getting rid of the grid (province) based map in PDX games

[sgt.stickybomb]

I am wondering about the feasibility of a paradox title that gives armies the ability to "walk" instead of jump between provinces, I am guessing it can complicate things because it multiplies the coordinates of the map, so can the AI handle it?, also what about a feature that lets two warring armies co-exist in the same province with one besieging the other for example?
thanks

 

[riknap]

I assume you're referring to something similar to the Total War campaign maps right? I believe there was a post/thread/interview paradox made some time ago (I can't recall if I read that in an interview with the devs, or on old forum posts [such as the EU1 forums - yeah, I read some of the stuff there to pass the time once] ), wherein they said they didn't have the resources to code it as effectively as the big studios could do it.

 

[Demonsul]

I assume you're referring to something similar to the Total War campaign maps right? I believe there was a post/thread/interview paradox made some time ago (I can't recall if I read that in an interview with the devs, or on old forum posts [such as the EU1 forums - yeah, I read some of the stuff there to pass the time once] ), wherein they said they didn't have the resources to code it as effectively as the big studios could do it.

EU1? If it was that long ago, perhaps the situation has changed since then.

 

[cwg9]

How would this feature significantly improve game play? It just sounds like unnecessary micromanagement to me.

 

[GreatSlayer]

It would make managing small provinces, such as islands and OPM's very fiddly.

But I also think it's the next step to make for these games, where provinces are simulated by settlements instead, that have a certain "border" set to them . It would also offer more options for interacting with the game world, and make MP infinitely more interesting in terms of choosing terrain for an upcoming battle.

PS. EUIV have a limited free walk feature for the sprites. Although they still walk from province to province, you can see how close they are to arriving by how far they've marched on the map. DS.

 

[sgt.stickybomb]

How would this feature significantly improve game play? It just sounds like unnecessary micromanagement to me.

quiet the opposite, this would lessen micromanagement as you go for specific towns and forts instead of the many provinces itself, with anything that doesn't have a garrisoned settlement being captured immediately.

also it would allow armies unrestricted movement instead of having to rely on the sometimes awkwardly drawn borders of the provinces, i.e. armies now take the shortest route in order to get to a destination instead of having to jump to the center of each province to get from A to B. for example, if we have 3 provinces, A,B, and C. province A and C are small and their centers are on the same Y coordinate, they are separated by the much larger province B whose center is on a lower Y coordinate, to get from A to C using the current system, an army has to travel down to B from A and then back up to C, instead of taking a straight line by going through north of B.

Moreover, removing provinces makes the terrain modifier accurately represented, so now just because a province has mountain in it doesn't mean that fighting can't take place on the plains right next to it. allowing better representation of wars

 

[nett40]

You could divide a large map into small (army-sized) hexagons and then have provinces made up of these hexagons.

Imagine a Vic 2 kind of setup, where the states are made up of provinces, but now the states/provinces would be made up of hexagon tiles.

Individual province/states could then be made up of a number of terrain hexagons (forrest, plains, hills etc.), a harbour hexagon (if a coastal province), and a city hexagon. This way players could be allowed to decide where best to build his expensive fortifications.

This could really add new kinds of tactics and strategy into the games, as well as making the AI better in moving its armies. Because the base tiles of the map would be equallly sized.

Take a look at a game like "Commander: the Great War" for inspiration in simple units and a nice hexagon based map. All that game needs is the economics and diplomacy features of Victoria or Hearts of Iron.

 

[Felicity]

I'd like it in the way AtWar (Afterwind) does it. It's a free movement system, but you can also create things like defensive patterns so you can't just skirt between armies (sort of in the vein of the 'threat' system in Total War). I think that system of lining units up to create a wall of defenses might translate to EU/Vic especially games very well.

 

[underlordgc]

You could divide a large map into small (army-sized) hexagons and then have provinces made up of these hexagons.

Imagine a Vic 2 kind of setup, where the states are made up of provinces, but now the states/provinces would be made up of hexagon tiles.

Individual province/states could then be made up of a number of terrain hexagons (forrest, plains, hills etc.), a harbour hexagon (if a coastal province), and a city hexagon. This way players could be allowed to decide where best to build his expensive fortifications.

This could really add new kinds of tactics and strategy into the games, as well as making the AI better in moving its armies. Because the base tiles of the map would be equallly sized.

Take a look at a game like "Commander: the Great War" for inspiration in simple units and a nice hexagon based map. All that game needs is the economics and diplomacy features of Victoria or Hearts of Iron.

Supreme ruler did the same thing with Hex provinces correct? A hex grid might not "work" that well with most PI series but why not break provinces down? Lets use a province like Granada in EUIII.

Now it has 3 terrain types listed.
In this instance "Woods" would be too small to affect anything so we would forget about it.
Now "Plains" and "Mountains" are just right.
We will basically split the province into two subprovinces.

