What is 3D shape of hexes? Hex dipyramid or Hex cylinder?

[Hari Seldon]

Err ... the slight problem with trying to substitute the 3D movement cost (of a very smooth and almost level aqueduct trail winding up a mountainside) with a rough terrain bonus is that a ground unit that could pass through solid objects like a ghost could (but not be able to fly, just go with me here) would be able to overcome the rough terrain bonus while still having to climb the hexes up the mountain. So what you're saying isn't impossible it would just make the game buggy.

And I was saying that going downwards would give you fractional move per vertical hex distance (maybe a quarter of a move per hex for walking down a slope and maybe half or 3/4 of a move per vertical hex distance "gliding" downward like Banana) so the energy recovery definitely doesn't have to be 100% as you say, practical considerations and Entropy makes that impossible.

[cloudbreaker]

Back on topic we still don't know if those 3D hexes are hexagonal dipyramid or hexagonal prisim, or how tall they are (some people say they are infinitely tall and the 3D cubes above they eyemancer table were just for effect).

I just want to say that I'm pretty sure that the 3D cubes are a dumbed-down picture of a person riding a gwiffon (Probably Jillian in a mini-flashback from Stanley, judging by the context) and not anything related to elevation. Hence why it says 'points' and 'move' underneath it.

[Hari Seldon]

Thank you very much I didn't think of that .


Still the recent quote about the Transylvito defenses and the move cost of going up the mountain should prove that Hexes are managed in 3 dimensions. So the Thinkamancer Table might not have even been able to show aerial combat very well if that wasn't a display of unit formations . I guess it was more focused on "Strategic Overview."

[DevilDan]

Back on topic we still don't know if those 3D hexes are hexagonal dipyramid or hexagonal prisim, or how tall they are (some people say they are infinitely tall and the 3D cubes above they eyemancer table were just for effect).

I just want to say that I'm pretty sure that the 3D cubes are a dumbed-down picture of a person riding a gwiffon (Probably Jillian in a mini-flashback from Stanley, judging by the context) and not anything related to elevation. Hence why it says 'points' and 'move' underneath it.

That's what I was getting at when I wrote this earlier in the thread:

The cubes always seemed to me like a representation of a single unit or some icon or symbol.

[DevilDan]

I don't know for certain whether a city can occupy multiple hexes or not. But by established rules, any conurbation that is described as a single city is, for effects of movement calculations, a single hex for defending units.

Nobody said that the volcano occupied a single hex, I believe.

[Hari Seldon]

That's what I was getting at when I wrote this earlier in the thread

I couldn't tell because you didn't mention Jillian nor Gwiffons nor that it might have been a portrait/outline.


Anyway this dragging on is also partly my fault for finding the Transylvito example of 3D movement cost (the only good example of it I think) this late.

nobody said that a mountain occupies a single hex, I believe

This guy did on page 1

you said this whil i was responding else where

you will find this is handled by units having a move penalty over certain terrain, ground units CAN'T cross water hexes, what you need to consider is that a mountains hex will have just as many downhill walks as uphill walks, but a rough terrain penalty of -1 move would surely apply. this isn't particularly hard to accomodate at all.

[moose o death]

i didn't say it there, i said a mountains hex. i can give you a 3d representation of exactly what that means if you want...

the post i make BEFORE that one i say the probably all fall in one hex.

this example will take some serious imagination on your part. but..

a hex is a collection of 7 points six on the circumference and one in the centre, a straight line from each point around the edge drawn into the centre. you can only travel along those lines, each hex is two half moves. you enter and move to the centre then exit via the appropriate path out.

the "terrain of the hex is a topological map, this is overlaid onto the hex

the hex's stitch together, if a certain ARM within a hex has xyz elevation it constitutes xyz move penalty, this is calculated from the centre to the edge and bears no correlation to the neighbouring hex as it has it's own maths.

this example is what i generate coming from a 3d modelling perspective and a game design perspective. your welcome to disagree all you like. i'll see if i can make visual examples in a short enough time frame

[Hari Seldon]

Yeah sorry the "mountain's hex" was throwing me off thinking that was one hex for a very large mountain (like it is in Wesnoth).

I see how your topographic map (two-and-a-half dimensions) idea works for ground and even dungeon units, it's actually pretty cool to measure half-moves that's a good idea.

