What if Civ was Hex-Based?

[Grimus]

I wish it were hexes too...

More natural movement and less directions to move in (easier to block-off, more strategy in movements).

 

[sylvanllewelyn]

I have a strong feeling that making the tiles square was a completely deliberate decision. Just a hunch. It takes more than a programmer to make a game like CIV. It takes a programmer that has played strategy PC games before, which is rare, because programmers are usually dilligent people that work hard in school, study, join clubs, build networks, and are generally extroverts. And cool people don't play video games.

But in all seriousness though, a hex system would further encourage the stack of doom, because it reduces the number of squares that you could attack into a square. Against the AI a super stack of doom is fine, but in multiplayer, the best teams co-ordinate their attacks so that there will be stacks of 3-4 in each square, and then the next turn, they suddenly converge and 30 cannons raze your city immediately. The fact that games tend to be "2 city elimination" shows how hard city taking is, so anything to make it harder... is not good.

 

[bardolph]

I have a strong feeling that making the tiles square was a completely deliberate decision. Just a hunch. It takes more than a programmer to make a game like CIV.

That's kind of like saying that the sky is blue "because God made it that way." It doesn't really shed any light on the subject

It takes a programmer that has played strategy PC games before, which is rare, because programmers are usually dilligent people that work hard in school, study, join clubs, build networks, and are generally extroverts. And cool people don't play video games.

You forgot to add your "sarcasm" smiley

But in all seriousness though, a hex system would further encourage the stack of doom, because it reduces the number of squares that you could attack into a square. Against the AI a super stack of doom is fine, but in multiplayer, the best teams co-ordinate their attacks so that there will be stacks of 3-4 in each square, and then the next turn, they suddenly converge and 30 cannons raze your city immediately. The fact that games tend to be "2 city elimination" shows how hard city taking is, so anything to make it harder... is not good.

I'm not sure that a hex grid would have much impact on the "stack of doom" at all. The tactics you talk about would still work

 

[Ray Patterson]

But in all seriousness though, a hex system would further encourage the stack of doom, because it reduces the number of squares that you could attack into a square.

hm. I think I agree with that. But I would accept it, the more I look at it the more unnatural I find diagonal movement now.

 

[Instant_Cereal]

Well, there is always the poor little octagon. Or, go the Total War route, where there are technically no tiles.

 

[Ray Patterson]

octagon? octagons can't be tiled...

 

[Kissamies]

I can live with squares, but hexes would be much better.

 

[Macha]

It would take a lot of effort as the movement would have to be completely redesigned and thought out instead of minor tweaks that have been done so far (every units moves and movement bonus would have to be looked at again.

 

[ollj]

I really like Freeciv for hexagonal fields even though hexagonal fields are barely worth the effort.
Hexagonal fields actually REDUCE the freedom of movement, every tile has less neighbors. That simply requires larger maps to pay off for strategy and realism, and it is barely worth it. A square grid is an acceptable simplification for a simple model.

You can easily modify a square grid to "behave" like a hexagonal grid just by prohibiting one of 2 diagonal movements; "/" OR "\" along both directions.
This just shifts a hexagonal grid into square tiles:

Step one: shape hexagons in a hexagonal grid square.

Step 3 shift the squares 1/2 side length to align then to the other axis of the square grid.

A city range of 2 in a "square-\-hex-grid" (prohibiting any movement along "\") would look skewed like:

xx222
x2112
21012
2112x
222xx

Where the numbers show the distance from the city if you can not move diagonal along "\" on a square grid.
The square grid cuts the 4 diagonal corner fields that are a distance of 2 outside the city radios to make it round. That is not needed for a hexagonal movement grid.

I still wait for ANY game to use the Cairo pentagonal tiling:

It can be transformed to a rectangular grid. It is like a hexagonal tile split in 4 tiles.
I prefer 5 neighbors per tile because then "to tile to tile movement distance" very closely approximates to trigonometric "real distances" of tile centers. (The Pythagorean theorem almost works on that pattern by counting tile distances, and it approximates better than on hexagonal tilings)
As far as I know only a few "game of life" and "minesweeper" versions use the Cairo pentagonal tiling .

 

[Jamesds]

You can easily modify a square grid to "behave" like a hexagonal grid just by prohibiting one of 2 diagonal movements; "/" OR "\" along both directions.
This just shifts a hexagonal grid into square tiles:

Even if you could simulate a hex grid with squares, it just wouldn't be the same - I'd prefer either fully hex tiles or just square tiles. As for a pentagram....well, its impressive and ingenious...but not for Civ!

