Ara: History Untold is similar to Civilization, until you realize that there are no hexes. 'We're playing a boardgame, we're trying to simulate what we see in the real world'

Ara: History Untold, the grand strategy game that is soon to be released, is very different from Civilization. One of the biggest differences is its simultaneous turn resolution. This is described in one Oxide's development diaries. This one I noticed a while ago, but I missed another big difference that is visible in almost all screenshots: Ara's maps aren't divided up into a grid or hexagon pattern.

Ara's universes are divided up into irregularly shaped regions. In a recent interview, Gabriela Leskur (Ara's narrative lead) and Matt Turnbull (executive producer in publishing for Xbox Game Studios) pointed this out to me.

Leskur said, "I am a big Risk fan, but we are not playing a game. We're trying to simulate what we see in the real world." "One of the unique features is that these regions are dynamically generated. They're not hexes; they're irregularly-shaped, based on what you see in nature. They are along rivers and coastlines. "These are these strange shapes that reflect the way we see cartographers did things in our past, as well as the actual natural world itself."

These regions are the land units that cities claim when they grow. Military forces occupy these regions as they move around the map. In these contexts, regions are similar to a regular map, except for the differences in size, shape, and number of sides. The complexity increases when you start to look at zones, which are sub-regions.

Leskur describes regions as pizzas. When moving troops from one region to another, they do so on a full pizza scale. But land improvements are built using a slice scale. And like pizzas, not all regions are divided into the same number (aka zones).

Leskur said, "I am thinking strategically when I expand my city." "I do this by claiming nearby areas. I then look at the number of zones in that region. If I wanted to build an impressive Triumph, like the Pyramids of Giza I would probably choose a region with only two zones, or two slices of pizza cut in half and straight, because I was sacrificing the entire region to build this impressive triumph. If I want to claim an area to use for farming and as many improvements as I can, I would probably choose a region with five or six slices of pizza, as each zone is a place you can build a improvement.

The number of edges in a region is another strategic consideration, as it dictates the movement of units. Turnbull said that each hex was bordered by 6 tiles. "Our regions in Ara have borders of four, two, or seven tiles. It depends on the size and shape of the region, the natural features such as rivers, seas, or coasts.

Leskur's comment that he wanted to simulate a real world, not just a board game on a tabletop, led to the decision to use regions instead of hexes. Zoom in on a particular region to see "individual people waving" at you and animals that are appropriate for the biome of that region, which run from your cursor. You can see a bit of this in the video above.

When you zoom out "does it look like the world or like a game I won?" Turnbull asked. "We're trying to find out if this looks like my universe. I created this world. This is my world, and it reflects what I've done and the story I've told.

Oxide has covered this topic and many others on the official Ara: History Untold site. There's even a crafting system.

Ara is a wildcard to me, despite all the work I've done to educate grand-strategy fans about the game. I'm not certain how it will be received. Civilization 7 has been getting more attention than Ara in recent months. It does feel right to make big, obvious changes from the Sid Meier titles. If it looked too much like Civ the audience may decide to wait to see what Civ 7 has to offer. But these peculiarities make me curious to discover if Oxide has found anything exciting that Firaxis didn't.

Ara: History Untold is available on Steam, Microsoft Store and PC Game Pass from September 24. Microsoft published it, but it will only be available on Windows. Civilization 7 will be released simultaneously on PCs and consoles.