[1.04b11] Remove the 200km/Hex Absolute Value
Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2020 8:27 am
I recommend the game remove the 200km/hex absolute value. Simply delete it. Distance is measured in Hexes. The unit of measure is Hexes.
The design compromise is wholly based around a 200km/Hex value, however, nothing in the game refers to kilometers. Eliminate the hex scale in kilometers and there are no more compromises.
No assets, units, models, weapons, etc. (pick your game object noun) uses kilometers as a distance factor. Nothing in the game is measured in kilometers. Kilometers do impact game balance.
Leave the scale to the player's imagination. This is not a historical game based in Europe. A hex scale to properly address historical norms is unnecessary. As quoted, the stated value is completely implausible.
With so little mention of hex size and kilometers in the game, why does deleting it matter?
Hex size should not selectively be used as screening or evaluation criteria for the value of current and future features in the game.
Discussions about game features become selectively mired in plausibility issues surrounding the math of the hex size. Ships' guns--hex size. Aircraft range--hex size. Sensor detection--hex size.
How much effort does this take to patch? Nothing but a written declaration on the forum, because it is never actually used in the game.
Simply eliminate it.
ORIGINAL: Manual, Section 5.17. Design Compromises (lightly edited for spelling and grammar)
Especially on scale some compromises have been made. Combat and logistics are modeled as if the game Hex scale was lower. Combat with a few thousand men (or even several tens of thousands) would not see front lines as we see them in the game. Some abstraction has been taking place between what probably would have happened and what is happening in the game. Concerning logistics things should have been harder on the player seeing the really huge distances (200km/Hex) on the map.
ORIGINAL: Malevolence
Verisimilitude...
I've argued in other posts that stating the size of a hex in kilometers was a design mistake. Planets are different relative sizes based on the total number of hexes in each. Distances should be measured only in hexes--leave the rest to the players imagination. The other game elements are not plausible with an absolute value in kilometers. Like faster than light travel/communications, artificial gravity, etc., it should be the readers imagination.
The design compromise is wholly based around a 200km/Hex value, however, nothing in the game refers to kilometers. Eliminate the hex scale in kilometers and there are no more compromises.
No assets, units, models, weapons, etc. (pick your game object noun) uses kilometers as a distance factor. Nothing in the game is measured in kilometers. Kilometers do impact game balance.
Leave the scale to the player's imagination. This is not a historical game based in Europe. A hex scale to properly address historical norms is unnecessary. As quoted, the stated value is completely implausible.
With so little mention of hex size and kilometers in the game, why does deleting it matter?
Hex size should not selectively be used as screening or evaluation criteria for the value of current and future features in the game.
Discussions about game features become selectively mired in plausibility issues surrounding the math of the hex size. Ships' guns--hex size. Aircraft range--hex size. Sensor detection--hex size.
How much effort does this take to patch? Nothing but a written declaration on the forum, because it is never actually used in the game.
Simply eliminate it.
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