Chapter 154: Hex Grid

'Combining city-building with turn-based strategy...'

Sid tried to isolate the useful elements from both ideas, blending them with the "4X strategy" concept Ethan had just described.

Fortunately, GAMENOVA already had plenty of experience in both areas.

City-building was firmly within Will's comfort zone.

As for turn-based strategy, the team already had plenty of experience with it thanks to Fire Emblem.

And grid-based tactical combat had always been one of the mechanics Sid wanted to develop further.

Standing beside him, Ethan studied the rough prototype on the screen, a modified version of SimCity that the two had put together as a starting point.

"If we're going to make this game," Ethan said, "then let's do it right. No square tiles."

"No squares?"

Will and Sid both froze.

A square grid was, without question, the most natural choice imaginable. It was clean, orderly, perfectly predictable, and repetitive.

"Why not?" Will asked. "How are we supposed to plan cities without a square grid?"

As the lead designer of SimCity, no one understood the importance of square grids better than he did.

Road layouts, zone placement, building placement... all of these systems depended on squares.

Although Sid's new project would primarily be a strategy game, it also featured management and expansion mechanics. That meant it still needed a solid city-building system.

"Because square grids distort distance."

Ethan picked up a marker and quickly drew a 3×3 grid on the whiteboard.

He had noticed this issue long ago while working on Fire Emblem. He tapped the center tile, then pointed at the four corners.

"Look at the diagonals tiles, they are in a very awkward position."

"In Fire Emblem, only the four squares directly above, below, left, and right count as adjacent. Diagonal tiles are treated as being one extra tile away."

"But in Minesweeper, the displayed mine count includes all eight surrounding tiles. There, every tile around you is considered adjacent."

Ethan looked around the room.

"Why do you think those two games treat adjacency differently?"

Different games interpreted the surrounding eight tiles in completely different ways.

"Because of combat engagement."

Carmack's voice interrupted Will and Sid's thoughts. It was the first time he had voluntarily joined the discussion since meeting the two newcomers.

"If all units are melee," he explained, "then with four-direction adjacency, one unit can only be surrounded by at most four enemies. That makes terrain and obstacles strategically meaningful."

"But if all eight neighboring tiles count as adjacent, ranged units lose safe firing positions, while melee units become much easier to surround."

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"In that case, combat stops being about positioning and tactics. It becomes a numbers game, a contest of who has more units."

He looked at the grid Ethan had drawn before pausing briefly.

"But I think there's another reason why Fire Emblem doesn't allow diagonal movement."

"Movement distance."

Ethan smiled.

"Exactly, that's the most important reason."

He pointed to one of the diagonal squares.

"In Fire Emblem, moving to a diagonal tile costs two movement points because you have to move horizontally and vertically. You can't move diagonally in one step."

"That's because, in a square with sides one unit long, moving from one corner to the opposite corner takes more than one unit of distance. You're moving diagonally, so the distance is actually √2."

Will and Sid immediately understood. It was such a small detail that it was easy to overlook.

Programming diagonal movement wasn't the hard part, the real challenge was keeping the distances consistent on screen.

The problem was that moving to a diagonal tile covered more distance than moving to one directly beside you.

So, they needed a shape where every neighboring tile was the same distance away from the center.

But there was one more requirement: the shapes had to fit together perfectly, with no gaps or overlaps, just like squares on a chessboard.

At that moment, everyone arrived at the same answer.

"Hexagons!"

Abandoning Fire Emblem's Manhattan-distance system in favor of a hexagonal grid, as with hexes, every adjacent tile was exactly one unit away.

No matter which of the six neighboring tiles you moved to, the distance was always the same. That made movement and other distance-based calculations much simpler, more intuitive, and more consistent.

"But..." Will frowned. "If we switch to hexagons, how are we supposed to plan cities?"

He tried to picture it and immediately felt uncomfortable, as his perfectionist instincts were screaming.

How were roads supposed to fit together?

Without neat, rectangular city blocks, he couldn't imagine getting everything to line up properly, no matter how carefully he arranged it.

"That's..." Ethan said with a grin. "...where the District System comes in."

"We'll plan using districts, not individual buildings."

He rummaged through a box of miscellaneous items and pulled out a stack of hexagonal magnetic tiles.

Under everyone's puzzled gaze, he wrote different labels on them one by one.

[Mountains] [River] [Forest] [Rainforest] [Campus] [Holy Site] [Commercial Hub] [Industrial Zone] [Theater Square].

He cleared his throat.

"Let's play a little game and see who can come up with the best layout."

"Each adjacent Mountain gives the Campus +1 Science, while each adjacent River gives the Commercial Hub +2 Gold..."

As Ethan continued explaining the rules, the mood in the room changed and everyone's eyes began to light up.

"If I put my Campus here," one of them said excitedly, "it'll get a huge Science bonus from all these mountains. That's insane, this has to be the perfect location."

"But then your Holy Site is doomed," someone else argued.

"If the mountains surround your Campus, the Holy Site won't be able to take advantage of them."

"Then I'll just give up on religion. I'll go all-in on science and theater districts."

The group crowded around the magnetic tiles, enthusiastically rearranging them.

Half an hour passed, and still nobody had managed to agree on the best solution.

Ethan didn't need to explain anything else, as they had already grasped the idea completely.

The geometric advantages of hexagons were brought to their fullest potential through the district system, and finding the optimal district placement became a gameplay mechanic every bit as engaging as city planning in SimCity.

Adjacency bonuses.

With that one simple mechanic alone, everything changed and that was with only a handful of district types.

Once this became an actual game with procedurally generated terrain, different resources, specialized cities, and countless possible development paths, the seemingly simple planning puzzle would become astonishingly complex.

Every single playthrough would feel completely different.

"No need to obsess over the Holy Site," Ethan said with a laugh.

"I already told you, there'll be Scientific Victory, Cultural Victory, Domination Victory, Religious Victory..."

"If you abandon religion and stack your science output instead, that's a perfectly valid path to victory."

Looking at the completely absorbed group, Ethan wore an amused expression.

They had no idea what they were getting themselves into. They hadn't even experienced the true essence of Civilization yet the most terrifying devourer of time in gaming history.

It always began with the same thought: just one more turn.

Then, before they knew it, the sky outside was already bright, and several hours had somehow slipped away.

That was the true miracle of Civilization.

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