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(+1)

My main issue wasn't with the sub-hex system on its own, it's with the

small number of buildings to place. Your previous dev diaries said the
settlements would consist of a couple hexes with a dozen buildings
inside each, which I believe to be a serious downgrade from the 1000+
buildings of 1.4 cities.

This might be one of the reasons why the cities look off in the mockup. Your sprites were designed for a tightly packed square grid with a couple hundred buildings at the very least. The bakery for example was made to fit in a 2x1 rectangle. Put it in an hex on its own (or just a sub-hex) and it's going to look out of place. Especially if you have buildings that used to take anywhere from 2x2 to 5x5 and now take the same 1 hex of place.

Thinking about it further, I think a hybrid of sorts could be made, using essentially the second system, but keeping the general idea of "sub hexes" by creating small-ish zones that would play the role of the larger hexes of the first system, but without being necessarily hexagonal, or quite as small. Sort of like the region system planned for 1.5 but with hexes and smaller regions.

Here's a bullet point list to summarize my ramblings:

  •  Packs of ~50-100 hexes (so 4-9 hexes in your first system) make a "big hex", work like a big hex of system 1 for settlements purposes. Groups of 3-6 "big hexes" (12-50 hexes in system 1) would make regions, for maskling territorial claims for example.
  • Roads preferably placed on the hex borders, maybe the same for walls. (or a cheap palissade variant). When in cities units may be visually placed on the roads, with no mechanical effect (it just looks neater).
  • A lot of building sprites will have to be redone to fit better in hexes, like you did for the houses. Adding a ground/walked path effect (like the bakery has a bit of) could help.
  • Substitute people walking around with sprites in buildings idling or pacing back and forth to give the impression of activity? For example a bakery could have a small stand with a couple villagers seemingly selling/buying bread.

Hope I've been constructive.

Hope I've been constructive.

You have been, and I appreciate the input.

I'm leaning more and more towards the single structure per hex system, combine with the regions planned for 1.5.

Roads preferably placed on the hex borders,

I think some more "cosmetic" roads will be on hex borders, but major roads are going to have to occupy whole hexes. That way units can march through hexes without appearing to clip through structures. I think that could lend itself to some interesting tactical combat in cities as well. In 1.4 formations didn't handle streets very well, but since units fill a single hex in 2.0 they should be able to fight their way though streets in a similar way to a total war game. That could lead to interesting tactical possibilities in designing cities to withstand attack.

Substitute people walking around with sprites in buildings idling or pacing back and forth to give the impression of activity?

Some structures  in 1.4 (like the Farm and the Brickworks) had a visual effect of a worker tending the fields, something like that could work well, I think, and be expanded to people wandering around the "cosmetic" streets around structures. As just visual effects they would have a very low computational cost.

(+2)

>You have been, and I appreciate the input.

By the way, I'd like to apologize for my comments in the previous dev diary. Lookng back at them, they are rash and overly agressive. I shouldn't have posted so emotionally.

I'm with this guy on this one. Microing my settlements is very important, as are aesthetics; to that end I think he's got the right idea here.