I’ve been thinking about how I might create areas or zones of control on a 2D plane at runtime. Stellaris came up when I started Googling for examples, like in this screen shot. You can see the blue and white areas/zones. I believe in Stellaris, this is generated at runtime based on the player’s planets or influence (I don’t really know much about Stellaris).
I’m wondering how I might generate these areas/zones at runtime both procedurally (i.e. based on certain conditions in the game) and by the player (i.e. the player drawing/painting an area). How I would store the data to manage the areas and then how I would render them organically with curved edges on a 2D plane like in the example above (shaded with a solid border).
The last thing I’m not sure about is how I could then use these areas to govern the movement of actors controlled by the player. I don’t need to use the engine’s navmesh system as the whole game is played out on a 2D plane and actors can just move in a straight line. But ideally, I’d like a player’s actors to respect the area’s of control. So they stay within their own and avoid those of the other player, which might result in an actor not being able to move in a straight line to get to its destination.
Anyone have any ideas about how to approach this or know of any resources or marketplace assets that could point me in the right direction?