Triangle Grids

Summary

Grids are great for tactical gameplay of turn-based games because they allow discrete movement steps. That means that you can bind positioning to other resources such as movement points, action points, food, etc. Grids divide the infinite variety of movement options into a few specific ones, which can be considered separately by the player’s tactical mind. The most popular grid types are hexes and squares. But what about triangles? Your browser does not support the video tag. Types of Grids: Comparison# We are perfectly familiar with square and hex grids, as most turn-based games use one of them. Both have upsides and downsides. I will go through each of these and include the triangle grid in comparison. Visuals# Square grids will contribute to visuals for non-natural environments, such as towns, dungeons, streets, and building interiors. Hex grids look nice with natural environments instead, improving the realism of curvy things, such as islands, mountains, small roads, etc. In the case with looks, triangle grids lie in between: like squares, they allow straight lines and walls without half-tiles, and like hexes, they allow more curvy environments. In fact, triangle grids contain both in itself! You can even have rhombus (huge) and hex (colossal) creatures on top of the triangle grid, like this: On top of that, it has a bonus: like the square grid, it can contain bigger and smaller grids in itself. The only visual downside before the square grid is that it can’t express rectangle buildings. In this case, the same cheat from the hex grid can be used: use half tiles. A blocking object (wall) goes through half of the tile and the tile is blocked completely. There are also two special cases that make triangles shine. The first is line formations. When the second row of spearmen/riflemen stays between the first, like on the picture above, they can attack enemy formation too without a friend obstructing the view. So it’s possible to directly represent lines of soldiers o...