Turn-Based Tactics on a Hex Grid

[TheClassic]

So this has surely been talked about before, but I'm wondering how ya'll feel about Fire Emblem style combat on a hex grid.

What do you think would work better or worse? What units or items become more or less viable? What map concepts stop working or start working better?

I ask because I'm actually making a game that's effectively this, and would love to know what the FE crowd thinks about hex tiles.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

It opens up more angles to attack a single target from. So you can gang up your melee range units on one target while the enemy can do the same to you. It's pretty dangerous for a game with permadeath. Even if you line up your units in a solid wall, every member of that wall is vulnerable from two adjacent tiles instead of the usual One in Fire Emblem. I suppose it lessens the need for 1-2 range weapon options, since you'll less often be in a situation where you can only reach a target from two spaces away. It may also place more value on our units that possess greater defense/hp

Someone's probably going to mention Berwick Saga, but a much larger change than Hexes is how that game handles its turns. Instead of separating each turn into Player and Enemy Phase, you and the enemy take turns moving 1-2 units at a time until all units have moved in that turn. So while it's true that every unit is more vulnerable to attacks, it takes a lot more coordination to dogpile hits on a single target. And if you move your guy within range of a bunch of enemies that have already taken their move, then they're safe in a scenario where they wouldn't be in Fire Emblem.

[Integrity]

i used to be strongly hexpilled but i've cooled on them recently. they have their place, absolutely, but there was a time when everyone would scream about how hexes were simply better (i was among them ofc) and i think that's a pretty poor way to look at it

 

zapp's pretty much got the right of it that hexes both increase mobility (depending on the diagonal movement rules you use) and decrease any ability to set up a front, which generally leads to less defensive play and more ability to create and execute a sweep. mechanics can change this, for sure, but it's a loose generalization.

 

i think for fire emblem style combat - e.g. generally fast times to kill, simple mathematics, positioning fairly agnostic - it's a pretty bad idea unless you've got a really solid reason to be going for hexes. by the time you've strapped enough mechanics onto the combat to make using hexes a good idea, i think you're necessarily going to move away from "fire emblem type combat", if that makes sense. battle brothers is a fantastic use of hexes that would not work with squares, for instance, but plays nothing like fire emblem outside of the very top-level "it is a tactical role playing game" sense.

 

e: for a concrete example of that, zone of control mechanics are all-but-mandatory to have a functional hex system, whereas they're far less needed (but sometimes appreciated) in a square system

Edited March 16 by Integrity

[Rapier]

I don't think it works well with FE's formula.

As everyone said, it incentives aggressive play and rushing for a sweep (or "surround and swarm") strategy. Even if you add AoE, which imo would be mandatory so your vulnerable damage dealers aren't sitting ducks, your units will also be more vulnerable to swarm tactics and all out attacks. It better fits games that don't have permadeath (or where permadeath isn't much of an issue, since you can switch for similar units later, like in Wesnoth and Battle Brothers).

I think the exposition your units would have in a hex grid map wouldn't fit well with FE's almost puzzle-like predictability of what's going to happen in the player & enemy phases.

If you can find a game design that addresses those two concerns, sure, go ahead! Although I think it'll be difficult.

[Integrity]

3 minutes ago, Rapier said:

FE's almost puzzle-like predictability of what's going to happen

this is actually a great point that i didn't touch on - a huge strength of the fire emblem formula is its relative predictability in addition to relatively lower mobility. the actual combat mechanics of fire emblem really take a backseat to that, and adding intrigue to it (like via hexes) dilutes that strength and goes back to the question of why the mechanical base is fire emblem instead of something else, imo

[Dark Holy Elf]

Largely already covered, but to me the biggest thing is that hexes make things more dangerous. In general, with squares, it's usually easy enough to reduce the number of available spaces for enemies to attack you to 2 (it's possible to go to 1 with a walled formation), while in hexes the relevant number is 3 (and 2 with a wall). That's a pretty big difference. Ironically I feel like I often find walls more valuable in hex-based games because of this, but it obviously varies by game. And I agree that I generally value durable units more in hex grids than square grids (assuming both have comparable systems with respect to permadeath).

