Hexes are more fun!

[Tutankamun]

Civ III should be played on hexes instead of diamonds! Just ask any bee!

[Nenad]

quote: Originally posted by Tutankamun on 03-21-2001 01:51 AM Civ III should be played on hexes instead of diamonds! Just ask any bee!

I could not agree more. In adition, i think that game should take place on a globe, instead of flat map. To go aroung the world high to the north take same amount of turns like around the middle. It is not logical.

[Henrik]

I've never played a game with hexes, but if they do that they would have to make sure it looks good with terrain.

[Sean]

This is a rather marginal issue really. As long as it looks good and plays well, I couldn't care less.

[jglidewell]

I agree with Sean, if there is a preference i'd have like Sid's Gettysburg

[Pingu:]

The cool thing about Hexagons is that if you inlcude a few pentagons in the map, the hexagons fold up naturally into a perfect sphere. This is a bucky-ball. Some dome structures are built like this, and a football(soccer ball for americans) is also built like this...

Have a look at:
http://apolyton.net/forums/Forum6/HTML/001935.html

for an explanation.
Once done, the graphics would be tricky, and it might confuse the AI's pathfinding.


Pingu:

[Sparky]

You have one BIG problem if you pick hexes. The fastest way to move the units in the game is to make a console-like control pad out of the number pad on the right side of the keyboard (turning off number lock, of course). If you have hexes, you can't do that any more. You would have to use the mouse for all moves, and that would be far, far slower.

[GaryGuanine]

Why does everyone like hexes more than squares? With hexes you only have 6 ways out and with squares you have 8. I suspect there's a good reason for it, as many games use hexes, but I just don't know it. Somebody please fill me in!

Gary

[carioca]

quote: Originally posted by Sparky on 03-25-2001 01:39 PM You have one BIG problem if you pick hexes. The fastest way to move the units in the game is to make a console-like control pad out of the number pad on the right side of the keyboard (turning off number lock, of course). If you have hexes, you can't do that any more. You would have to use the mouse for all moves, and that would be far, far slower.

No problem, just use 7-9 and 1-3 for NW N NE and SW S SE.

[carioca]

quote: Originally posted by GaryGuanine on 03-25-2001 02:59 PM Why does everyone like hexes more than squares? With hexes you only have 6 ways out and with squares you have 8. I suspect there's a good reason for it, as many games use hexes, but I just don't know it. Somebody please fill me in! Gary

Whith squares you have a 'cheat' by using the corners. You move a distance of 2^(1/2) but only use 1 movement point.

With hexes movement is closer to reality.

[GaryGuanine]

But then with hexes, you lose the ability to move East/West perfectly in order to retain the move 1 space thing. I guess it's just a matter of personal preference.

Gary

[Nenad]

With hexes you can't actually go north/south. If a game should take place in a globe, as I think it should, than it would be one hexagon for a north pole, than 6 hexes around it, than 12 around them, etc. Maybe it is really a marginally question, maybe just 6 ways out are really bed thing, but I like that globe idea too much.

[GaryGuanine]

Nenad,

If you can have a full globe with just hexes, that's a great thing. I would gladly trade in two ways for a real globe, I just didn't think you could do it, I thought you had to have pentagons in there. I don't know, I'm not a mathematician. Maybe someone here is?

Gary

[Captain Nemo]

Sorry to disagree, but you cannot make a "globe" with hexagons anymore than you can with squares... A assembly of hexagons just creates a flat "honeycomb" pattern that expands endlessly. You can make a globe-like structure with 12 pentagons but of course laying that out flat on a screen results in gaps between the pentagons and that's not what you want for a Civ map.
I have looked at both the hexagon maps (Used in most wargames) and the squares of Civ2 and I think both have advantages. The 8-directional moves possible with the squares is far superior to the 6-directions of the hexes but of course the diagonal moves are unrealistically fast.
One possibility would be to make "diagonal" moves cost 1.5 move point which would be especially effective if the map scale is such that most units have 2 or more move points. A two move pt unit would only be able to take one diagonal step and be left with .5 move pts for a half strength attack?
3 Move pt units could take 2 diagonal steps or 3 straight line steps etc.

[Wazell]

It's just as easy to make great graphics with hexes as with squares. That's no problem. Many games use hexes as a base, for example in Fallout the movement goes in hex grid. That is simply to get movement realistic, though it looks quite funny when running north the character runs NE then NW and so on. So it's understandable people want to keep their diamond squares. Maybe in the future games will have absolutely realistic movement, when there's awful lot of CPU power. Meanwhile, compromises have to be made.