What if Civ was Hex-Based?

[bardolph]

I think a Hex-based system would be good overall, and would allow more natural-looking maps and more natural movement, since not everything will be arranged in right angles (which, honestly, just looks weird).

Cities would have 18 workable tiles instead of 20. Not a really big deal.

Units would have 6 hexes adjacent to them instead of 8. Again, not a big deal.

The NumPad mappings could eliminate the "4" and "6" keys. Those keys could be used for camera manipulation, or whatever.

The changes would be mostly aesthetic. The best route between 2 points would be (more or less) a straight line, instead of a big zig-zag pattern. Rivers and coastlines won't have so many 90-degree angles, so maps would be more attractive.

 

[Holycannoli]

That wouldn't work too well Fuzzz. With hex movement every green hex is 2 moves away and there's no horizontal left/right movement. With your system you'd be able to move much greater distances using that horizontal movement. It would be an even more exaggerated effect than our current diagonal movement. Picture 2 moves instead of 1 and you'll see what I mean.

I'm very used to hex games

But yes I think Civ would be much better with a hex grid and now I'm wondering why they're sticking to squares? Maybe the next Civ game will be hex.

 

[Yakk]

Simply make base movement 2 hexes instead of 1.

 

[Jamesds]

Simply make base movement 2 hexes instead of 1.

That would work, as long as any units with less than 2 moves cannot move E/W - unlike CivIV where a warrior can move onto a hill even though it takes 2 moves. It might be easier to forget E/W movement and use a NE&SE combination, for example, to go East.

Has anyone posted this in the suggestions forum? Maybe Firaxis would see it...and CivV would take on a new hex-look!

 

[Yakk]

Naw, I mean:

where a warrior could move 2 hexes -- from the red hex to any green hex -- in a single round.

The base vision of a unit would also be that far.

Horsemen would move 4 hexes.

A "march" type promotion that added +1 hex movement would exist.

Railroads: allows "shipping", where you appear in any city on your railroad network.
Good Roads/Railroads: 1/3 per hex
Roads: 1/2 per hex
Plains: 1 per hex
Hills: +1 per hex (+3 for mounted)
Forest: +1 per hex (+2 for mounted)
Jungle: +2 per hex (+5 for mounted)
Mountain: 200% of your movement points

Overflow movement point costs deducts from your movement points next turn.

 

[Jamesds]

I see, sounds good - maps would consist of many more tiles then because units can move much further, and the overall scale needs to be increased. Because of this increased scale, shouldn't the city radii should be increased too??
On second thoughts, base movement of 2 hexes could introduce many more complications, I don't know if it is feasible. It's just that increasing the base movement should be balanced by increasing the scale of the game map, and I don't think that's possible (at least not without a lot of hard thinking).

 

[The Almighty dF]

*humming to WIGWOOU*
"What if Civ was Hexagonal"

Hexagonal would make culture look a great bit better. Easier to tell just what culture level someone it at.
And the shortest distance between two points should be a straight line, not a zig zag. ...Or a really really fast car.

But. Is it hip to be a hexagon? I think not.
Case closed.

 

[Bushface]

No hexagons ! I like drawing maps of my worlds, which with square tiles is easy to do on quadrille paper, which is readily available. But I've never seen paper pre-printed with hexagons.

 

[ChrTh]

No hexagons ! I like drawing maps of my worlds, which with square tiles is easy to do on quadrille paper, which is readily available. But I've never seen paper pre-printed with hexagons.

Readily available at a gaming hobby shop, as there are many pen-and-paper and military board games that use hex.

 

[eldar]

Why pre-printed paper? Why not print your own... http://incompetech.com/beta/hexagonalGraphPaper/hex.html

 

[Yakk]

Civ with double game scale isn't that hard.

Heck, you can have terrain based on mega-hexes of 7 hexes. Cities can work clusters of such tiles per worker, while units move on a more fine-grained grid.

This gives you fine-grained unit movement (and, more importantly, the ability to move due west in a single), hex-based maps, circular culture, and a relatively strait line is the shortest distance between two points.

With a bit of work, you can even make a roughly sphereical world: you make a 20-sided die shaped world, and paint on the hexes. At a handful of locations you end up with 5-sided "hexes", and your UI needs to be 3d and display a projection, but...

 

[bardolph]

Is it really that important to exactly eight movement keys?

 

[eldar]

Yeah. It's daft in the extreme to suggest movement like that with a hex grid. Going by the one example I know (Battle Isle) that allowed only six directions of movement, and it didn't distract in any way from the gameplay. If you want eight directional movement, stick with squares.

 

[King Flevance]

EDIT: Nvm. Removing 4 and 6 is the best method. I would love for it to go hex based. I have been wondering when they are going to get rid of squares/diamonds.

 

[Jamesds]

Yeah, I think hexagons would be a neat idea, but 8 directional movement wouldn't work. As bardolph said, just use the 4 and 6 keys for something else. I still think there would be a market for a USB hexagonal keypad if Civ went hexagonal...anyone here business-minded?

 

[Mad Hab]

I also guess hexes are better-suited for Civ than squares.

But I also guess that too many people are 'scared' by hexes, and that's why they have kept the squares so far...

Cheers,

Mad Hab

PS: They may keep the squares if they must, but I hope I'll never see diamond-shaped terrain again!

 

[T.A JONES]

I think hexs would be workable to. Masters of Monsters was a great hex turn based game.

 

[mjs0]

I played many many war games and board games with hex movement in my younger days (Third Reich and Star Fleet Battles to name just two).
Using hexes definitely leads to more natural movement and much better looking coastlines, lakes and terrain grouping.
I would love to see a version of Civ that uses hexes.
From what I have seen (and I actually did look at this when the SDK first came out) it would be pretty simple to change the SDK to think hexagonally, could probably #define it, or even make it a runtime option...map generation might be more challenging...such a shame we can't modify the graphics engine.

 

[Thedrin]

...map generation might be more challenging...such a shame we can't modify the graphics engine.

Map generation shouldn't be too much of a problem. I imagine thatI'd be able to fix the map script I've been working on to run off a hexagonal grid quite easily (and really wouldn't mind doing so - more natural looking continents was one of my aims).

Are modders not able to replace standard tile graphics with their own? Or is it something else preventing

 

[Andy_Candy]

Would it be easier to make a better 3D earth map (zoomed out planet) with hexes?

I agree that hexes would give us nicer looking maps too, as better looking coastlines, lakes etc. as mentioned.

I'm fully in favor of hexes!