Choice of flat or round world maybe?

Ulysses · November 3, 1999, 16:42

I think it would be really cool if we could play on a round earth, if we wanted. The idea of zooming out and spinning the planet around and zooming in again. I think Civ is ready for a round world. I am not sure how it would work, but I think it could work. What do you all think?

Maniac · November 4, 1999, 06:37

Don't you mean a spherical world? Because there already was a round world in Civ1 and 2.

The Joker · November 4, 1999, 09:11

I would really like a spherical world. It has some problems, as you can't fit squares on it, but i would also like a game with no squares at all. Unit movement would be determined by distance, and the city radius would be a circle around the city.

Theben · November 4, 1999, 11:57

There would have to be some kind of grid on the planet anyway. HOMM3 actually has a square grid, the player just doesn't see it. Maybe that could be done, but it still doesn't solve the problem.

It would be possible to put square tiles on a sperical world; however, each tile would only "touch" the planet at the center of the tile. I call it the "Strobe Ball" world. If one only views a small portion of the planet it would appear as civ2, with the edges starting to curve away from the player's view. Obviously there would be points that a unit/stack couldn't move in 8 total directions. But it might work.

Ulysses · November 4, 1999, 16:27

Yes..Spherical (silly me). What I was thinking of something that could be tied into the borders ideas. Each color would represent a different civ. So the map (or globe) could look multicolored. You could click on the region and zoom in to see what is happening on a flat map. I am not sure how it would work..but it would give the feel of looking at earth rather than something flat from civ1 or 2. It may not have to give you the exact scale with squares or hexes (when you zoom in)..but give you an idea of what the borders look like. What do you think?

johnmcd · November 5, 1999, 07:40

It had better have a spherical world. The single greatest disapointment of SMAC was that it was still cylindrical. Triangles can be mashed into a sphere, via hexagons and pentagons, and I guess you could build cities on triangles or something, and have three routes from every tile, it is still not ideal though. I would think that the best way to do it would be to use true squares though. They would be large at the equator and small at the poles, but I guess the little ones could be uninhabitable and untraversible, except by plane (or ballistic missile…).

At the end of the day, I'd bet my bottom dollar someone has posted a detailed description of how to model a spherical world somewhere on this board, and I can't be bothered to do such a model unless I'm told that there is no such thing hereabouts. So there.

Adm.Naismith · November 10, 1999, 19:39

Johnmcd, you win your dollar

Somewhere hidden into the wish list is described the model of a spherical world, based on hexagon and pentagon, if I remember exactly. I agree that a spherical world can really add deep into strategical position on the map (finally a good reason to build base near north or south pole!) and add some more freedom of movement.

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Adm.Naismith AKA mcostant

Idiot · November 10, 1999, 20:49

I'm not sure if any of you remember a game called "X-COM: UFO Defense". But it had a round world that you could rotate and zoom so that individual areas of the globe could be seen. After the controls were used a couple times, it became very easy to use.

The only problem with the global view is that not all of the world can be seen at the same time, something that becomes vital during war at the latest stages fo the game. Therefore, there should be two different views: one - the global view; and two - the standard mercator projection (the format of Civ I and II). The main difference between the one used in I and II is that the one used in Civ III will allow polar travel.

As far as tile shapes are concerned, if all tiles must have equal area, then squares are out of the question, (Hexes would be the easiest to use as far as a movement scheme is concerned.) But do all the squares must have the same amount of area?

One possible solution is to have the standard map with a universal polar square, or set of squares, that is accessible from all the northern and southernmost tiles.

Adm.Naismith · November 11, 1999, 06:57

"Idiot", your nickname is really a source of pun, isn't it?

Back on serius track: no, I never played the UFO games series. A friend of mine say it was a wonderful game: so many good game, so few time to play all of them

I understand you like it's use of real globe view, what I don't understand is about viewing all the world into same time: what a heck of PC monitor do you use now, to see the whole map of CIV or SMAC? A flat 40" with a resolution of 2,600*2,048?

I suppose that in CIV III you will scroll the spherical view as you do now with flat one. Sure, it can mess things up because of different large map=different radius of globe=different computing and graphics appearance of the whole thing.
OTOH, as you suggest you can simply divide the whole world into smaller, predefined, water surrounded areas. Into the globe view you select an area, then jump into the tactical, flat map. This would put a lot of border problem (seabases area, movement between tactical maps, etc.) So I'm not sure it will work really better than now.

Universal polar square can be a workaround solution, but I'm not sure it doesn't add more movement problem than it solve.

No, I know actual PC have the power to manage a real rounded map, it only could be a mess to program a proper scroll; but they are Firaxian programmer, they should like some strong challenge, shouldn't they?

Once more, I strongly suggest Firaxis to got this idea at work, because it enable a whole new strategic scenario (across pole movement, new city placement, new military option for missile and plane attack...).
It also open up new opportunity for Tech advance that make polar cap terrain useful in the game future: heavy mineral production, sweet water resource to fight pollution problem... countered by a "random event" of revamping disease by some old, hybernate virus (as magazines are wondering in these day

).

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Adm.Naismith AKA mcostant

November 11, 1999, 08:59

Your talking about a Populus 3 idea here. If you haven't played it, have a look at it.
I think the game Black and White ( www.lionhead.com ) has the same idea, though it is much better than Populus 3's design.

This has been my argument right from the beginning of the suggestions. Have a look at Black and White though, and imagine what you could do with an idea like that into Civ3. I just hope this is what Firaxis are planning on. You'll need a powerful computer though...

jpk · November 11, 1999, 12:20

Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes could be used for the spherical map.

I love the idea of a spherical world. Imagine seeing the tops of mountains off in the distance. Perhaps one of the mountains would have the glint of gold. Or how about the masts of a fleet of sailing ships? Friend or foe, trading ships or warships? I the modern era you could see the tops of skyscrapers.

MBD · November 12, 1999, 00:37

And in a future era you can look past those skyscrapers to the horizon of that spherical world, and see a planet buster coming over the pole and straight for you. And this time you won't have to wonder if it's friend or foe. You won't have time to wonder about much of anything at all...

johnmcd · November 12, 1999, 06:47

Good. I'm glad I won a dollar from everyone who posted on this thread, funds should be payable in pounds sterling, no cash please, cheques or postal orders only, you can find the name you should make them payable too on my profile.

Hexs would be ideal, sadly there is no way to make a sphere using only hexagons. If the best model so far uses only hexagons and pentagons then that is probably not ideal either (Fuller's domes use hexagons and pentagons; see the Epcot Centre). What if the map used triangles only but a unit or city or whatever only ever stood on two of them. Sometimes they would be square, sometimes a parallelogram. It doesn't sound that good, but it might be better than a mixture of five and six access points. Actually it might not.
On something the size of earth there would be only a very few pentagons required compared with the number of hexagons. Most hexagons would border another six hexagons. Now what if some kind of relativistic movement measuring system was introduced. The selected unit would always stand on a hexagon, and would always be surrounded by hexagons, as the world grid would be redrawn relative to the selected unit or town every time. There would have to be some kind of underlying, unseen, uber grid that defined what terrain was in each hex but It would mean that the pentagons didn't become strong or weak for some reason, as everything would appear to be standing on a hexagon relative to itself. The underlying grid could be composed of three or four times the number of tiles of the top grid and some kind of average value could be drawn from these for the 'colouring in' of the top grid. It might be OK but I think that it would be necessary to somehow avoid different shaped tiles.