Caribbean Sea; Sweden-Denmark/Baltic Sea-North Sea; four double bridges chaining the great lakes of North America; Hainan-Guangdong/Qiongzhou Strait; Hokkaido-Honshu/Sea of Japan-Pacific Ocean; Kyushu-Honshu/Sea of Japan-Pacific Ocean. In fact, there are about 35 such points on this map. And as you can see, it makes sense to have these points on this particular map where naval units can cross one way while land unit the other way. This ability actually offers an alternate way of creating a narrow strait or channel on Civ4 maps than what you are imagining.

To execute a naval crossing at one of these points, you have to actually move your naval unit to the crossing point first. You cannot rally past this point. Land units can, but naval units cannot. In other words, say you have a Crimean port and you have finished producing a ship. You cannot immediately rally it to a port city at Suez. You must first rally it to the near side of the crossing. And only then can you move the ship past the point. Otherwise, the ship will not be able to discover the exit and will be trapped inside the Black Sea. The map does begin with the port city of Constantinople, which you can use as a canal. However, if Lenin does not have a free passage agreement with Justinian, a Crimean caravel may still exit the Black Sea at this point.

Interestingly, although the path finder for the rally cannot discover the exit, AI ships have no difficulty making these crossings, which leads me to believe that AI movement and rally point are not related in the programming. Also, I have found it often necessary in coastal defense and amphibious assault to use these crossing points to cut travel time for my ships. Far from considering it an odd ability, I consider it easy to rationalize. Morevoer, it does add a tad more strategy to the naval game.

 

[GoGerbilGo!]

I would like to further comment on what I think makes this strange crossing ability intriguing. I have been trying to figure out a way to make a Civ4 map featuring naval warfare on rivers that does not use cities to bridge opposite shores. This special land-naval diagonal crossing ability would allow for land units to cross rivers at strategic "bridges," while also allowing naval units to pass through them without having to place cities all over the map. Thus, I think this crossing ability is the significant and most valuable feature that would allow naval warfare on "rivers" in Civ4. To build a naval ship, you need a seaport. But this is not a problem. You just need to "widen" the river at various points to qualify a coastal city for seaport city ability.

Moving to hex tiles will probably preclude this trick however.

Oh, well.

 

[PieceOfMind]

You are right that it is possible to change the diagonal crossing behaviour in a mod (I mean, the Unnofficial patch did it by accident for a moment there) but it's not possible in default civ4 or any of its expansions. If I recall, the reason the change was made accidentally in the UP was because the code that affected that mechanic was not very well written and the logic looked flawed (poor commenting I suppose), so people who saw it at first thought it needed "fixing".

The fact you can't path-find past one of these naval diag crossings to me suggests it's bug-like and I would be checking with the mod author if that effect (naval diag crossings) was intended.

 

[Kid R]

I'm not sure that this is a real disadvantage - but whether or not it's true depends on how the hexes are oriented - you certainly can set up hexes so that you can move directly north and south - or east and west. But you can't have NSEW all at the same time.

However, the restriction on moving directly in one direction only applies if you move an odd number of turns - moving *two* hexes (or four, etc.) will always move you straight in the direction you want.

All this worry about the ability to move directly N/S/E/W is from people who haven't yet grasped that the desire to move in those directions only arises because of the square grid and that there are tiles in those directions. You only ever want to move to get to another tile after all. The hex grid in Civ 5 has been skillfully designed so that the available movement directions will exactly align with where adjacent tiles are.

After a few games on Civ 5 people will be complaining that Civ 4 doesn't allow you to move 60% ENE or 120% WNW etc.

 

[hclass]

You can find hexes EVERYWHERE in nature! Simplest example: honeycombs! (And they *are* very uniform)
Also in botany you will find hexes (granted, they maybe not be as uniform as honeycombs). Hexes are the most efficient way (and nature always is "searching" for optimal structures as they need least energy) to fill a given space.

In nature, I mean our real world, the most common, pefect, uniform, holy shape is a sphere. May be Civ5 should instead uses a circle tile with which we can have a lot more adjacent tiles... and they definitely make the map looked very natural and smooth.

 

[Ramesses]

In nature, I mean our real world, the most common, pefect, uniform, holy shape is a sphere. May be Civ5 should instead uses a circle tile with which we can have a lot more adjacent tiles... and they definitely make the map looked very natural and smooth.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, and I really, really, REALLY hope that you are.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Can someone tell me what the upside of hexes are in comparison to the classic square tile look? It's reducing adjacent tiles from 8 to 6. Any benefit other than visual? Or is reducing adjacent tiles a good thing?

