MapMaking Question

[Jason Petho]

It depends. 

The main thing is to keep in mind the limitation of vehicle movement and how it crosses elevations. Vehicles cannot cross a hex side more than 50 metres (up, it can still go down). If you have two stacked elevation changes with a 50 metre delta, the road is no longer functional to traffic. The same goes three stacked elevation changes with a 25 metre delta. 

As well as the limitations of graphical displays in 3D, which is a maximum of 3 elevation changes. Meaning you can't have a level 5 surrounded by level 1's, as it will show a graphical error. 

In cases of high elevations changes, having a lower delta will reveal a lot of areas that this will be the case. Have a 50 metre delta will limit the amount that this happens and reduce the need to "improvise" to get the elevations you require. The biggest issue is that the elevations span 250 metres across, and with steep slopes you're going to find that you don't have enough room to display the elevation correctly.  I noticed this a lot in the mountainous areas of the Vietnam game we are working on. 

I also chose the 50 metre delta when I made the CS Middle East Jerusalem map for those reasons.