Moving ships a single hex at a time

from GalCiv3 Forums

Hi, I don't have the Galactic Civilizations 3 alpha yet, but I have the Galactic Civilizations 2 Ultimate Edition (which is a great game except for the lackluster AI I have played against even though reviews say it should be very challenging).  I have also watched some videos of the Galactic Civilizations 3 alpha.  I was wondering if anyone moves their ships one hex at a time?  Put in other words, does anyone click on each adjacent tile one at a time to move their ships rather than clicking on a hex that is more than one distance away from the ship?  I notice that most people seem to tell their ship to spend all its movement points with a single click.  I would think that it would be somewhat better to move your ship one tile at a time by clicking on adjacent tiles one at a time because if the ship's sensors pick up something you can then think about which tile to move your ship to next with the new sensor information in mind. 

I will present a scenario where a person chooses to move their ships differently in it.  It should show why moving a ship one hex at a time is better than the normal method.  In the scenario you have a ship with 2 sensor range and 4 movement points.  There is an enemy ship that in terms of combat is stronger than yours and will more likely win a battle against yours.  It also has 2 movement points.  This enemy ship is 4 tiles away from your ship so it is 2 tiles outside of your sensor range but your ship has enough movement points to reach it. In the first example if you were to just click once to spend all your movement points and you happened to click on the enemy ship you would most likely lose when it is the enemy ship's player's turn and he attacks you.  But, in the second example, if you were to move your ship one tile in the direction of the ship, and then you clicked to tell it to move one tile more you would see the enemy ship and be able to tell your ship to turn around and move in the opposite direction.  Because the enemy ship has less movement points it wouldn't be able to catch up to your ship and destroy it.

If people agree with me that moving your ship one hex at a time is superior to spending all your movement points with a single click I would like to recommend the developers to have this in mind while designing the game.  For example, maybe the developers could program the AI to try to move their ships one hex at a time so that it has the advantages of that style of ordering.

Thanks for reading this.

17,651 views 4 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

There are certainly advantages to moving one-space at a time, and when you are exploring a new area, or suspect enemies to be about I think most people will do this (or at least only 2 or 3 at a time), but most of the time the inconvenience of this style of movement outweighs the benefits. It really slows down the game, especially because you can't move with the keyboard due to the hex-map.

Reply #2 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Quoting perigrine23, reply 1
especially because you can't move with the keyboard due to the hex-map.
End of perigrine23's quote

Why would hexes prevent the use of the keyboard for movement? The devs just need to set keys for all six directions. Like W, E, A, D, Y, X, for example.

Elemental: Reforged
Reply #3 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

I imagine people move as the situation warrants.  In some cases moving 1 hex or grid at a time is the smart move, other times it'd be completely unnecessary.  With these types of games, you cannot just say unequivocally people must move 1 grid/hex at a time, or that they mustn't.  Nobody can really dictate how a player should move their ships/characters around.

Reply #4 from GalCiv3 Forums Top

Thanks for the replies everyone.  I should have said that I realize there are times that it doesn't give you any gameplay advantage to move one hex at a time.  One example of this would be when you move your ship in such a way that it wouldn't uncover any fog of war.  I realize that some people would like to spend all their movement points with a single click to move the game along at a faster pace, but there are some people who you could describe somewhat as perfectionists who want to get maximum potential out of their ships.  I don't mean to say that people who move their ships one hex at a time are better than anyone else.  I'm just throwing it out there for consideration by players and the developers.