Vote: Hex or square?

[Leland]

There has been some discussion among the programmers whether hexagonal or square tiles should be used. As a conclusion, neither is excessively difficult to program and both ways have their vices and virtues. However, this is most certainly a design issue and not a programming one, so we agreed to have a decisive vote on this forum.

So, hex or square?

My answer: Hex, because I think it's cooler .

Leland

[heardie]

I think I've already expressed my view

*Hexagon*

I think if we do Civ-1 View then we need hexes to make it really cool

[VetLegion]

My vote is squares, because they look cooler

And this is a good place to continue the Shape & Size discussion.

Note: This is not for immediate demos/protos we are working on, but rather for the Design Doc and future.

So please, add a replay to What size and Number of tiles in game, in povince and in city do you want to have? in addition to Shape.

[amjayee]

My vote is still squares, though I have started to see that some things in our model could be done better with hexes (though, some would be easier with squares.) About the other things, I think the number of tiles could go from 250 000 to 1 000 000, but not more. The size would be always 50 km, so I think most cities would take only one tile. In provinces could be up to 1000 tiles, but quite rarely more, as Vet said in the meeting. Usually provinces would be smaller, from 20 to 200, I think. And I think 1 tile per army would be good... if more space is needed, the army can be split into two groups or something.

[heardie]

Hi
My name is ElmoTheElk and I vote for hexes

[Leland]

50km diameter sounds appropriate. This would make an earth sized map consist of 235,000 tiles, if my calculations are correct. Larger maps should be supported as well, so maybe 500,000 to one million tiles can be considered as a good number to strive for. As for region sizes, 1000 tiles is about the size of Greenland. Maybe in the modern times larger regions can exist, but not many I'm sure. The sizes of regions will vary depending on tech level and such, so basicly anything between 10-1000 must be supported.

Armies, cities and such should always have just one tile. Even if they do have a larger area of influence than one tile, they can be considered to be centered around single co-ordinate on the map.

Leland
[This message has been edited by Leland (edited February 05, 2001).]

[korn469]

well i vote for hex based maps
i think that they would be better suited to GGS

korn469

[amjayee]

Well, if more votes are not coming, it seems we'll have a hex map. That suits me, as I have said earlier. I will plan the map system on hexes, then.

[heardie]

quote: Originally posted by korn469 on 02-06-2001 11:25 PM well i vote for hex based maps i think that they would be better suited to GGS korn469

nice to see you back

[ElmoTheElk]

Great to see you again indeed!

[korn469]

well it's good to be back

[VetLegion]

So hex it is.

Algorithms we will need (map related) are:

- pathfinding
For units to find optimal (in time or in path) way from point to point.
I propose we use some of the existing ones. (A*?)

- radius resolving
To find out do units "touch", since they will have a center and a regular (?) radius (circular?).

That is all I can think of. We can use a two dimensional array to store data, as before for square.

[VetLegion]

If we do not equal 1 tile = 1 unit (in size) we are not a tile based game anymore in civ terms. Yes, probably everybody knows that, I am just remainding

[TempLeland]

quote: Originally posted by VetLegion on 02-11-2001 06:17 PM - pathfinding For units to find optimal (in time or in path) way from point to point. I propose we use some of the existing ones. (A*?) - radius resolving To find out do units "touch", since they will have a center and a regular (?) radius (circular?).

Do we need to have exactly circular areas for movement and influence of units? If we want the fastest pathfinding algorithms, I think that circular radius for movement is out. So, each unit would just have a number moves from tile to tile, and the resulting area where a certain amount of moves can lead is hexagonal in shape. I think that's close enough and circular shapes are not needed.

I'd like to avoid calculating circular areas as long as possible. Having two different kinds of distances in the game is confusing. But it's a design issue: does everyone think that hexagons are sufficient approximations for circles in all cases? Or never? Or something in between?

Leland

[The Joker]

Just one small remark:

I support hexes as well. So no problems here. And nice to see you Korn.

------------------
"If you are to hurt someone you better do it so good that you don't have to fear revenge."
- Machiavelli

GGS Website