All of this applies more to SRPGs with reasonably large (8+) unit counts and reasonably small attack ranges than it does to other games, but of course both of these disclaimers include Fire Emblem. I think the difference is less significant for games like Final Fantasy Tactics (squares) and Wild Arms XF (hexes). Those games (particularly FFT) aren't really built around defensive formations anyway, both because you don't have the numbers to pull it off and because attack range is so much higher generally (magic hits from range 4 or 5 instead of 2).

41 minutes ago, Integrity said:

e: for a concrete example of that, zone of control mechanics are all-but-mandatory to have a functional hex system, whereas they're far less needed (but sometimes appreciated) in a square system

definitely agree with this. I've never felt Fire Emblem needed zone of control, whereas something like Brigandine would definitely lose something without it.

[Rapier]

Just now, Integrity said:

this is actually a great point that i didn't touch on - a huge strength of the fire emblem formula is its relative predictability in addition to relatively lower mobility. the actual combat mechanics of fire emblem really take a backseat to that, and adding intrigue to it (like via hexes) dilutes that strength and goes back to the question of why the mechanical base is fire emblem instead of something else, imo

This was actually a discussion on the Wesnoth forums because people complained about hit chances and the like, and the devs had to explain that unlike in FE (which gives you a lot of information so you can make an educated guess on what's going to happen several moves later, and often hit rates are 80-100%), Wesnoth* was made around higher probabilities of success and failure and taking risks was part of it. Your best chance of hitting is 80% and often you'll be rolling on 60% most of the time.

*A hex game where you have constant 80-100% hit chance will quickly turn into a swarm and sweep fest, with units being much more vulnerable. I think this doesn't happen as much in D&D because there aren't that many units on the map (good luck managing a table with more than 6 people) compared to FE or Wesnoth.

[Integrity]

yeah wesnoth thrives on chaos and adaptation far more than fire emblem ever has. it's a fantastic game and i adore it to pieces despite itself, but it's very much not fire emblem in any fundamental way

 

and agreed on the high hit chance hexes - the quite good zachtronics strategy game möbius front '83 is hex-based with high hit rates and short times to kill if you have an appropriate weapon (being based on late cold war tech). the counterpunch and sweep is, appropriately, obscenely prioritized compared to any kind of defensive play, which generally exists to let you have a screening force die to alert you to an enemy push or to take an extra turn dying so as to provide vision afterwards. that's also a really fun form of strategy! it's not at all fire emblem.

[TheClassic]

Thanks for the thoughtful responses everyone.

It's reassuring to hear that the biggest concerns are things I've been designing around. Here are a few examples (feel free to dissect these remedies!)

Problem: too many points of attack for enemies.  →  Solutions: not only is there no perma-death (in fact the units are non-unique such that you can upgrade a "class" of unit and obtain multiples of that class), but the combat is very player turn focused. Basically the player is expected to lose units, and can replenish them when they do. It's also not exactly heartbreaking to lose a unit (the game takes places in the form of a wooden board game, so it's more like losing a pawn in chess versus watching Mia eat a crit for breakfast.)

Problem: too little predictability due to more movement options.  →  Solution: the player has nearly perfect information (no hit chance, no wacky AI; it's closer to chess in this regard as well). I like that people touched on the puzzle-like quality to FE maps, because that's one of my favourite things about them. Integrity mentioned a FE strength in "relative predictability in addition to relatively lower mobility", in that light I could describe this hex-based combat as even higher relative predictability to even lower mobility, since all the numbers are single digit and the typical base move is 3 instead of FE's usual 5-6 (I want players to not have to do too much algebra).

Another thing that I hope addresses the increased danger for any unit is that there are attack range patterns that limit total targetable tiles. Specifically, many high-range units can only hit on the "lines" of the grid (imagine an FE bow with 4 range, but it can't hit diagonals). The goal is so that the scarier enemies become manageable if the player uses the environment effectively.

All that might count as too mechanically different to be called FE-style combat, so maybe FE-inspired (FE-distilled?) is more apt at this point.