Great game, prehistorical map grid...

XarXo · August 1, 2001, 23:33

Civ III has a great look, but the cuadricular map grid is the same boring one that appears in the other games

.

In "building games" (Sim City, Transport Tycoon...) where you need a perfect vision and position of every element a cuadricular grid is the best solution, allow easy straight lines of (for example) houses. But Civilization needs another kind of grid.

In The Settlers (almost since the II, actually the game is in the IV) the grid is hexagonal. A *great* one, but something still wrong... And what is the answer? The answer is a soccer-ball grid: Hexagons and pentagons. And why? 'Coz with it the map can have a planet-form, with a crossing ice cap (not as Call to Power, where the South Pole was connected to the... North Pole?????

). A bigger map is a bigger divison of each hexagon and pentagon in smaller ones, and if you want a flat map, only hegaxons.

With a planetform grid, we can play from the "space" making zoom and moving in the Sun System to Mars (if we made a colony), also could be great a customable map window (with a limited number of maps). Another possibility is a Hollow Planet map (a reverse, looking the map from the center of the planet) or the chance to have "Black Tile" (the black that is in the end of a map) to make irregular maps (for example, to make caverns-connected maps...).

The other think is the vision point, a free camera or a two basic visions could be great: a perpendicular vision, so, the hexagon/pentagon in the center is the most regular, OR a isometric vision, like the classic civ games.

I think that all the Sun System (number of stars, planets, type of planets) also the special features (the "Inside Light", if we have a Hollow Map) must be customable. A classic Earth map only will be one planet with one star. An advanced Earth could allow Mars and the Moon, etc... In Civ II : Test of Time the multimap option was a great idea (with a bad implementation, like the other Civ II ToT features).

Also, pre-made sytles like the Earth, Advanced Earth or others could be included to avoid options in lazy players.

The Problem: Pentagons must be minimized, a pentagon has five attack possibilities, an hexagon six... The minimum of pentagons in a sphere are twelve (two in the poles, the rest in each tropic parallel).

What do you think about this?

------

By the way: Sid Meier's Dinosaurs??? Sid Meier's SimGolf??????????? SID MEIER'S SIM EARTH

!!!!!!!!!!!! The first "Sweep of Time" chapter is Sim Earth!!!

marcuspeddle · August 2, 2001, 01:09

It's too late . . . .

Sabre2th · August 2, 2001, 01:15

I think the point is to keep civ3 like the previous civs in some way. If we change every little thing about it, it's just not civ anymore. I, for one, don't care if the map is round or pretends to be round or whatever. I like my civ whether its realistic or not.

tniem · August 2, 2001, 01:24

As for your octagon shaped tile system, it has been discussed before. It is an interesting concept, something that should be looked into whenever Civ IV is made.

As for the whole, Sweep of Time side comment - it was a pr thing that Firaxis was trying to do. I believe they were going to make Dinos-Civ-SMAC a pr bundle the Sweep of Time. Alas they did not make dinos and so the pr stunt died there. No more discussion needed.

Rhysie · August 2, 2001, 03:24

I like to move my units using the keyboard, I hated being forced to use the mouse in ctp1/2... If you have grids which aren't made of squares, you can't move intuitively using the keyboard, and you also can't easily tell where your units can move unless you turn on some kind of visible grid.

It's not like it's just a four way map, you can always move diagonally, which simulates a kind of octogonal layout.

Al'Kimiya · August 2, 2001, 04:21

Quote:

Originally posted by Rhysie
I hated being forced to use the mouse in ctp1/2...

SAY WHAT?? You can use the keyboard in ctp/2.

Rasputin · August 2, 2001, 04:23

Quote:

Originally posted by Rhysie
I like to move my units using the keyboard, I hated being forced to use the mouse in ctp1/2... If you have grids which aren't made of squares, you can't move intuitively using the keyboard, and you also can't easily tell where your units can move unless you turn on some kind of visible grid.

It's not like it's just a four way map, you can always move diagonally, which simulates a kind of octogonal layout.

how bout an octaganol map !!!!

