I have to strongly disagree. Maybe it doesn’t make too much sense at scale, but gameplay is SO much better with the hex. In Civ 4, the strategy was simple: build a massive doomstack filled with catapults and melee units. Invade enemy. Suicide your catapults on THEIR doomstack causing tons of collateral damage. Then attack their troops with yours. As long as you amassed a critical mass of catapults, you’d be unbeatable- unless their doomstack got the drop on yours, in which case you’d be the one taking a ton of collateral damage.
Then you send in melee unit after melee unit to clean up.