Thanks!
For differentiation, quite a few things will be different. Civilizations will share a tech tree with development projects such as stealth being civ independent. There will be a more robust government system. Units will likely travel in packs of 10 instead of 1 or infinite. I am also contemplating some kind of deployment system for military units that doesn’t have them all over the field all the time. Trade will be more important. The map will be utilized in a more realistic fashion with towns, factories, power plants, etc. Resources will play a bigger role.
I haven’t really settled on any genre defining selling points, but there will be a huge number of differences.
To remove the loop limit, look at Rama’s plugin post. Just download it and put the loop limit node in whatever functions are giving you problems.
The problem with hexes is the offset. I have 6 functions for odd neighbor checks, 6 for even, 4 more for world wrap, and then I have to take into consideration both world wrap and the poles when doing anything with a neighbor check which means lots of branches and me having to make sure I am using one of the 16 correct functions with all the correct branching for wrap, poles, and other factors.
Right now my neighbor checks are 1 tile away. I truly look forward to seeing path finding that takes into account the world wrap. 