Scale levels turn one map into several grids of the same land. A 24-mile kingdom map can hold a 6-mile province map, which can hold a 1-mile local map. You move between them by zooming, and each level is a grid of its own that you can paint.
Set up the levels
Open Settings from the View menu and choose Scale Levels. Pick a preset, or type a number of miles per hex and click Add:
- Kingdom → Province: 24 mi → 6 mi
- Province → Local: 6 mi → 1 mi
- Full Drill-Down: 24 mi → 6 mi → 1 mi (Pro)
The first level is your base map. Every level you add must be finer than the base, and a map can have up to four. On the free plan you can use the base and one more level. Deeper ladders need Pro: Full Drill-Down shows a lock, and so does Add once you have two levels. Both open the upgrade window.
To move between levels, zoom in or out past the switch point, or use the scale pill in the zoom controls. See moving around the map.
How a detailed hex relates to the one above it
The ratio between two levels decides how many detailed hexes fit across one larger hex: 24 mi to 6 mi is 4 across, so each 24-mile hex holds about 16 six-mile hexes.
Hex grids do not nest exactly, so Hexer settles it by position: a detailed hex belongs to the larger hex its centre lies in. That is why the detailed hexes of one larger hex form a ragged patch rather than a neat hexagon. With three levels, a 1-mile hex belongs to a 6-mile hex, which belongs to a 24-mile hex.
What a detailed level inherits
The first time you enter a level, Hexer asks how to start:
- Start blank: the detailed hexes have no terrain of their own. Each one shows the terrain of the larger hex it belongs to, and keeps following it: repaint the larger hex and its detailed hexes change too.
- Generate terrain: Hexer fills the detailed hexes with terrain of their own, based on the larger hex with natural variation.
A detailed hex you paint, or that was generated, keeps its own terrain when you repaint the level above. To make it follow the larger hex again, erase it, or paint it with Follow parent, which the terrain palette offers on a detailed level. See the Brush tool.
The rest of the map carries down like this:
| On the base level | On a detailed level |
|---|---|
| Paths and rivers | Shown on every level |
| Regions | Shown on every level, fainter |
| Notes | Shown on every level |
| A point of interest | Shown once, on the detailed hex at the centre of its hex |
| Fog | Taken by every detailed hex that has no fog of its own |
| Walls from the Edge tool | Only on the level they were drawn on, and only block sight there |
Anything you add on a detailed level stays on that level and does not appear on the others. Edit things on the level they belong to: the sidebar lists only what was made on the level you are viewing.
Fog and vision across levels
A detailed hex with no fog of its own takes the fog of the larger hex it belongs to. The fog brush has a Follow parent option too, which makes a detailed hex take its fog from above again.
When the party moves on a detailed level, the larger hex around it shows as explored on the level above, but the detailed hexes the party never reached stay hidden. The party’s sight range is counted in base hexes, so on a detailed level it covers the same ground over more hexes. See fog of war.
Changing the levels later
Removing a level deletes everything painted on it, and Hexer says what before it does. Adding a level between two existing ones can move part of the finer levels onto different larger hexes, and Hexer warns about that too. Hexer refuses a level whose detail would make the map too large to load.