Most tile engines, such as in RTS games, use square tiles. So there are 8 movement directions. Hexagon tiles are seen less often and they have 6 movement directions. Which do you think is better for a strategy game? I think hexagon tiles are better, more realistic, since each direction of movement has its own side. For square tiles, only 4 directions of movement have their own side, other 4 are points. And in hexagon tiles, no matter what direction you choose, you always travel the same distance. But in square tiles, diagonal movement has greater distance than strait edge movement, but it takes the same amount of time to travel in either direction. Anyway, I decided to use hexagon tiles for my game.

That''s nice. I''m glad you told us that. Now if it actualy was a question, this thred might be useful. But in the mean time, there are aways of compencating for having funny movement times with square tiles.

Do not meddle in the affairs of moderators, for they are subtle and quick to anger. ANDREW RUSSELL STUDIOS
Cool Links :: [ GD | TG | MS | NeHe | PA | SA | M&S | TA ]
Got Clue? :: [ Start Here! | Google | MSDN | GameDev.net Reference | OGL v D3D | File Formats | Go FAQ yourself ]

what are those ways?

and does their implementation make square tiles better than hex tiles?
You said my post had no question, but it does:
"Which do you think is better for a strategy game?"
(refers to tile type)

what are those ways?

and does their implementation make square tiles better than hex tiles?
You said my post had no question, but it does:
"Which do you think is better for a strategy game?"
(refers to tile type)

why would you do that, why not make the map square tiles and have posititions be floating point, or can be on part one square, part another. even aoe1 did this, and games before too.

Well, I agree on hexes being superior. I think why most games have tiles is that they are easier to deal with. After all, a map is then just a two-dimensional array, which can easily be represented AND shown on a computer screen.

The screen itself (in old times) has these very nice - rectangular shapes for chars.

A lot of tools work easier with rectangular shapes, such as showing heightmaps - you would need some processing more to show hex shapes, even if you use the trick of "interleaved boxes", which I have done a long time ago.

So, all in all, rectangular maps are way easier to manage.


Regards

Thomas Tomiczek
THONA Consulting Ltd.
(Microsoft MVP C#/.NET)

If you check www.wargame-programming.com you will also see that any hex map can be represented by staggered squares. This means you can keep some speed of display (squares display with no check for transparency) while having 6 movement directions.
Ghostly yours,
Red.

quote: Original post by thona
Well, I agree on hexes being superior. I think why most games have tiles is that they are easier to deal with. After all, a map is then just a two-dimensional array, which can easily be represented AND shown on a computer screen.

A hex-map is also just a two-dimensional array. The adjacency math is a little more involved, but once you have it, you have reduced a hex-map to a square map where not all the ''visually adjacent'' squares are actually adjacent. Sounds complicated, but it isn''t really.

quote: Original post by thona
A lot of tools work easier with rectangular shapes, such as showing heightmaps - you would need some processing more to show hex shapes, even if you use the trick of "interleaved boxes", which I have done a long time ago.

Heightmaps are so much more beautiful with hexes! I programmed a demo like that once with a friend, as a computer science 3rd year project. Basically, because a hex breaks down uniquely into 6 triangles, and a square breaks down into 2, but not uniquely (both diagonals are candidates for the extra edge), a hex map is less processing to match up the different heights at the vertices.

The biggest drawback of hexes is that, if you use them for mapping, getting rectangular rooms is nearly impossible unless you really flesh out your tiles to a sub-hex level of detail. Basically, if I had to program a map engine right now, I''d use hexes to generate easy height-mapping and to do tiling of map elements (hex-generated caves look very natural!), but all my collision detection and movement would be at a much finer level than the actual map hexes.

quote: Original post by berserk
Most tile engines, such as in RTS games, use square tiles. So there are 8 movement directions.
Hexagon tiles are seen less often and they have 6 movement directions.

Which do you think is better for a strategy game?

Hexagon tiles are fine for a turn-based game. For a real-time it is much better to use square tiles. In real-time games units will usually have a speed (and you should move them according to that speed, not according to how far it is to the next tile), but in turn-based games each unit has a particular distance they can move in that turn, so distance between tiles is more important.

Programming? 6 of one, 1/2 dozen of the other. Either way is fine.

If you want actual wargamers (read: people who started playing games on boards), then you''d better use hexes. We don''t like squares for our games usually. We think in hexes and any game without them is just plain wrong. Heck, I can''t even play D&D with squares anymore.