Squares, Hexes, Octagons...

[frekk]

I like hexes better. They more accurately calculate distance, and of course, this is *actually important* in the game because of things like distance from the capitol, city radius, and so on.

6 or 8 directions, so what? Really, what difference does it make? A few people have said they feel strange without an E-W N-S combination; but that's just because they're not used to it. People said the same thing about isometric maps because everything was "tilted", guess what? They got used to it.

I can see just a single practical argument against hex maps, and it does concern me somewhat: keyboard interface.

Has anyone given any thought to completely alternate systems, like using provinces? That would greatly reduce micromanagement but I'm not so sure about it myself.

[Jon Shafer]

Provinces have been discussed ad nauseum many a time. Soren has already announced that the game will be tile-based.

And besides, with provinces you're talking about "a whole new game."

[paramir]

it hink we should do civ 4 on a 2d map!

[alms66]

Originally posted by Trip
And besides, with provinces you're talking about "a whole new game."

Which is better than the same old game again and again, as has been done in the past (civ series included). It's time for some major changes to the Civ series. There is no getting past that. If they continue to ignore it, they'll loose out to another developer. Period.

Originally posted by paramir
it hink we should do civ 4 on a 2d map!

I agree 100%, but it's already done. 3d graphics are here to stay, so I guess we who actually enjoy quality over fads are going to have to cope. I have yet to see a 3d game that comes close to looking as good as a 2d game (speaking about an individual piece of artwork - not the quantity that can be produced) can look. While the Civ3 artwork wasn't the best I've ever seen, it was far better than any 3d game I've ever seen.

[GodSpawn]

[In reply to: The OP]

I would much prefer the following scheme:

* Square Grid, and
* Floating point unit coordinates.

By "floating point unit coordinates" I mean that the actual position of a unit or entity is held to a much higher degree of accuracy than the grid.

When the program displays the unit, it would display in its most accurate position, ignoring the grid.

The square containing the unit would be known, however, and it would be used wherever it is needed, for example when seeing which units can attack each other, or when computing the effect of roads and railways.

I think we could get the best of both worlds that way:

* Simple visualisation and 8-direction movement, and
* Accurate movement and range calculations.

Obviously, there would be other ramifications of doing this, but hopefully nothing insurmountable.

(Note that this is really a proposal for a hybrid system where movement is tileless but combat is grid-based.)

[Urban Ranger]

I think a gridless coordinate system is the best.

When you move a unit, the game uses a path finding algorithm with modifiers (your preferences) to see how long it will take. When you accept a route, the unit moves there by itself automatically.

[joncnunn]

There are only three polygons that tile:

1. Equalaterial triangle.

2. Squares.

3. Hexagons.

Regular Octagons collide with each other.

Proof:

Place one regular octogon. Check
Place another regular octogon of same size east touching the original. Check.

Now try to place a regular octagon of same size NE of orginal one. overlaps with the one east.

[clinton]

Bucky Balls!

For the spherically inclined.



It is many hexagons with 12 pentagons. Like an extreme football.

Wikipedia Link

Edit: Oops, just revived an ultra ancient thread. Thats what I get for using search.

[Rommel2D]

N/m, my memory must be going...

[Lul Thyme]

Originally posted by Leland
You could have an octagonal tiling in non-euclidean space!

I've seen a couple people bringing this up (Vince as well)and it sound mighty cool to say but it's not that simple.
For example the surface of a sphere is non-Euclidean.
A theorem says a graph is embedable on a sphere if and only if it is planar.
So going to a sphere changes nothing with regards to the allowable underlying graph.
Unless you're talking about going on a torus or something.... (and even then , I'm pretty sure, locally the properties of a large graph would be similar to a planar graph)

[vulture]

Originally posted by Lul Thyme

I've seen a couple people bringing this up (Vince as well)and it sound mighty cool to say but I'm calling BS.
The underlying graph would still have to be locally planar and in a planar graph the average degree (of a finite graph) has to be under 6. So you cant have all regions touching 6 others....
Hexagonal is the limit case.
(I'm assuming your octagonal tiling gives access to more than 6 neighbours or else what is the point right? I could create a square tiling where each tile is an octagon...)
I may be forgetting something but I'll think some more about it...

Maybe you could make octagonal tiling work in a space of net negative curvature and allowing sharp edges (think of an icosahedron as a space of positive curvature with 'sharp edges'). The vertices where the tiles meet are not locally planar by any stretch of the imagination, and in a negatively curved space the sum of the interior angles a the vertex will be greater than 360 degrees.

Whether the tiling is actually possible in such a space, I don't know. And since it isn't locally planar, it would have to be distorted significantly to show the vertices on a 2 dimensional screen.

[Lul Thyme]

I'm not sure you understand.
I'm talking about the planarity of the graph, not the space.
For example any graph on a sphere is planar (yes globably planar) even if the sphere is non-planar.
I don't see what mankes you say that the "vertices where the tiles meet are not locally planar".
A vertex by itself is planar....

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm not sure at all I understand what you're getting at.

My main point is this:
I assume by octagonal tiling they meant that each "tile" touches 8 other.
My point is that I do not think this is possible to have such a graph embedded on a surface even in most non-euclidean geometry. I don't actually think the curvature helps in any way. Holes might ( a sphere with enough holes would probably work)...

[vulture]

Originally posted by Lul Thyme
I'm not sure you understand.
I'm talking about the planarity of the graph, not the space.
For example any graph on a sphere is planar (yes globably planar) even if the sphere is non-planar.
I don't see what mankes you say that the "vertices where the tiles meet are not locally planar".
A vertex by itself is planar....

I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm not sure at all I understand what you're getting at.

My main point is this:
I assume by octagonal tiling they meant that each "tile" touches 8 other.
My point is that I do not think this is possible to have such a graph embedded on a surface even in most non-euclidean geometry. I don't actually think the curvature helps in any way. Holes might ( a sphere with enough holes would probably work)...

Consider the good old icosohedron. The vertices, where the points of five (equilateral) triangles meet is decidedly non-planar. As shown by the fact that the sum of all the angles meeting there is 300 degrees. Certainly a sphere is approximately planar at any given point, but that's not true for an icosohedron - the space is non-analytic along edges and at vertices.

That's all with spaces of positive global curvature (constant curvature for the sphere, for icosohedron it is zero on the faces and infinite at the edges and vertices). Now think about spaces of negative curvature. You can certainly cram in more than 360 degrees worth of tiling at a non-analytic vertex (if the space is analytic everywhere, a smooth function, then obviously it is still planar on small scales, and only planar tilings are possible there). At a sharp fold or apex in a negatively curved space you could get 7 (or more) triangles meeting (as compared with 6 in flat space, and 5, 4 or 3 in positively curved spaces - icosohedrons, octohedrons or tetrahedrons respectively). None of these spaces are actually 'curved', they are flat and discontinuous, but have the effect of being curved globally, rather than locally. In that kind of space, octagonal tiling may be possible.

[Addled Platypus]

nice bump clinton

[Vince278]

Yes, one of my all time favorite threads. After all this time I'd still vote for hexes.