But for aerial units ... they also have to have a xyz elevation penalty for flying up a mountain just as any walking unit does ... it's just that the flying unit gets to avoid the whole "your legs are moving faster than your brain can process the instructions" (more clearly stated the "your legs are not made of springs - your muscles cannot store energy from stretching like springs can") problem and just glide down the other side of the mountain, allowing them to recover even more fractional half-move (can't be recovering full half-move for every half-move because even flying units get tired going up and down Everest) for each decrease in elevation than the ground units do. Yeah great we're still following your 2.5 D idea. Actually both our ideas seem to come out to exactly the same way to measure unit movement, since the numbers come out all the same (the only difference is that I say that while we're having elevation increases why not just have full 3 dimensions since after all if you're flying in a city (or "gliding" as Parson is) and having urban combat you need to know if your enemy is on the 5th story of the house behind you and so has a line of sight over the 1 story house you think is hiding you but it isn't. Sure this is all in the wierd "city is one hex movement is free" place but this could be done with wilderness things like boulders and trees, too (and ranged projectiles can fire across multiple hexes since the Volcano did that when it exploded at the end of Book 1, so the archer in the wilderness could be in a tree in the hex next to Parson and shoot him out of what he thought was enough cover to block him from the sight of archers in that direction (but it only blocks Parson from the sight of archers at ground level from that direction Parson didn't consider the archers in the trees)).

Basically I'm saying even if the game's just 2.5 D across hexes for movement purposes (only combat being forced to be 3 D across hexes, though inside of hexes everything is done in 3 D - and you argue that both of those don't prove that movement across hexes has to be 3 D and not 2.5 D since the combat and in-hex stuff is like narrative detail), all I can say is that's just hand-waving it away without letting Parson be able to understand or exploit that Game Mechanic because you wave it out of canonical existence without proof):

The dwagon J-hooked into a dive that took it swooping over the rooftops, directly toward them. Its wings were stiff and swept back as it covered most of the intervening distance in a single glide. As it neared their tower, it pumped its wings hard, three times. It took the tower like there was an invisible skate ramp up the side.

- Erfworld Summer Update - 032

So if we already know the game is 3 D in one hex (and combat across hexes, more or less) I'm just choosing the simplest route and saying that across hexes the game is also in 3D so what is the hex shape ... Hexagonal dipyramid or hexagonal prisim (I can't think of any other possibilities for a truly 3D cross-hex system). You can stick with 2.5 D and still get the same numbers with a different interpretation because guess what ... physics is like that a lot ("Just shut up and calculate" is a famous quote about this). I'm only using Occham's Razor to try to unify how many dimensions Erfworld really has to make it simpler ...

[moose o death]

i had a decent example but crashed my pc rendering fractals for water. i'm not doing it again

[Hari Seldon]

No no don't worry I got what you were saying, it's like tessalating the hexes of a stone walkway over uneven ground (except in your case you break the hexes into 1/6th pie slices - to take into account measuring the half-moves going through them - and each 1/6th of each hex can have varying elevation changes relative to others in the same hex if that's how the uneven ground goes).

[moose o death]

yes but certain paths have different penalties the example even had water (which caused the crash) the sea level caused certain paths to become unusable so. making the hexes was simple enough, but texturing them got boring fast, i tried using curves with coloured segments but couldn't recolour individual sections.

if anyone wants to point out moving to the hex centre is only half a move to finish a turn, you have to leave a hex to enter one so it's always a full move.

[Hari Seldon]

if anyone wants to point out moving to the hex centre is only half a move to finish a turn, you have to leave a hex to enter one so it's always a full move.

Yeah it's just a more accurate way to figure out how a full move to another hex effected you based upon terrain penalties. Of course we could try to cut the hex into 36 slices and that would be even more accurate if there are better and worse terrains to travel on to he hex west of you from the center of your current hex (or wherever you are) ... (ex: roundabout path to the west isn't over a small hill so it actually saves you move)

I think it comes down to how much the creators of this comic want to explain. All they'll do is say "they took the easiest (or stealthiest or whatever) route wherever they could and it cost them X move" they probably won't explain the math even if they explain the scenery (including alternate routes in the hex) in detail.

[Wyvern]

What the heck are you two going on about? When you cross a hex boundary, your move goes down. When you don't, it doesn't. Period. It's not a complicated system. If you're dealing with difficult terrain (like mountains or whatever), then entering and/or exiting the hex (possibly only from certain directions, if necessary) costs more move than it usually would. The specific way the units experience moving across the terrain in question is wholly cosmetic.

