Hexagon Grids

[Perugia]

OK here's some simpler ways to illustrate the problem with squares in game terms 1) Exploration 2) Roads/railroads and 3) Irrigation Quirkiness.

Exploration

Ignoring the effect of hills, rivers and coasts that either slow your scout down or allow it to see further ie I'm talking about flat terrain, no features, most players will move their scout 2 squares diagonally rather than orthogonally as 2 diagonal moves will reveal 10 squares of blackness against 6 squares moving orthogonally.

Road/Rail Network

Likewise when workers are laying a strategic road (or later rail) network and again ignoring rivers, coasts etc (or the hooking up of resources). Laying a diagonal or zig-zag road will allow units using the road to reach the maximum squares not yet roaded in a single turn.

Given a choice I always explore or road diagonally.

Irrigation Quirkiness

With squares there are some wacky rules for deciding if it's OK to irrigate a plot (and the subset of plots that can be watermilled instead) when they are only adjacent on the diagonal. This is very confusing when learning the game. With hexagons there would be no such problems.

Squares

AFAIR the rules for irrigation with squares are:

Irrigation allowed both diagonally or orthogonally from fresh water lake (or irrigated non-hill city)
Irrigation allowed diagonally from river except directly from source or mouth (no watermill allowed).
Irrigation or Watermill allowed orthogonally from river

Hexagons

With hexagons the rules would not catch out begineers:

Irrigation allowed adjacent to fresh water lake (or irrigated non-hill city)
Irrigation or Watermill allowed adjacent to river

 

[hgthechinese]

On another note, am I the only one who is annoyed at the globe being a cylindar rather than a sphere (it is just as wide at the equator as it is at the poles)? A hexagonal system would allow the flat map to 'tapper off' at the poles, becoming narrower. This would not work on a square grid system as the squares are dirrectly on top of each other and not slightly to the side, which would enable it to become progressivly narrower.

Great point. I was bothered by the shape of earth before too but did not realize hex could also easily fix it. now it's 2 thumbs up for hex....u know, on top of the a dozen thumbs up already.

 

[SonicX]

I guess I'm just being conservative here, but I do prefer a square system over a hexagonal system.
Many of the supposed upsides of hexagonal systems have got their flaws too. I see people arguing that hexagon make it easier to determine the city radii, but is the chewing off of the square radius to make it a circle really that counter-intuitive ? Maybe the first 3x3 radius is flawed, but after that it looks pretty round to me, rounder than a 3x3x3 expanded hexagon.
Then I'm not even talking about old-fashioned Civ gameplay here. A no culture city has 9 square, a cultured city 23. In CivHexagon, a no culture city would have only 7, a cultured city 19 ... and I just don't want no smaller cities.

Oh, and please don't start about a hexagonal earth map. More realistic ? Maybe, but a hell of a lot harder to maintain oversight on any level.

 

[hgthechinese]

Then I'm not even talking about old-fashioned Civ gameplay here. A no culture city has 9 square, a cultured city 23. In CivHexagon, a no culture city would have only 7, a cultured city 19 ... and I just don't want no smaller cities.

Oh, and please don't start about a hexagonal earth map. More realistic ? Maybe, but a hell of a lot harder to maintain oversight on any level.

well, we can make the cties' "fat cross" be one more layer, so it wont be 19 or 23...it will be....um.....some1 wanna do the math for me? 37 I think. how is THAT for a bigger city?

and it is NOT harder to maintain oversight. you have to understand, a hex map can and still is 2D, so it is as easy to see as it is now. the benefit is simply that once you zoom out, it will look more right than it does now. Plus, admit it, the wall-of-ice at the 2 poles (which are more like 2 long lines) are just stupid.

 

[SonicX]

well, we can make the cties' "fat cross" be one more layer, so it wont be 19 or 23...it will be....um.....some1 wanna do the math for me? 37 I think. how is THAT for a bigger city?

and it is NOT harder to maintain oversight. you have to understand, a hex map can and still is 2D, so it is as easy to see as it is now. the benefit is simply that once you zoom out, it will look more right than it does now. Plus, admit it, the wall-of-ice at the 2 poles (which are more like 2 long lines) are just stupid.

37 is too big in my opinion, I'm sorry.

