Visual Displays for Civ5 Ideas

[Gamemaster77]

Camikaze is that you? I don't recgonize your sig.
:O

 

[Camikaze]

Yup. Sig is the same, avatar is Brian Griffin.

 

[Terrance888]

OMG... Gone, as I say, the Advatar makes the Poster... Just wait until someone gets a One Ring advatar.

 

[Gamemaster77]

Yup. Sig is the same, avatar is Brian Griffin.

Meant avater
oops

 

[rysmiel]

It takes more movement points to move onto a hill than it does to go over a mountain pass, which uses the same movement points as travelling on flat ground.

I still don;t see why this feature is problematic.

 

[rysmiel]

Meant avater
oops

Um, dude ? You got it right the first time and corrected it to something wrong.

 

[Trias]

Nice representations. It certainly made it a lot clearer for me. One major problem with rivers in a hex system, however, is that it is impossible to have a straight river. It would have to zig-zag, which would be equally, if not more, visually awkward.

Have you ever seem a straight (non-canalized) river in RL? Rivers naturally meander.

I still don;t see why this feature is problematic.

The problem is that in designing the game the devs need to make an arbitrary decision about whether such passes should be cross-able or not. Neither choice is particularly intuitive, as is illustrated by different choices having been made throughout the civ series. For me this has reached a point where I simply cannot remember if a particular type of "impassable" crossing is crossable or not. (Or at least it took me quiet a while to figure out that you cannot cross land bridges by boat. And non-intuitive features are bad and should be avoided.

The most notable problem with hexes is the keyboard control. It is however good to note that this can be solved by using a hexagonal region of the QWERTY keyboard like ER-SDF-XC. (which brings up another issue. The next civ should feature a good interface for customizing the shortcut keys, instead of hiding most of it deep in the XML code. I would even settle for having all the keyboard assignments in a single XML file.) It might be a good idea to make a diagram of such an assignment in the OP, to flesh it out for the less imaginative among us.

 

[Naokaukodem]

I still don;t see why this feature is problematic.

Same here. It can appear that it is the graphics that are wrong, putting a stone bridge between the two.

On the other hand, the Civ move system is so that the move is equal in the 8 directions. So it would be logical to see the mountains to be sticked in the 8 directions, so forbiddening the passage through them in that case.

But that may have been a tested feature, so that adding this ban to the mountain pass ban was maybe a little too much, so that the developpers allowed passage between two of such mountains.

As for me, I would have to test it out to give my final word, but that acn't be done as the game is what it is.

Um, dude ? You got it right the first time and corrected it to something wrong.

rofl!

 

[Camikaze]

I still don;t see why this feature is problematic.

It just isn't realistic movement. It isn't problematic in the sense of making the game difficult to play, but it does add an element of absurdity that would be best done without.

Have you ever seem a straight (non-canalized) river in RL? Rivers naturally meander.

In an evenly zig-zagging way? Sure, rivers are not perfectly straight in real life, but the general shape of rivers can be roughly comparable to a straight line. But a bit of artistic liberty with the shapes of rivers on the edges of tiles would solve this conundrum.

 

[Trias]

In an evenly zig-zagging way? Sure, rivers are not perfectly straight in real life, but the general shape of rivers can be roughly comparable to a straight line. But a bit of artistic liberty with the shapes of rivers on the edges of tiles would solve this conundrum.

Well, find me a (non-canalized) river on google maps that is actually approximately straight on the scale of tens of kilometers (the scale of civ tiles). Most natural rivers actually sort of weave with wavelengths of this scale. In the end, some artistic variation of the river along a base zigzag patern will probaly look more natural than doing the same around a straight line.

 

[Windsor]

Crossing sea/land tiles Problem

When there is a point where the corners of two land tiles and the corner of two sea tiles meet in a checkerboard way it is hard to distinguish if only land units can cross or only sea units can cross or both.

___

I can't belive that people actually have problem noticing that the two land-tiles connect. For me it's VERY obvious that a boat can't cross.

Overall Look Problem

No matter how fancy the graphics make it look when you break it down to just squares and terrain it doesn't look good.

Overall Look Hew Solution

With a Hex grid being used the tiles and terrain look a little better and more natural.

Since square-grid are easy to break down, it's also easy to see where a unit is standing, where it can move, how many tiles a area have and so on. I'm certain that more players will need to select "show grid" more often if they have to relate to a hex grid rather than a easy-to-understand square grid.

You'll also get a problem with roads, since they simply cant go straight left/right. While a zig-zag rivers is decent, a zig-zag road doesn't look so good. And it would be a bit funny when your army marches towards Rome as drunken sailors....

 

[Trias]

I can't belive that people actually have problem noticing that the two land-tiles connect. For me it's VERY obvious that a boat can't cross.

It also looks like you cannot pass a diagonal mountain pass, but you can.

Since square-grid are easy to break down, it's also easy to see where a unit is standing, where it can move, how many tiles a area have and so on. I'm certain that more players will need to select "show grid" more often if they have to relate to a hex grid rather than a easy-to-understand square grid.

You'll also get a problem with roads, since they simply cant go straight left/right. While a zig-zag rivers is decent, a zig-zag road doesn't look so good. And it would be a bit funny when your army marches towards Rome as drunken sailors....

Actually, you don't. Road are built on the centers of the tiles not the edges. You can build straight roads all you want on a hex grid.

 

[Windsor]

Actually, you don't. Road are built on the centers of the tiles not the edges. You can build straight roads all you want on a hex grid.

 

[Trias]

That is only a problem if you insist on an east-west route. A similar problem exists on a square grid if you want to build an ENE route. It is simply a problem shared by all grids to some extent.

 

[Gamemaster77]

I can't belive that people actually have problem noticing that the two land-tiles connect. For me it's VERY obvious that a boat can't cross.

That isn't the problem. The problem is that it is hard to ecide what it should be. In Civ4 there are to straits. With a hex grid this problem never comes up.

 

[Camikaze]

Well, find me a (non-canalized) river on google maps that is actually approximately straight on the scale of tens of kilometers (the scale of civ tiles). Most natural rivers actually sort of weave with wavelengths of this scale. In the end, some artistic variation of the river along a base zigzag patern will probaly look more natural than doing the same around a straight line.

Well the Nile follows a basically straight line in Northern Egypt, rather than a zig-zag pattern. Sure, it meanders, but its general pattern is more that of a straight line than a zig-zag.

 

[toft]

The more I see of those hexes, the more I just want squares. Neither of them has a significant advantage over the other, and in my opinion the hexes complicates things more than necessary.

If Firaxis really wanted to move on to something new, then it should be 3D boxes/squares, to allow for altitude (think submarines and aeroplanes).

 

[moscaverde]

What altitude/3d boxes would bring to Civ?

 

[rysmiel]

What altitude/3d boxes would bring to Civ?

It's another way of getting what I favour achieving with layered maps; air units able to move above ground units. Submarines able to move below surface naval units on the same square. Possibly even an orbit level.

 

[toft]

I was thinking something along the line of this, just a bit prettier. Then as you interact with a level, the others fade. I dont know how to make it work out fluently, but i know it would open up a lot of new interesting options for the, otherwise, boring endgame.