kongxinga
Posts: 8
Joined: 7/28/2017 Status: offline
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Wow, this is an interesting challenge. Brainstorming how I would play shadow empires, specifically reading and using the hex map. There might exist a hotkey for jumping to your first settlement. That will be treated as 0,0 or 0,0,0 on the hex coordinate scale, either the offset coordinates or cube coordinates respectively (more on the hex coordinate types here (google redblobgames hex coordinates . Let's say the HOME key goes to 0,0 (using offset coordinates). Ok Cool. Once at home, use certain key binds to move to the left or right. In offset coordinate this gets you to (-1,0) and (1,0). Once there, use textractor or similar to extract the relevant information. Textractor is a tool that extracts strings to be piped into other uses, such as translation or text to speech. If this is set up, you can pick the information you need to be extracted and piped to be read out. For example, I move left after going to the home hex by pressing Home, then left arrow. This is the information I want to hear "Negative One, Zero, 2 Friendlies present, Friendly Control, Plains, Road Present, Supply Level 60, Elevation One Five Zero, 2 Friendly Installations present". If I wanted more information I would select it and tab through friendly units or installations as normal. Then I move up, by pressing the up arrow key I hear "Negative one, Negative one, 1 Enemy Unit, Enemy Control, Forest, No Roads, Zero Supply, Elevation Five Zero, 1 installation present." Keep doing this to slowly map out your situational awareness, kinda like how some of the old dungeon crawler games had no map, so you either drew one as you went, or held the map in memory. As the map increases, there might be an ingame way of adding notes or waypoints or HQs as landmarks. So Home would jump to 0,0. Pressing 1 could jump me to an important landbridge I had set and am trying to capture. Then I use arrow keys to move along the grid "Seventeen, twenty three. 2 Enemies, Enemy control, plains, Grav Rail present, No Supply, Elevation Negative 20, No installations." By using landmarks plus the key based navigation, you can picture the strategic situation. You probably still need a pretty good memory to hold the situation in your head, but as a wargamer you have a good chance of having that. How else do people on this forum who play War in the Pacific keep track of the logistical needs of some random destroyer on some island in the pacific, with hundreds of units to control, and thousands of hexes. In summary, customized textractor, hotkeys, and arrow keys to move, have the textractor set to target specific fields to extract, piped to a reader. This solves the "Where am I" problem you face, especially with different zooms. You always know you are offset 4 and offset 8 from your home hex if you hit Home, and Right Arrow 4, and Down Arrow 8 times respectively.
< Message edited by kongxinga -- 9/29/2020 10:56:42 PM >
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