What type of grid system would you like in Civilization?

[Frank327]

To give a good idea of what kind of grid system I want, I want one like in Age of wonders II/shadow magic. It's a hexagon grid, with height incorporated somehow. Also, it has such a combat system, that when a unit is attacked, all the stacks on the bordering hexagons are involved in battle, and there's a stack limit of 8. This means that a 20 unit army would need 3 hexagons of space. There's a maximum of 7 stacks involved in any battle.

 

[rysmiel]

In Civ1 & Civ2, a bomber unit could occupy a space for one turn and prevent land units from entering that square. Basically, you could cover all the squares an opposing city used for resources. The few ways to remove the bomber was to attack it with fighters. Land units could not attack a bomber and were therefore limited.
This probably gave way to the Civ III / Civ IV missions.

Which is a design decision on a par with taking a thorn out of your finger by cutting your arm off, IMO.

I'm not sure how a Rubik's cube grid system would allow units to occupy a space. Can Team Red's Bomber be in a cube that is above Team Blue's Land unit?

Why on earth not ?

 

[Scilly_guy]

You don't need a new grid to achieve that though, simple game logic would suffice!

 

[rysmiel]

You don't need a new grid to achieve that though, simple game logic would suffice!

You need some way of registering the different levels in order to have a difference between "this bomber is passing through this square above this land unit" and "this bomber is attacking this unit", and if you don't have that you're back into the bomber-blockading problem exhile identifies.

I think exactly the same logic applies to submarines, fwiw; if they can;t pass directly under enemy ships without attacking, they're quite a bit less use than they might be,

 

[exhile]

The grid level system won't be evident until air units such as airships and submerged units come into play. I guess the Civ5 engine is gonna need a lot more computer resources once the industrial age hits. As for the air combat system, it will need a huge redesign if this system is implemented. For example, the SAM ground units for both infantry and mobile will now have ranges at the air level that are suppose to intercept aircraft. It's like a SAM will have an air & ground combat factor to counter both ground and air units. This multi-level combat will also apply to destroyers (stealth or not) & battleships which theoretically can attack and defend against air, submerged and other sea vessels. Stealth shouldn't be a problem since an enemy doesn't know that a bomber or destroyer is either beside or above them.

In the end, the game should be simple and not complex. However if there's more fun in gameplay then why not. Don't mind me, I'm just rambling...

 

[Scilly_guy]

It would require less resources (computer resources not in-game) to simply add an attribute (as in member variable) to aeroplanes and submarines rather than have an entire new grid!

I have not experienced this other method of controlling aircraft and I think the missions make sense, however having to keep destroying the mine as soon as my enemy has built it does become a little tedious. It would be nice if there was a mission to keep tile(s) from being worked rather than having to keep issuing orders. The missions do make sense though, aircraft need a base of operations and have a limited range from it. However that is off topic. So too, is whether there needs to be another grid or not, but I still remain adamant that for Civs needs there DOES NOT.

 

[PolishStud]

hexagonal/isometric

 

[rysmiel]

The grid level system won't be evident until air units such as airships and submerged units come into play. I guess the Civ5 engine is gonna need a lot more computer resources once the industrial age hits. As for the air combat system, it will need a huge redesign if this system is implemented. For example, the SAM ground units for both infantry and mobile will now have ranges at the air level that are suppose to intercept aircraft. It's like a SAM will have an air & ground combat factor to counter both ground and air units.

It seems simple to me. Air units are units. You move them around like ground units. You attack ground targets with them if they can do that, you attack other air units with them if they can do that. Ground units attack them on their turn if they are capable of it.

In the end, the game should be simple and not complex.

I really strong;ly disagree with that notion; there's yet to be a version of Civ that's felt any more than about two-thirds as complex as I would ideally like it to be.

 

[Antilogic]

It seems simple to me. Air units are units. You move them around like ground units. You attack ground targets with them if they can do that, you attack other air units with them if they can do that. Ground units attack them on their turn if they are capable of it.