Rhysie · August 2, 2001, 08:35

Quote:

Originally posted by Al'Kimiya

SAY WHAT?? You can use the keyboard in ctp/2.

Hmm, I just tested that, you're right, I just never noticed because I prefer to use the arrow keys rather than the keypad if I don't need to go diagonally, and the arrow keys in ctp don't work like the arrow keys in civ. Anyway, aside from my example being wrong, my point still stands that I want a map which I can easily move around on using the keyboard.

As for an actual octogonal map, it would be okay from an intuitive/keyboard view, but I would still prefer a square map because I'm used to it and don't see any problems with it

Provost Harrison · August 2, 2001, 08:45

The problem with using the geodysic sphere consisting of pentagons and hexagons is that they only fit together comfortably for 60 sides, which would allow you to build 3 cities and that's it. So it isn't really suitable. And then there is getting used to playing on a sphere. Although physically accurate, it would make gameplay hell.

So it is best to stick with the square/diamond (I think quadrilateral is the word you are looking for in the original post

). I think hexagonal would work well. These are really the only two shapes that allow tessellations with nothing but the same shape, in addition to triangular tiles.

Grumbold · August 2, 2001, 09:35

Having grown up with endless boardgames square or hex tiles work nicely, I really have no preference. To get a spherical map to work intuitively there should be so many hexes that the curve was almost unnoticable. Even with the biggest map sizes produced so far I do not think that would be true.

art_vandelai · August 2, 2001, 12:47

Why not this simple solution - use squares (so keyboard using types can order their units around without fear of having them go in the wrong direction) but have the poles act more like real poles. E.G. if you go move north into the blackness, your unit will reappear 180 degrees from where it started. Although it's technically not a "round earth" solution, it would at least allow for using the poles in military strategy and make it infinitely more realistic without damaging the gameplay.

KrazyHorse · August 2, 2001, 13:40

I started a thread on this less than 2 months ago. Who mentioned octagonal tiling?

XarXo · August 2, 2001, 20:52

Well, first I've to say that an octogonal map is impossible, you must insert squares in the grid to have one, and have 2 types of tiles is the worst option possible (this is the reason of the chapter "problem" in the first post).

A geodesycal sphere (*thanks for the name*) is a great option, the problem with the deformation increasing the number of hexagons/pentagons can be easaly solutionated if we divide each hexagon/pentagon in sub-pentagons and sub-hexagons. But the problem with the two types of tiles continues. So I change my proposition to a like-the-actual grid but with a difference: when more to a pole we come, the number of square could be divided by 2, so in the pole only will be 1 square (the squares could be deformed to adapt it). The other proposition (the 180 traspation pole) is great, but the total surface is unreal, this is why northamerica, siberia, antarctica or greenland seem bigger than them truly are.

I continue with my proposition of 3D-planet.

Provost Harrison · August 2, 2001, 20:58

I like the concept of the poles where if you go up, you come out 180 degrees around the map. It means that you can navigate over the polar regions.

Working on a geodysic sphere would be very difficult, let alone the programming. And also consider this; the problem is, you can't get anything bigger than 60 tiles or the sphere becomes highly irregular in shape...

Miatezhnyi · August 3, 2001, 00:32

Great Idea Xarxo! Though I have to agree with some of the others that it is too late for Civ3. Civ4 (hopefully there will be one) definately.

star mouse · August 4, 2001, 04:57

A geodesic sphere would actually be easy to implement. The secret is to stop thinking of hexagons and pentagons and use triangles instead.

A geodesic sphere is basically a dodecahedron with hexagons inserted between all the pentagons. But there's another regular solid that is similar, and that is the icosahedron. This is the regular solid composed of 20 equilateral triangles. It is equivalent to the dodecahedron, and can be made from the dodecahedron by swapping the faces of one solid for the vertices of the other.

An icosahedral sphere would be easy to implement in various sizes. The total number of grid triangles on the smallest icosahedron is 20, and larger ones of order 'n' are composed of 20 * n * n triangles, with each of the 20 large triangles of the icosahedron being composed of n * n triangles, with n triangles to a side.

There will be 12 vertices surrounded by 5 triangles, and all the rest will be surrounded by 6 triangles.