It makes all adjacent tiles equivalent. (instead of 4 side-side+ 4 diagonal there are 6 side-side)

 

[Kid R]

Imposing a small and perhaps arbitrary restriction when you feel stale during a session of (game designing, essay writing, picture painting...etc.) can be the spur for tons of seemingly unrelated innovations and produce a really creative and exciting result. I'm hopeful the switch to hexes will have had such an effect on the Civ 5 devs' gameplay ideas, even if the purely geometrical "pros and cons" covered in threads like this over the last couple of months don't make a totally clear case.

 

[hclass]

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic, and I really, really, REALLY hope that you are.

The smallest thing that you and I can see on a piece of paper or monitor screen is always a dot (pixel). Isn't a dot is round shape?
In fact any shape you named it, if you shrink it to a great extend, it become a dot without any side. And a circle/round shape is the only shape that is without any side.

 

[dulsin]

In Civ IV and before a city could exploit an area up to 1 + 8 + 12 = 21 tiles and it was impossible to space cities without some tiles that overlap or are unused by any city.

The new hex grid give the maximum city 1 + 6 + 12 +18 = 37 tiles to exploit more than 50% more than any previous game. The layout of the cities also makes it possible to space them 7 spaces apart and exploit every tile on a map.

 

[__JR__]

In nature, I mean our real world, the most common, pefect, uniform, holy shape is a sphere. May be Civ5 should instead uses a circle tile with which we can have a lot more adjacent tiles... and they definitely make the map looked very natural and smooth.

I know, right ? Because everywhere I look in nature there are perfect spheres !!

I mean, even the Earth is a perfect sphere ! o wait, not quite....

Anyway, are people really getting bent out of shape because there's going to be hexes instead of squares?

Isn't that kind of like cutting a sandwich diagonally or cutting it into rectangles? Once you're eating it, you won't even notice.

 

[Ramesses]

The smallest thing that you and I can see on a piece of paper or monitor screen is always a dot (pixel). Isn't a dot is round shape?
In fact any shape you named it, if you shrink it to a great extend, it become a dot without any side. And a circle/round shape is the only shape that is without any side.

But on a computer screen, pixels are still squares. Also, they're never going to give us pixel-based movement, as it's impractical to try to implement, and it allows for a degree of accuracy in military strategy that none of the leaders in Civ V ever had.

 

[D712]

I think the move from squares to hex's is one of the best new features. When I first saw the screen shots with the hex's I thought it looked so fresh and really organic. I mean, I rarely see a bunch on hexagon land forms around, but its hard on a game to make tiles that look real and this is by far the best way to do so. A circle would look to fake a curved. There are sides to the blobs on the map. Like the Italian peninsula, its not perfectly straight but it does have some straight sides. The hex gives both a round and a straight feel. Plus I grew very tired of having a huge island to play on and have two lanky island tiles I couldnt reach unless I had a transport But this fixes it

 

[jakezephyr]

I think hexes are a great addition to Civ V, but I don't think that square tiles would've been all that bad.

 

[D712]

The squares were nice, but I just think they werent very practicle. But I can see what you mean, as long as I can conquer, Im good

 

[Randomness]

CiV needs to leave behind the impractical and obsolete shapes, such as squares, hexagons, and octogons, and move to the vastly superior, diamond.

 

[Shurdus]

And yet another thread became a spamthread.

I cannot see why people get so worked up over these things. Civ is a strategy game, who cares what the board looks like? All we need is some form of uniformity, and an easy to use system. Once we have that, the board becomes a non-issue. I am sure both hexes and squares will work fine. We have seen squares in action, and now I am curious about the hexes. Bring them!

On a sidenote, spheres also do not make good sandwiches.

 

[PieceOfMind]

Moderator Action: Spam posts deleted.
Stay on topic please.
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889

 

[rhawn]

Because of the hex-tiles, do you think we will be able to play on a spherical world? I remember being really excited when I first saw the global view for Civ IV, but the map was still nothing but a 2d wraparound plane. The way the poles are implemented has always bothered me, especially since a bonus is given to whomever circumnavigates the globe. Even if this isn't included in Civ 5, does anyone think it is moddable? A quick google for hex globe or hex sphere shows it is possible to hex out a sphere.

 

[Calouste]

Because of the hex-tiles, do you think we will be able to play on a spherical world? I remember being really excited when I first saw the global view for Civ IV, but the map was still nothing but a 2d wraparound plane. The way the poles are implemented has always bothered me, especially since a bonus is given to whomever circumnavigates the globe. Even if this isn't included in Civ 5, does anyone think it is moddable? A quick google for hex globe or hex sphere shows it is possible to hex out a sphere.

You still need to present your hexed sphere in a 2D environment on the screen. The only thing to do that would be to make hexes bigger and somewhat deformed at higher latitudes, something that I doubt is in the engine. Or you would need a completely 3D enviroment, which isn't there either.