So if a squad of pikers are crossing some mountain hexes, it doesn't matter if they take a winding path or hike straight up or walk on their hands or stop for a delightful picnic halfway through. When they cross a hex boundary, they lose however much move is appropriate for their movement type and the terrain type and that's the end of it. So a dwagon flying over a large mountain covers more space, and takes more experienced time, than flying straight across a plain would. Who cares? If the rules say that flying units take no penalty for crossing mountainous terrain, then they don't, and the dwagon loses one move for every hex boundary it crosses, regardless of its path.

Traveling in 3-D space doesn't cost move. Crossing hex boundaries costs move. Parson's move stat is zero, but within his hex, he can go wherever he wants, whenever he wants, for as long as he wants without running into any difficulty. Until he tries to go to a new hex, at which point his move score is enforced and he smashes into the hex boundary like a wall. All movement is like this. The path you take through a hex is irrelevant. Only the particular hex boundaries you cross determine when and how your move score drops.

[moose o death]

someone woke up on the nasty side of the bed.

[DevilDan]

I do think that it may not be a particularly complicated system. Some terrain types will mean a move penalty for certain units. We've seen that even with air units: there's a movement penalty for some flying units when they cross some types of mountain hexes.

[carisbourg]

Back on topic we still don't know if those 3D hexes are hexagonal dipyramid or hexagonal prisim, or how tall they are (some people say they are infinitely tall and the 3D cubes above they eyemancer table were just for effect).

Those cubes look to me like a wireframe of someone mounted on a Gwiffon.

[Hari Seldon]

I do think that it may not be a particularly complicated system. Some terrain types will mean a move penalty for certain units. We've seen that even with air units: there's a movement penalty for some flying units when they cross some types of mountain hexes.

Yeah generally speaking ... except when you have to deal with stuff like this:

The dwagon J-hooked into a dive that took it swooping over the rooftops, directly toward them. Its wings were stiff and swept back as it covered most of the intervening distance in a single glide. As it neared their tower, it pumped its wings hard, three times. It took the tower like there was an invisible skate ramp up the side.

[Wyvern]

Huh, I guess an earlier update DID mention that Gwiffins had a small penalty for mountain travel. I assumed that wouldn't be the case. Even so, I still maintain that move costs are determined strictly on the basis of terrain type at the hex border. If Gwiffins lose 2 move or 1.5 move for crossing hex borders over mountainous terrain, it's only because they're configured by the universe to take such and such a penalty for mountain travel. It works that way because the Titans wanted to simulate the the fact that they had to cover more 3-dimensional space to account for the uneven terrain, but their path through the sky isn't the cause of the loss of move. It's incidental. It doesn't follow from that that flying in an arc over any terrain incurs a higher move cost than flying in a straight line over that same terrain. It's still all about crossing hex borders and the listed terrain type.

Yeah generally speaking ... except when you have to deal with stuff like this:

The dwagon J-hooked into a dive that took it swooping over the rooftops, directly toward them. Its wings were stiff and swept back as it covered most of the intervening distance in a single glide. As it neared their tower, it pumped its wings hard, three times. It took the tower like there was an invisible skate ramp up the side.

You're reading way too much into that. It flew at an upward angle under its own power. That's all. It curved in such a way that it looked, to Parson, as though it were going up a ramp, but that's just a metaphor. There's no physical barrier there. Why would there be, even if move costs did work the way you keep assuming they do?

[moose o death]

at this point i would like to say hari is on his own here, my point all along has been that the move costs are typically 1 move per hex uneven terrain heights may add a small penalty no matter which direction your moving, the way of calculating said move discrepancies would be based on the straight lines through a hex.

the wing flappy thing i'm totally aggreeing with everyone else it's all in the garrisoned city hex and has NO MOVE COSTS, hexes do not stack vertically and the world is flat.

the only suggestion i've made anyone should be concerned about is that hexes are different sized depending on contents. just like just like time of the day is relevant to the unit experiencing it.

[DevilDan]

Relative time and space within a hex would not be the craziest thing in Erf, actually.

Again, I'm an advocate of simplicity. If a hex is a mountain hex (whatever the precise type or height), then the appropriate penalty is applied regardless of what the terrain actually looks like to you or me.