Hex map based games.

[Mikalyaran]

One of the things erfworld has really made me want to do is play erfworld! Sadly we can't (at least not yet ::hint hint nudge nidge winkwink:: ). In the mean time anyone know of any good hex based games or perhaps any good hex tools for creating our own games?

[Monty]

Well, D&D 3.5 has a hex grid variant, if that works for you.

[ObadiahtheSlim]

Battle for Wesnoth. Its a turn based strategy with units that level up.

[Hobgobwin]

Battle for Wesnoth. Its a turn based strategy with units that level up.

Interesting. I'll have to download it some time.

[Mikalyaran]

Well, D&D 3.5 has a hex grid variant, if that works for you.

That could be pretty cool. cobble together some rules for armies have the characters be generals and whatnot. What id really like to find would be a hex map program that let you set a certain hex to a terrain type and whatnot. Or at least a good place to get paper with hexs on it

[Dr Pepper]

http://wareseeker.com/free-hex-grid/

http://wareseeker.com/free-grid-generator/

http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/hexagonal/

http://www.nomic.net/~uckelman/mkhexgrid/

http://www.mythosa.net/Utils.html#Other

http://registry.gimp.org/taxonomy/term/523

http://www.webwargaming.org/maps/blankmap.html

http://www.wanderinghorse.net/gaming/maps/?maps_page=01

[Mikalyaran]

Sweet man. Thanks.

[depricated]

One thing Erfworld always brings me back to is Settlers of Catan, actually

[Zander The God]

Iv always been intrested in them, hex map based games. But have never played. I love stratigy and would like to get invloved.

[Alcazabedabra]

Vote to sticky this thread. I think the question raised by the OP is going to come up often.

We might want to compile the above links into a new sticky thread, and let people add to the list in that thread. People love Erfworld, and until an Erfworld game is released (I'd LOVE to help create a simple computer game that you can play over a network), I think these options are going to be very attractive to us Tools.

[Allandaros]

http://wareseeker.com/free-hex-grid/

http://wareseeker.com/free-grid-generator/

http://incompetech.com/graphpaper/hexagonal/

http://www.nomic.net/~uckelman/mkhexgrid/

http://www.mythosa.net/Utils.html#Other

http://registry.gimp.org/taxonomy/term/523

http://www.webwargaming.org/maps/blankmap.html

http://www.wanderinghorse.net/gaming/maps/?maps_page=01

My dear Doctor, I'm in your debt. I've been looking for hex resources for a while (trying to make my own campaign world); these are invaluable! Thank you.

[redtophat]

Battle for Wesnoth. Its a turn based strategy with units that level up.

Interesting. I'll have to download it some time.

I'll second Battle for Wesnoth. The add-on alone are filled with lots of extra fun. An amazing Hex based game.

[Alcazabedabra]

Yeah, I've been playing a good bit of Battle for Wesnoth, but I keep trying to keep all my troops alive :S

It's frustrating, actually. Every one of them can level up, and so every one has a lot of value, potentially... yet they're all fated to fall in battle, and you can't really prevent it without slowing down your game's forward momentum.

Hard to find that balance between preserving your forces and spending them wisely.

Also, I seem to get a lot of bad rolls.

[Xewleer]

I would like one that isn't one unit per hex though... Maybe I missed one?

With Battle for Wesnoth, I was annoyed with the leveling and fighting system... it wasn't really fun for me. I would like something... more GRAND.

[Drunut]

@Xewleer, were you talking about just Wesnoth or about Hex games in general? I played Wesnoth a long time ago and unless they changed it I probably won't be coming back to it. It always seemed a bit akward, and the controls didn't feel quite right (But that was a few years ago)

If you were talking about Hex games in general, I have gone into a little speculation on that here near the bottom page when discussing Hexes and how they might work in battles in Erfworld.

[Alcazabedabra]

Okay - I've played Battle for Wesnoth for a couple weeks now. I'm just gonna throw this out there - it's not fun.

If you're looking for a strategy game in which a mere dice roll can't completely unravel your entire campaign, keep on lookin'. This game is built for small armies of expensive units, and the battles consist of handfuls of high-stakes chance rolls. This means the results of a given battle are determined by a huge random element. The impact of your skill at the game can be nullified by dodgy game mechanics.

To me, this wasn't fun. I found myself rolling back a turn or three after experiencing losses or bad rolls that I could no longer live with. Losing fifty bucks at a card game is less frustrating than this.

I like my battles to be challenging, sure, but also to be something shy of torture with thumbscrews. I want to have armies that can take a little punishment, suffer a little bad luck, and still be functional. A random element is always welcome in games to the degree that it makes the experience interesting, but Battle for Wesnoth gets the balance wrong.

