Victory Hexes

[Capitaine]

Okay, just starting out I've had the most difficulty with the nature of victory hexes, surprisingly. I read the Victory section in the rulebook and it stated nothing about the mechanics of holding a victory hex.

My questions are, do units have to be "on" a victory hex in order to score it? If so, why? For victory hexes out in the middle of a field why would a unit have to garrison or guard it? It should be enough that the last side to occupy such a hex gets the score for it.

Also, which units can garrison a victory hex? I've noticed that leaders don't seem to work. What about artillery?

Finally, there doesn't seem to be a way to see which victory hexes are being scored. They don't seem to have a visual cue, although I could be mistaken and just not perceiving it.

[Erik Rutins]

Yes, you need a unit on the victory hex in order to score it. Infantry, artillery or cavalry will all work for this. Leaders will not.

With that said, you don't need to always garrison each hex. It's perfectly fine to leave one in order to maneuver and come back to it later if needed. You shouldn't feel chained to the hexes, but it should feel like a good idea to keep them occupied.

As far as the reasoning, the fog of war in the game can get quite thick. If you want to be sure you've held an objective, you need to leave someone there. It also encourages the player to not leave flanks or rear unguarded and unobserved, so this encourages more historical play as well. Most battles have smaller independent units that work well for this, or you can split a regiment to get extra units.

You will only know which victory hexes precisely are scored based on what you can see within the area where the fog of war is lifted. You can get a pretty good idea of the rest, but you can't be sure until you actually observe them. The map shows which hexes are for both sides and which are for one side only.

Regards,

- Erik

[Capitaine]

Thanks Erik. I guess if a VH has to be occupied to score it then a visual cue (aside from the unit) wouldn't be necessary.

[ericbabe]

We tried to place victory hexes in a way that would represent locations which were not only important objectives but sometimes at places that would have been important to secure for lines of communication, so in population centers, at crossroads, at bridges, on important hill tops, etc. so that players aren't just leaving units in some field in the middle of nowhere.

[FroBodine]

So, as long as you have a unit on the victory hex at the last turn of the game, you will get credit for owning it?

Also, the victory hex identifiers on the map, I think they are stars, are very, very light and difficult to see. Is there any chance of making them more visible, please?

[ericbabe]

Yes. The stars are a little too light for my tastes too, but we spent a lot of time during testing tweaking them to be more and less opaque based on tester feedback. Let me see if I can mod these quickly...

[ericbabe]

Try this file:

www.west-civ.com/BaB/BrighterVicHexes_P ... Hexwar.zip

You should be able to unzip this and put the HW_DirectionArrows.pcx file in the Gfx/Hexwar/ directory. This should increase the visibility of the victory hexes. I just whipped it up and haven't tested it yet, so hopefully it will work OK.

This file controls the opacity for most of the map overlay graphics. If anyone would like to try his hand at modding this file, you can select elements on this sheet and use the Image|Adjustments|Shadows/Highlights tool in Photoshop to tweak the opacity of graphics up and down. I'm sure GIMP and other similar image editing programs must have similar tools.

[FroBodine]

Very cool! Thank you for the quick response on this one. I will try it out as soon as I get home from work and let you know how they look.

[oldspec4]

Thanks for this..much better visibility now.

[Ricomise]

Wow, so much better! Thank you, sir!

[FroBodine]

Thank you, Eric! It's a thing of beauty. Good thing I'm not epileptic, though. The pulsating might induce a seizure. Joking! Sort of. [:D]

[miller7219]

You cant' miss them now! Thanks.

[spelk]

I'd like to stick my oar in here and say that I think these updated Victory Hex graphics really help with the game. I think the subtler almost invisible original graphic just made a smokey battlefield difficult to parse visually. These babies make the VH's stand out even in the musket smokescreen. Excellent work!

[Ironclad]

Yes, it makes a great difference. They really stand out like I remember the FOF originals doing so. Thanks Eric. The highlight cycle could do with a similar fix.