That was one of the most annoying "featuers" of the old games. Giving your aircraft missions makes so much more sense than actually moving them on the map as units. After all, does your bomber really occupy that space for a year and then return home? No!

The only thing the Civ4 air combat system needs now is Dale's air superiority mission, so you can send your fighters in to intercept other people's fighters.

 

[Scilly_guy]

Errrrrm you can, its called "Intercept"!!!

 

[zenspiderz]

I voted other..

I would like a grid system of nodes where the number of nodes was large relative to the smallest move possible (not one for one as in civ). Say 10:1 ratio. So for example an artillery piece would (without roads etc) would be able to move 10 nodes. spacial distortions from a grid system could be countered by applying pythogoras theorem to diagonal moves. So a diagonal move from one node to the next would use up square root of (1**2 + 1**2) or 1.4 mov points (instead of 1 for horizontal/vertical movement). So for example an artillery piece could move 10 nodes horizontally or 7 nodes diagonally with both looking like the same distance on the map.

This would massively add to the computational burden on the PC but then PCs are getting ever more powerful....

This would also be nice for making more natural looking terrain. Forts could be small like 2x2 nodes and farmlands larger clumps of irregular nodes and so on.

 

[Scilly_guy]

Think of the centre of each cell of a grid as your "nodes" there is no difference. You still need a pattern to the nodes!

 

[zenspiderz]

Think of the centre of each cell of a grid as your "nodes" there is no difference. You still need a pattern to the nodes!

Yes i am aware of that. The grid of cells/nodes would be just like a chessboard or civboard BUT with a much finer 'grain' and as i said before daigonal moves using up more move points (in accordance with pythogorus theorem) so diagonal moves would be the same distance as horizontal.

Yes this a grid of squares but there is enough qualitive difference from a chessboard that it merits being 'other'. didn't stalin say 'quantity has a quality all of its own'.

 

[rysmiel]

That was one of the most annoying "featuers" of the old games. Giving your aircraft missions makes so much more sense than actually moving them on the map as units. After all, does your bomber really occupy that space for a year and then return home? No!

Do any of your other units ? It's an abstraction.

 

[Onionsoilder]

Do any of your other units?

Yes, they do.

 

[rysmiel]

Yes, they do.

I happen to think it's unreasonable to hold air units to a standard of "realism" that means having to land them every turn or two while at the same time allowing land or sea units to occupy squares indefinitely, and air units should behave like other units in this regard; if you want to object to that on logistical grounds, I do not think that holds without applying the same standards to land and sea units, which leads into ideas like needing to keep supply trains moving to units in the field and so forth, of which I very much do not approve.

 

[Scilly_guy]

Well I think it goes without saying that we want the biggest grid possible! However hardware constraints will always limit this, games will just get too slow and too big (in RAM).

 

[Onionsoilder]

Well, think of it this way. Infantry in the field to not travel back and forth from bases every time they complete an operation. Ships on the ocean do not either, since they are going from point A to point B, then staying there to launch missions. Aircraft, however, travel to and from the base they are stationed at to get more ammo, refuel, let the pilots sleep, eat, etc.

 

[rysmiel]

Well, think of it this way. Infantry in the field to not travel back and forth from bases every time they complete an operation. Ships on the ocean do not either, since they are going from point A to point B, then staying there to launch missions. Aircraft, however, travel to and from the base they are stationed at to get more ammo, refuel, let the pilots sleep, eat, etc.

It depends on the scale which you see turns and tiles representing.

If you want units to represent actual units, to go back to base and refuel and so forth, you are talking tactical combat, which is not what I want from Civ, even if it could be represented on any reasonable scale. (Even I balk at micromanagement enough to control every individual unit of a 20th century army separately.)

If you are considering tiles as being ten to a hundred miles across and turns as being a year or so long, a "unit" is not representing an individual tank or whatever, but a force thereof with logistical support, no ? Hence it seems reasonable to me to count an air unit similarly.

 

[alms66]

Icosahedral Hexagonal Grid

See here

...and here

The second shows a pretty good picture of Earth.