Battle for Wesnoth might be for you, if you enjoy the kind of experience I'm describing here. Fighting with small numbers of fragile, expensive and rare units can be a unique kind of challenge to someone with the mind for it. Unfortunately, I developed my taste for strategy gaming in the era of Starcraft and Total Annihilation.

[Darth Curious]

I really enjyed Ogre and GEV back in the day. Battletech, too!

[jioan]

Heroscape has hexes.
I don't play it much anymore, but I remember it being fun with the choice of basic and advanced rule settings. Advanced itself is still relatively simple and just adds another few layers of strategy. Combat is done through using special die with various symbols representing attack and defensive power. However, fighting in heroscape is really only half the fun. Mapbuilding is the best part with several types of terrain to choose from.(Ground, sand, snow, rock, water, ice, lava, molten rock, swamp etc.) Custom scenarios are easy to design and can be made as designing the board.

[Skyrar]

Okay - I've played Battle for Wesnoth for a couple weeks now. I'm just gonna throw this out there - it's not fun.

If you're looking for a strategy game in which a mere dice roll can't completely unravel your entire campaign, keep on lookin'. This game is built for small armies of expensive units, and the battles consist of handfuls of high-stakes chance rolls. This means the results of a given battle are determined by a huge random element. The impact of your skill at the game can be nullified by dodgy game mechanics.

To me, this wasn't fun. I found myself rolling back a turn or three after experiencing losses or bad rolls that I could no longer live with. Losing fifty bucks at a card game is less frustrating than this.

I like my battles to be challenging, sure, but also to be something shy of torture with thumbscrews. I want to have armies that can take a little punishment, suffer a little bad luck, and still be functional. A random element is always welcome in games to the degree that it makes the experience interesting, but Battle for Wesnoth gets the balance wrong.

Battle for Wesnoth might be for you, if you enjoy the kind of experience I'm describing here. Fighting with small numbers of fragile, expensive and rare units can be a unique kind of challenge to someone with the mind for it. Unfortunately, I developed my taste for strategy gaming in the era of Starcraft and Total Annihilation.

The feeling playing Wesnoth is quite like chess. There is no rushing forward. You have to rotate your wounded units to the back, get a healer, and block the path of the enemy units. Then its not as much about luck, as you said. Mages are important, because they become healers at 2nd lvl and have 70 Percent hit chance but are very fragile. Chosing the right weapons against the racial resistances is important, too. Plus, you have a combat preview that gives you a hit percentage for the fighting units so you usually have a good Idea what is a fair fight and what is not. I'm not very good at Wesnoth, but I like the game. The KI usually tries to zerg in on one unit to get it down, so might be room for exploiting that, I dunno. Buuut.. it's not as boring as you said.

[marshalkowski]

Heroscape has hexes.
I don't play it much anymore, but I remember it being fun with the choice of basic and advanced rule settings. Advanced itself is still relatively simple and just adds another few layers of strategy. Combat is done through using special die with various symbols representing attack and defensive power. However, fighting in Heroscape is really only half the fun. Mapbuilding is the best part with several types of terrain to choose from.(Ground, sand, snow, rock, water, ice, lava, molten rock, swamp etc.) Custom scenarios are easy to design and can be made as designing the board.

I can vouch for Heroscape. It's not quite the grand scale of Erfworld (each game is like an individual battle rather than a campaign), but it sets a lot of the ground rules that would be useful in setting up rules for an Erfworld game. It's also a lot of fun to play, and not terribly expensive as far as miniatures games go (the starter pack, which has quite a bit, is only 25 dollars, last I checked, and more readily available at places like Target).

There are standard and unique squads (3 or 4 to a group) and heroes (one to a group), special powers and a slew of conditional modifiers that make strategy just as important as the size of your army.

Each squad or hero costs a certain number of points. Players agree upon the number of points they have at the beginning and they buy the units. The units have four stats, Attack, Defense, Life and Speed. (Squad units usually have 1 life each, heroes can have up to 8 that I've seen). When you battle, you roll a number of dice equal to your attack or defense, depending on what side your on. Rolling a skull as an attacker equals a hit, rolling a shield as a defender counts as a block, there are three skulls and two shields I believe, though it might be the other way around, and the remaining blank side just counts as a failure either way. If the attacker rolls more skulls than the defender's shields, he does damage equal to the difference.

There are about a half dozen factions, though you don't necessarily have to have all your units from one faction, depending on the rules for your particular game.

Each squad and hero has special abilities that can affect the number of dice they roll, how they move, or any number of other abilities. It's a surprisingly deep game, and a lot of fun. If you have $25 you're looking to spend, and you and some friends enjoy strategizing, I highly recommend you try this game.

P.S. *whew* Long-winded first post.