• Hey guys gals,

    I brought this up in the AAM section but if you didn’t see it I wanted your opinion.

    I made a map for my AAM using octagons vs. hexagons. I did this b/c it creates more options for movement. So this way you can now move as you would on a chess board with front, back, left, right, and diagonals.

    I was wondering what your thought on this are.

    Thanks,

    -LT04


  • Well I don’t know what you are aiming for but too many sides means a single unit exerts zone of controll over too much space and too many other units. IMO

    I don’t really know why hexes were chosen for war game maps in the first place. But I know that strictly from a Geometry stand point hexes are the best deal -the most area for the shortest length of boundry. Which is why bees use the shape for honeycombs or something.


  • The reason I brought it up was that I don’t like the idea you can’t make a 90 degree left or right turn. I think it takes away options.

    -LT04


  • Hexagons were chosen for wargame maps because they are the largest regular shape that can be tesselated.  Tesselation is the “fitting together perfectly” of identical shapes.  You can’t do it with octagons.  The only regular shapes that can manage it are triangles, parallellograms (including squares, rectangles, and diamonds) and hexagons.

    Try it and see.  If you try to make a regular grid of octagons you end up with little squares between some of them.

    ~Josh


  • You can make a 90degree turn with hexes, if you are moving more than 1 hex.

    As an AD&D player for 25 years, I have done plenty of 90 degree turns on hexes using table top minatures.  There are diagrams of it in most of the old AD&D, and its precursor Chainmail, manuals.


  • Oh, and the reason for hexes:
    As noted above:  most options orf movement for a regular network of all the same shape. 
    The result is that it ADDED movement flexibility over the more traditional “grid” maps.

    Also, FYI:  In terms of Octagon Grids, why bother?  Just allow diagonal movement on a traditional grid and you get the same net effect (and 8 point movement vector) without the gaps in the grid :-D


  • @OutsideLime:

    Hexagons were chosen for wargame maps because they are the largest regular shape that can be tesselated.  Tesselation is the “fitting together perfectly” of identical shapes.  You can’t do it with octagons.  The only regular shapes that can manage it are triangles, parallellograms (including squares, rectangles, and diamonds) and hexagons.

    Try it and see.  If you try to make a regular grid of octagons you end up with little squares between some of them.

    ~Josh

    Cool. I didn’t know there was a term for it. Okay, I figured there was but didn’t know it.

  • '18 '17 '16 '11 Moderator

    I have to admit, I prefer Hex Maps to Axis and Allies maps.

    I always wanted to marry the beauty of Axis and Allies to the maps of Avalon Hill games. (Hex grids.)


  • @Jennifer:

    I have to admit, I prefer Hex Maps to Axis and Allies maps.

    I always wanted to marry the beauty of Axis and Allies to the maps of Avalon Hill games. (Hex grids.)

    Try BOTB it is on a hex map. No ragged territories in this game. Guadalcanal is likely to be on a hex map as well.


  • I’ve played many of the old Hexagon movement boardgames. My favorite is, “Russian Campaign”. For tactical movements.  Such as;  surrounds and zones of control.
        Hexagons are the best way to go IMHO. But to use them on a Grand Strategic map such as AA and all it’s variants, it would just be unnessesary clutter. The territory spaces are not big enough to facilitate tactical manuvers.
        :wink: But, side boards, with different types of terrain, some with beaches, an Island, Swamp and or Mountains with a hexagon grid could be employed for a tactical miniatures battle with the figures from a territorial battle. Sure, it would make for a much longer game, but if you’ve got the time, and you like miiature gaming, I say why not add a little more flavor to our beloved AA games. I suggest some simple basic miniatues rules, nothing too involved, but can allow players to get the feel of a real battle! Tanks wheeling into enemy flanks, artillary blasting away from across the board and defenders behind defensive bunkers, (bent cardboard). I’d love to write up the rules and play it.
      Anybody interrested?
        Crazy Ivan

    :wink:
        Don’t waste energy by fighting over the same thing again and again. Save up your resources and then crush them once and for all.


  • The old “Lords of Midnight” (anyone remember the venerable Sinclair ZX Spectrum ?) used a square grid with diagonal movement allowed at 1.5x cost. This made the “circle” (locus of points at equal distance) an octagon with lower distance, area and shape errors than

    • a hex grid (where the ‘circle’ is itself a big hexagon)
    • square grid with diagonal moves prohibited (‘circle’ = tilted square)
    • square grid with diagonal moves allowed at same cost as straight moves (‘circle’ =square. This is the most UGH !)

    Also congratulations Jen, you’re the first lady I ever read to prefer hex map wargames !! Now, you mentioned Avalon Hill… ;-) maybe you would like Gamers OCS more ? ;-)

    An example of great games on same topic (Pacific WW2): Victory in the Pacific (areas) and Fire in the Sky (big hexes). At heart they are surprisingly similar, but the second is really deeper and more accurate, allowing less aberrant “strategies” really unfeasible because of logistics. A&A has it even worse.

    Now, I don’t know any fast-enough-playable game of whole WW2 outside A&A ;-) I don’t talk of World in Flames or other such monstrosities…

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