And yes, it IS harder. Why ? Because I don't usually use the zoom button, I use the minimap and I'd like to see the extent of my empire on the minimap.
The only times in the game when I zoom out is when I build Stonehenge or discover the Calendar, and it's not even on purpose.
If I would have an equatorial empire that accidentily spreads across the left and the right side of the minimap, it would look very confusing with a hexagonal map. Moreover, you can't just connect the hexes over the edge that easily and would create problems crossing over the mark.

Oh, I also don't want my armies to appear drunk whenever they have to travel east/west, zigzagging all the way.

 

[hgthechinese]

And yes, it IS harder. Why ? Because I don't usually use the zoom button, I use the minimap and I'd like to see the extent of my empire on the minimap.
The only times in the game when I zoom out is when I build Stonehenge or discover the Calendar, and it's not even on purpose.
If I would have an equatorial empire that accidentily spreads across the left and the right side of the minimap, it would look very confusing with a hexagonal map. Moreover, you can't just connect the hexes over the edge that easily and would create problems crossing over the mark.

Oh, I also don't want my armies to appear drunk whenever they have to travel east/west, zigzagging all the way.

As for the map, I always thought you should be able to CONTROL the mini map. That is to say, if you want o center your nation, they should definately let you. That should be a easy fix and your empire should never be on 2 sides of the map.

and the drunk argument is just stupid. you may as well say that your army looks drunk now when it tries to go like Knight in chess, and it looks like if they are on steoroid and traveling at lightspeed when it goes SW, SE etc. Plus, since the tarrain is virtually always a factor (as well as roads), your army prob never travel "straight" anyway.

 

[SonicX]

Of course it'll always be a factor, but intuitively 8 directions just fits the human mind better.

 

[tatterdemalion]

the staggered square approach above is a decent compromise.

i would still prefer hexes.

 

[hgthechinese]

Of course it'll always be a factor, but intuitively 8 directions just fits the human mind better.

urgh....it does? i must be very unhuman then...when an enemy knight is 2 diagnal spaces away from my worker, my mind always slide and think itz 2 far to attack me next turn, since it LOOKS 2 far. next thing i know, "your forces are under attack! your worker has been captured by an enemy knight!"

 

[kniteowl]

SO............... Anyone here willing to make a Hexagon Tile Mod for Civ4? Be an interesting game lol

 

[SonicX]

Is that even possible ?

 

[Antilogic]

I wish it was. I would have no clue how to do it, but I would like to see that.

On the size of cities...for the most part of the game, your cities aren't going to be using all the tiles anyway, only in the Industrial/Modern Era would you actually notice the 19 vs. 21 tiles thing. And with corporations and food resources, you can still grow your cities to immense sizes.

Besides, that could all be taken care of with technologies and adjusting improvements and stuff: perhaps there could be a couple buildings that provide +1 food in the city instead of just supermarkets? The fact that your cities would have a couple less usable tiles is not a major issue.

 

[Traitorfish]

Besides, that could all be taken care of with technologies and adjusting improvements and stuff: perhaps there could be a couple buildings that provide +1 food in the city instead of just supermarkets?

Perhaps a Hydroponics Plant as a late-game improvement?

 

[toft]

When you start thinking about getting a better system than the (x,y) then why not forget all about squares and hexagons? Keep the (x,y) system, but make it more like RTS based system, with movement-points for each turn, letting you choose 1 of the 360 directions you want the unit to move? You all know RTS-games, dont think I need to explain further.

Dont misunderstand me, I dont want an RTS Civ... I love turnbased.

 

[Traitorfish]

When you start thinking about getting a better system than the (x,y) then why not forget all about squares and hexagons? Keep the (x,y) system, but make it more like RTS based system, with movement-points for each turn, letting you choose 1 of the 360 directions you want the unit to move? You all know RTS-games, dont think I need to explain further.

I think the name for that is "Point-to-Point" movement.
I don't think that's a system that would work well in Civ without some considerable overhauls to the gameplay- for a start, cities would no longer be able to work tiles, so some system would have to be devised to accommodate that. It'd be interesting to see a Civ-like game that used the system, but I'd rather see it built from the ground up as it's own game, rather than trying to change Civ to use it.