If you tell your army to move there and no enemy armies are present it would immediately go to zone "2" and besiege the fort. But if an army was present it would of course behave differently. Each army would have a "RoE" (Rules of Engagement) button next to the other buttons like "Hunt Rebels." It would have three settings. Setting one would be a "Attack Armies" button that will chase enemy armies within the province, only useful for big empires that don't minds losses on bad terrain. Setting two would be the opposite of the first, "Avoid Armies" would avoid within the province or, in the case of Granada with only two zones, would attempt to fight on the best terrain (mountains here). Setting three would be similar to the "Hunt Rebels" button in that the AI would control the troops within the province, running when outnumbered (Similar to the Albanian uprising) or chasing the runners (Ottomans in that case).

This would also help alleviate some of the OP's problems with the current system. Rather then going to the center of an entire province, the unit will cut through the subprovinces and will use the settings you set accordingly (e.x. trying to go around troops stationed within a province). Not perfect, but definitely better than a Hex grid.

 

[nett40]

Supreme ruler did the same thing with Hex provinces correct? A hex grid might not "work" that well with most PI series but why not break provinces down? Lets use a province like Granada in EUIII.

Why shouldn't a hexagonal grid based map with provinces work?

In this instance "Woods" would be too small to affect anything so we would forget about it.

If you had a province made up of hexes, then there wouldn't be any hex that were too small. The Granada province could consist of many hexes: mountain-hexes, hills-hexes or plains-hexes. But the city hex should be the most important hex (in any province) and the defender should try to position his army to best defend the city hex. An army/garrison in a fortified city hex should should get much better defence-stats than armies in un-fortified city hexes.

This would also help alleviate some of the OP's problems with the current system. Rather then going to the center of an entire province, the unit will cut through the subprovinces and will use the settings you set accordingly (e.x. trying to go around troops stationed within a province). Not perfect, but definitely better than a Hex grid.

Sub-dividing the map into many more irregular-sized provinces will just make the game lag and add troubles for the AI programming. A large map with provinces that are made up of equally-sized hexagon tiles would solve many AI issues conc. paths of armies and distances etc.

 

[underlordgc]

Why shouldn't a hexagonal grid based map with provinces work?
If you had a province made up of hexes, then there wouldn't be any hex that were too small. The Granada province could consist of many hexes: mountain-hexes, hills-hexes or plains-hexes. But the city hex should be the most important hex (in any province) and the defender should try to position his army to best defend the city hex. An army/garrison in a fortified city hex should should get much better defence-stats than armies in un-fortified city hexes.

With Hexes, you have the same problem with terrain, just in smaller squares.

Lets use HoI spain (EUIII has an angled camera)

So now we have a Hex layout.
Let's refocus on Granada again.

See the hex with Motril and Granada? It has the same problem as earlier. The bottom half is mountainous while the top half is nice and flat. Now you have people complaining about the problem with different terrain in the same province and that the hexes are bad(People don't like change, especially gamers). Not only does the Hex grid not solve the problem but now we have land and ocean in the same hex. Will both land and navy units be present in the hex? Or will it revert to percent which is what the provence layout is doing already? Worse still, will it go to a Civ V layout and destroy the current ocean and land borders on the map?

Sub-dividing the map into many more irregular-sized provinces will just make the game lag and add troubles for the AI programming. A large map with provinces that are made up of equally-sized hexagon tiles would solve many AI issues conc. paths of armies and distances etc.

Really? In my opinion the current setup actually benefits the AI. They immediately know the fastest route to escape my armies in most PI games due to their programming. AI pathfinding is unfortunately not an issue in PI games, as much as I wish it was. The subdividing would only happen in terrain challenged provinces or annoyingly oversized provinces(eastern Russia). A province like London in EUIII would not need to be subdivided, for example.

 

[nett40]

With Hexes, you have the same problem with terrain, just in smaller squares.

Lets use HoI spain (EUIII has an angled camera)

So now we have a Hex layout.
Let's refocus on Granada again.

See the hex with Motril and Granada? It has the same problem as earlier. The bottom half is mountainous while the top half is nice and flat. Now you have people complaining about the problem with different terrain in the same province and that the hexes are bad(People don't like change, especially gamers). Not only does the Hex grid not solve the problem but now we have land and ocean in the same hex. Will both land and navy units be present in the hex? Or will it revert to percent which is what the provence layout is doing already? Worse still, will it go to a Civ V layout and destroy the current ocean and land borders on the map?

You can chose between thousands of different hex-map versions of the world and I don't think the version above is a very good one. If you make the map very LARGE with a zoom in and out option. Then the individual hexes could easily be either forrest, rough, mountain, hills, dessert, coast, ocean etc. A single hex-tile should not be 55% mountain, 10% hills, 5 % rough, 27% plains, 2 % villages and 0.5 % city. It should be either one or the other, so that you know what defensive value it has, if you choose to meet the enemy army in the hills outside the province capital, instead of meeting the enemy in a field.

Another hex-map example could be this:

Really? In my opinion the current setup actually benefits the AI. They immediately know the fastest route to escape my armies in most PI games due to their programming. AI pathfinding is unfortunately not an issue in PI games, as much as I wish it was. The subdividing would only happen in terrain challenged provinces or annoyingly oversized provinces(eastern Russia). A province like London in EUIII would not need to be subdivided, for example.

