Use a hex map instead of Google-Maps-type map

[Zerkium]

I'm new to the game, I used to play CyberNations 10 years ago or so. I like that the game has a better variation of the map than CyberNations did (does?), but largely it seems to be an unimpactful role-play thing.

I've had the thought that a game like this could make the map / land mechanics more impactful. 

Stage 1 of game changes - purely cosmetic: 

- The world should be made of hex pieces, like the image attached. The hex pieces in the game should be much smaller than the ones in the image

- The player sets where his capital city is. The player will always have at least one hex pixel.

- Each city added will take up 1 additional hex pixel. Per (lets say) 5000 land purchased, another hex piece has to be occupied.

- Player's land holdings have to be continuous

- Land will be colored your nation's trading block color 

- We won't worry about players' lands intersecting in this first set of changes.

Stage 2 of game changes - reset map, add intersecting and relocating mechanisms
- The same mechanisms mentioned in stage 1 will apply, except for the intersecting portion

- New players will be only allowed to place their nation that are (let's say) 20 hex pieces away from the nearest active nations, on all sides.

- Players can relocate their nation, but this is limited to a once a month max (maybe once per 3 months?).

- (Very) inactive players will have their land removed from the map, and be prompted upon next login to relocate their country and to select the new hex pieces they want to take. 

- New war type: If bordering a nation, you can declare a war of conquest for a selected bordering hex piece.

- If you border an alliance member, you get a bonus of (some sort of bonus to incentivize alliances having continuous land - +2% increased population count, maybe?)

- If the game gets many more players, the playing space can be expanded west and east, with new continents added. 

Stage 3 - more incentives to fight over land: 
- Certain hex pieces (that you cannot place your capital city on) will give benefits of producing more natural resources (e.g.: Oil hex pixel if captured by player, and if they have oil resource improvement, they will be able to have an increased production rate)

 

I'm a programmer. I realize this would probably be a great deal of work, and I probably have not accounted for some abuse of the mechanisms to grief/troll others, but I think those can be overcome. 

I feel this sort of change would make the game have a cool visual component: we often think of real-world wars in terms of how land holdings changed, it would be cool to see a map of how the in-game world's territories were claimed by alliances 5 years ago, and where they are now. 

[Zoot]

You are literally suggesting turning it into an entirely different game.

[Solomon Ben-David]

^^ What Zoot said. Also:

• There are too many nations; it would be impossible to represent everyone when there's a limited amount of space.
• It'd be much harder to redesign and would set back a ton of other necessary improvements (Hey Alex, your suggestion box isn't working when it offers to rate!!!)
• It would impact customization. I wouldn't want my nation to be pink because my alliance is pink, I like the navy and white I have in my nation. You can change your nation color to your alliance color if you want.
• I like using the exact map as a way to "make a map" of my own nation (impacting some lore)
• Continuous land holdings would not be good, as it impacts how the game is played. I like being able to change continents if I want to produce a different resource.
• Again, 20 hex pieces is WAY too much for the amount of nations, especially nations that are set up and abandoned.

Generally, there are just too many changes and this would change the game into something it's not.

[Zerkium]

3 hours ago, Zoot said:

You are literally suggesting turning it into an entirely different game.

Not necessarily. We could just do the things I mentioned in "Stage 1" only, and keep this whole thing as purely cosmetic.

The great benefit would be that there are possible ways to develop this further, whereas with the Google-Maps style map you can't do much more with it.

 

3 hours ago, Solomon Ben-David said:

^^ What Zoot said. Also:

• There are too many nations; it would be impossible to represent everyone when there's a limited amount of space.
• It'd be much harder to redesign and would set back a ton of other necessary improvements (Hey Alex, your suggestion box isn't working when it offers to rate!!!)
• It would impact customization. I wouldn't want my nation to be pink because my alliance is pink, I like the navy and white I have in my nation. You can change your nation color to your alliance color if you want.
• I like using the exact map as a way to "make a map" of my own nation (impacting some lore)
• Continuous land holdings would not be good, as it impacts how the game is played. I like being able to change continents if I want to produce a different resource.
• Again, 20 hex pieces is WAY too much for the amount of nations, especially nations that are set up and abandoned.

Generally, there are just too many changes and this would change the game into something it's not.

• "There are too many nations". You'd be surprised as to what HTML5 can do. 
  • You could counteract "many nations" this by having the mechanism I mentioned: Simply remove inactive nations from the map, and have them choose a new location upon becoming active again.
• If this is developed as purely a cosmetic thing, it wouldn't affect much. This could be built on to later, whereas the Google-Maps-style map is a dead-end in terms of having more added to it.
• On continuous land holdings, continuous land holdings would stop people from simply having 20 dots randomly around. 
• "there are just too many changes and this would change the game into something it's not" - I envision the changes I proposed simply altering the cosmetic mechanic of the maps for some time, and at a later point introducing a couple new mechanics like not being able to intersect with other nations, and bonuses for bordering alliance nations. 

Edited October 29, 2020 by Zerkium

[Zoot]

7 hours ago, Zerkium said:

Not necessarily. We could just do the things I mentioned in "Stage 1" only, and keep this whole thing as purely cosmetic.

The great benefit would be that there are possible ways to develop this further, whereas with the Google-Maps style map you can't do much more with it.

 

• "There are too many nations". You'd be surprised as to what HTML5 can do. 
  • You could counteract "many nations" this by having the mechanism I mentioned: Simply remove inactive nations from the map, and have them choose a new location upon becoming active again.
• If this is developed as purely a cosmetic thing, it wouldn't affect much. This could be built on to later, whereas the Google-Maps-style map is a dead-end in terms of having more added to it.
• On continuous land holdings, continuous land holdings would stop people from simply having 20 dots randomly around. 
• "there are just too many changes and this would change the game into something it's not" - I envision the changes I proposed simply altering the cosmetic mechanic of the maps for some time, and at a later point introducing a couple new mechanics like not being able to intersect with other nations, and bonuses for bordering alliance nations. 

But here is the thing. The cosmetic change you propose in stage 1 only has value if we assume that we will eventually be moving onto something which gives the map meaning and any changes that does so will inevitably be a fundamental change to how the game works.

[Levi-Sama]

where would new nations go lmao

the world is not an infinite sphere

[Zerkium]

On 10/30/2020 at 3:32 AM, Levi-Sama said:

where would new nations go lmao

the world is not an infinite sphere

1. Inactivate nations would be removed from the map, and prompted to take a new spot upon becoming active again
2. The hex pieces would be very very small - e.g. Sicily would be ~20 hex pieces itself
3. A map is a 2d projection of a sphere. As time goes by and as there's more people playing the game, you could create a fictional continent to the west or east.

[Levi-Sama]

bruh that's going to sink the whole game itself.

[BelgiumFury]

Either you would have to remake the game because these mechanical changes are literally a fundamental change, it would (for refrence) be easier to create a whole new war system and it would upset a whole lot less people.

Or it's purely cosmetic, in that case it seems like a lot of work for very little return.