I often see that games make use of hexagons. Why and what are so special about them?
Thanks
My thoughts are that you mainly see games based off of cubes and hexes really stand out.
Visual distinctiveness like mentioned above. More degrees of movement with hexes, 6 as opposed to 4 (diagonal movement distorts distances). Then there’s just the nostalgia factor of all those boxed wargames from 30-odd years ago that used hexes, and RPGs that do even now.
So things like Age of Empires would use hexagonal maps?
Another plus is that hexes give a better representation for field-of-view for in-game characters.
Hexagons are popular for turn-based strategy games where units can move X number of tiles per turn. Hexes allow 6 possible directions where moving X tiles equals the same distance. It is also very clear if units are adjacent to each other.
Squares, on the other hand, have that pesky problem of whether or not to allow diagonal movement. Moving diagonally is sqrt(2) distance and if you allow it, units are covering more distance each turn in the diagonal directions as opposed to the 4 cardinal directions.
Age of Empires used a fine-grained grid, square I think. The Settlers series, notably, uses a fine-grained hex grid. Neither of them were really “played on the grid” so to speak (you’d only see the grid in Settlers when placing buildings). The old wargames I’m talking about are the kind from companies like Avalon Hill that used hundreds of cardboard chits with military symbols on them. No computer involved, though Panzer General did a terrific job at reproducing the feel of those games on the computer.
Most tabletop wargames these days tend to be miniatures-based, where you use use a divider compass to measure distance or have coarse range divisions that can be more or less eyeballed. Theatre-level wargaming has just sort of fallen out of favor on the tabletop (people got sick of losing cardboard chits I guess)
How about…screw hexagons! OCTAGONS FTW!
Mind = Blown :o
Good luck tiling those. I did have this goofy idea for a game using penrose tiles though 
Now imagine a 3D game based on Tetragons.
Final Destination.
Looks like they’re talking about Wesnoth… Mid-Jump waiting for the next turn 