Quote Originally Posted by deuterio12 View Post
Well, it is entertaining for me how the big tactical classics, FFT, Fire Emblem, X-Com, Advance Wars, etc just ended up all being square-based.
On the other hand pretty much all the classic turn-based strategy games (on the PC) like the Battle Isle und Panzer General series have used hexes from the get-go.

On the programming complexity of squares vs. hexes: just thought about it a little bit, you can map a square grid with a simple 2 dimensional matrix - you can use the same matrix to map a hex grid because you can transform any square grid into a hex grid with one additional rule: if the topmost row extends to the left or to the right (to create the zigzag border).

For each hex you need to link up to 6 adjacent tiles instead of 8 for a square tile, but you can treat all adjacent tiles the same (instead of differentiating between orthogonal and diagonal adjacent tiles for squares). It doesn't seem that they are all that different.


Personally I think prefer hexes but it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.