So, if the game did go hex-based, what would be better: eliminating the 4/6 keys (i.e. no direct E/W movement) or eliminating the 8/2 keys (i.e. no N/S movement) ? Elimination of 4/6 would seem most natural to me.

 

[Yakk]

We want a tiling that allows for a fully spherical world.

What tilings can be morphed in such a way that you end up with a very slight curve to the entire grid?

 

[CB Droege]

Equalateral pentagons or triangles can make a ball.

 

[TheDuckLover]

Just think if the tiles didn't tessellate...

 

[Jamesds]

I don't think pentagons wouldn't be suitable as tiles, but the equilateral triangles are a good idea: a hexagon can be split into 6 equilateral triangles.

 

[potatokiosk]

Which is why hexagons are so much nicer for spherical worlds than squares, which are composed of right triangles.

 

[bardolph]

We want a tiling that allows for a fully spherical world.

What tilings can be morphed in such a way that you end up with a very slight curve to the entire grid?

I think the size of the tile impacts the pattern needed to make a sphere. Soccer balls (or "footballs" for non-US readers) use a hexagon/pentagon pattern, but I think that the pattern only works with a certain proportion ratio between the tile size and the total surface area of the sphere.

Personally, I like the cylindrical shape of the CIV world. It's not entirely accurate at high latitudes, but it more or less works. You can even justify it by saying that inclement weather makes travel difficult at those latitiudes, and that's why there are so many tiles up there.

Hexagonal fields actually REDUCE the freedom of movement, every tile has less neighbors. That simply requires larger maps to pay off for strategy and realism, and it is barely worth it. A square grid is an acceptable simplification for a simple model.

I think reduction of freedom of movement is a good thing, since it allows you strategically restrict the movement of your enemies.

As it stands, if a unit is travelling east/west, and an enemy unit sits directly in their path, the moving unit can use diagonal moves to bypass the blockade with no slowdown whatsoever. That's just silly, if you ask me. What it means is that movement has no tactical significance at all, since it is effectively impossible to restrict it (this is especially true in the water).

Using a hex pattern does help this somewhat, since if you block the "straight line access" to a target, the attacker has to either attack the defended tile, or sacrifice turns moving around it. I say it helps "somewhat" because it's still possible sometimes to steer around a defender without losing movement points (if the target is not in one of the six primary directions), but it would be much less common and require more planning to do so.

My biggest beef with the square tile system is that it makes diagonal moves more valuable than "straight" moves, because diagonal moves grant more travel distance for the same number of movement points. This means that the optimal movement pattern is not a straight line, but rather a wide diagonal zig-zag pattern.

Using hexagons makes all directions equal, so you don't lose out by moving in a straight line. That's much more intuitive.

 

[Instant_Cereal]

octagon? octagons can't be tiled...

Damn, you're right, busted my bubble.

Anyway, I wouldn't mind seeing hexagons. It'd make features like rivers and coasts much more believable looking. It'd add more strategic freedom. At first I figured city placement/overlap would be a problem, but it'd be just as feasible as with squares. Only problem with hexagons is if they did it, they'd have to zoom the screen out more.

 

[Commander Bello]

[...]
But in all seriousness though, a hex system would further encourage the stack of doom, because it reduces the number of squares that you could attack into a square. Against the AI a super stack of doom is fine, but in multiplayer, the best teams co-ordinate their attacks so that there will be stacks of 3-4 in each square, and then the next turn, they suddenly converge and 30 cannons raze your city immediately. The fact that games tend to be "2 city elimination" shows how hard city taking is, so anything to make it harder... is not good.

The highlighted part could be avoided by introducing a unit cap per tile. Granted, this would work for the orthodox tiles as well, but in combination you would get the more realistic shape of the map, the more intuitiv movements AND you would solve a problem, which they could not solve by the invention of the misconceptioned "siege weapons", anyway.

 

[Thedrin]

Personally, I like the cylindrical shape of the CIV world. It's not entirely accurate at high latitudes, but it more or less works. You can even justify it by saying that inclement weather makes travel difficult at those latitiudes, and that's why there are so many tiles up there.

That's the number one reason why I would prefer a spherical map. I really hate having my computer spending time taking care of so much useless real estate. Setting a map script to generate 60% ocean doesn't necessarily mean you'll end up with a map containing 40% potentially useful land.

 

[Holycannoli]

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

O
M
G

Someone has played Master of Monsters? Not to go too OT, but do you mean the genesis or playstation version? Because the genesis version is tons better and a fantastic soundtrack.

And yes, most turn-based games I've played have been hex-based.