Having equally sized base-tiles improves AI behaviour. If it didn't improve gameplay, why is Paradox not able to make the borders and location of all the provinces in EU4 historical correct?

 

[underlordgc]

The fact is that paradox intends to use the real world map from now on (compare EUIII to EUIV). That would imply correct geographic regions as well. Unless they design a completely new map, which is what you're saying they should do, hexes won't work. I prefer real world maps over maps that have to be changed to fit within a hex grid. And like I said above, a hex map messes up sea borders or you end up like that map above where you can't tell which hexes allow sea units v.s. land units. We could always make them smaller but then we would end up having to group them and if we end up grouping them...

 

[nett40]

The fact is that paradox intends to use the real world map from now on (compare EUIII to EUIV). That would imply correct geographic regions as well. Unless they design a completely new map, which is what you're saying they should do, hexes won't work. I prefer real world maps over maps that have to be changed to fit within a hex grid. And like I said above, a hex map messes up sea borders or you end up like that map above where you can't tell which hexes allow sea units v.s. land units. We could always make them smaller but then we would end up having to group them and if we end up grouping them...

Or you could simply use percentages to decide whether a hex is an ocean hex, a coastal hex, a plains hex, a hills hex, a mountain hex or another hex. I.e. if a hex i more than 50% ocean then it is an ocean hex. The current EU3 map isn't a real world map nor will the coming EU4 be a real depection of the world. Because the provinces have to border a certain number of other provinces for the game-mechanichs to work. This will continue to be an issue, as long as you use provinces as the smallest map base-tile instead of hexagonal or other equally sized base-tiles.

 

[unmerged(466619)]

Heh, I was just about to make a post on this very idea... (Well, you know what they say about great minds. )

Anyway, assuming it could be implemented without causing massive lag (since the game would have to keep track of a load of hexes rather than a [comparatively] small number of provinces), it sounds like a good idea, which would greatly increase the number of strategic options available to the player (e.g., allowing them to choose where exactly to meet an enemy army, build forts to defend mountain passes or river crossings, etc.). My biggest worry is that it would lead to too much micromanagement for the player: it's often hard enough as it is to control two fronts of a war at once, and this could potentially become even more difficult if you've got to keep track of which hexagon your army is on rather than simply which province.

 

[Orko80]

The question is how small a hex would be. The mokup provided by nett44 has waaay too large hexes. When we look at TW map we see small invisble squares for unit movement. I would say even their squares are too large. If you would implement a hex grid for unit movements and battle positioning it should be reduced to the size of the largest battlefield possible. But maybe imped movement several hexes of oposing armies without forcing a conflict.
That would be quite a fine grid to implement and would allow for relative realistic maps. Also i would not force the hex grind onto Oceans. Oceans should be kept like they are now. This way you can have realistic shores.


The other question would be if the Hex troop grid would influance the Political Provinces. This should also kept seperate. Only maybe be able to influance border shift's.
So keep kontroll of region tied to special locations, like cities and fort's. You would have 3 seperate map layers, Ocean, Troop hexes and provinces.
If the troop hexes could influance province boarders you could have shifting borders and border disputes.

In essence the map would keep looking like it is now only the land troop movement would be 'unlocked' from the provinces.

But i don't see this implemented would be a nightmare to code AI for.

 

[SAS]

I'm all for more provinces in Paradox games. But I would not want to be the one to script the info for that many new provinces...ouch that's a LOT of work. But the "combat is movement" system in HOI3 is a good middle ground I think to this.

 

[sgt.stickybomb]

I'm all for more provinces in Paradox games. But I would not want to be the one to script the info for that many new provinces...ouch that's a LOT of work. But the "combat is movement" system in HOI3 is a good middle ground I think to this.

actually come to think about it, if they implement the number of provinces from HOI 3 into say EU4 or CK3, then the armies would almost seam like they are walking..... almost

 

[unmerged(466619)]

Also, if in addition to implementing a hex-based map they included an ambush feature like in RTW, that could potentially help even the balance between large and small countries and create more historical outcomes. So, e.g., whilst a European country may be able to transport enough troops to the New World to beat the natives' armies in a fair fight, if they constantly have to fight at a disadvantage because they keep getting ambushed, suddenly the Indians stand a much better chance.

Another fun feature (if it can be done well) would be having supply lines stretching from your nearest base to your armies in foreign territory. So if you can't beat the enemy in the open field, you can scorch your land, withdraw your infantry behind your city walls, and send your cavalry behind enemy lines to play havoc with their supplies. This would again help smaller nations stand up against big ones, and would accurately model the difficulties faced by, e.g., the English when they tried to conquer Ireland or Scotland.

 

[DCyDe]

They should just use a completely new engine (3D globe) for the next title, if an even smaller studio could do this in 2004, then surely PI can do it now too.


[video=youtube;yNQNjfwqkzE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNQNjfwqkzE[/video]