Blackened map - can it be done better?

[Asmodean]

Before actually coming to the point, I should perhaps state, that I don't know if this is covered in THE LIST, and that I haven't got the inclination to check.

I also know that it is too late for changes, but I just thought of this, so here goes.

In Civ style games, even since before Civ was thought of, the blackened map tiles - those yet undiscovered - have been the standard. I submit to you, that I find that method of dealing with the map quite unrealistic. Since ancient times, humans have had a far better idea of their surroundings, and even of far away places, than blackened map tiles would seem to suggest.

Strangers, travellers and adventurors have always brought accounts of the world stretching beyond what people actually knew well enough to map. Roughly 1000 years ago Leif the Happy, son of the famous viking Eric the Red, was the first human of European descent to set foot on American soil. He was at the time, living in Greenland, and he sailed west not just for the hell of it, but because he knew that something was out there. Tales of fertile land and strange shores drew him there.

This was just one example, but there are countless more. Now, I know that graphically this is not easy to incorporate, but I do wish for a better system, than just blackened map tiles.

Have I been rambling? I hope not

Asmodean

[tishco]

maybe like that trading game machevilli the prince or whatever the remake is: after the mapmaking research the black becomes a rough outile of whats what when its # squares away from you but it may be wrong.

[Ralf]

Originally posted by Asmodean
Since ancient times, humans have had a far better idea of their surroundings, and even of far away places, than blackened map tiles would seem to suggest.

Most common illiterate pre-modern people knew just about nothing about the world outside their own village/county. Even scholars had very dim geographical knowledge about the continent they lived on - not to mention the rest of the world.

[Ralf]

Infact, I would say, its the other way around:

In civ-games you can uncover black squares unrealistically fast with some early self-supporting in-the-middle-of-nowhere warrior-units. They way I look at it, all units except the explorer-unit (with or without a ship) should have a limited (but still reasonable) black-square uncover-ability. Any suggestions?

[Asmodean]

Originally posted by Ralf

Most common illiterate pre-modern people knew just about nothing about the world outside their own village/county. Even scholars had very dim geographical knowledge about the continent they lived on - not to mention the rest of the world.

Common. illiterate people, sure. But the map in Civ games represent the amassed knowledge of the world of an entire nation. I just think it is something to take into consideration.

Asmodean

[Trdi]

Ralf, I think you're right. The last idea is nice. About Vikings, how do you think he went to America? "Listen Frida, love, I'm going to America for a couple of years." The point is, he DISCOVERED America, he didn't knew it was there. Uncovering black tiles and sharing world maps is realistic.

[Asmodean]

Originally posted by Trdi
Ralf, I think you're right. The last idea is nice. About Vikings, how do you think he went to America? "Listen Frida, love, I'm going to America for a couple of years." The point is, he DISCOVERED America, he didn't knew it was there. Uncovering black tiles and sharing world maps is realistic.

Excuse me, Trdi. But all evidence suggests that he sailed west because he had heard from Eskimos that something was there. Off course he didn't know he had found America, and off course he didn't know exactly where it would be, but still...he sailed west becuase he was quite certain he would find something.

Asmodean

[Earthling7]

About Leif, he knew there was something, namely Labrador, but not neccesarily that there was a continent. It is however likely that Columbus knew about Leif.

Machiavelli solved this nicely as stated above. The "black" tiles had a brownish colour, showing roughly where the land lay. The game took place in Venice, and around there it was fairly accurate, but further away it started getting really distorted. That would be a nice thing to have in Civ.

[Adagio]

When talking maps here, I think there's only a few things that needs to be done, but nothing like that you mentioned here.

The things I would like to see is; let's say a city is build in the middle of the unknown, only knowing what tiles there are 1 tile away from the city, (Let's then assume we don't have any units to scout the area so it remains unscouted), when the cultural borders expand (into the unknown tiles) does the unknown tiles then become known or do they keep being unknown. I hope for number since I think that's more realistic because people knows the city they live in

The other thing I'd like to see changed is the friendship map. Let's say Country X lives right next Country Z and they are friends or allies, wouldn't it then (at least in modern times) be normal to visit each other and thereby find out how the other country looks like, therefor you have always an up-to-date map of your friends place. I don't know if this should just be in modern times (I'm not familiar with history ) and if this only should for the neighbour next to your country!

Anyway, that was just my thoughts on the "map-making"

But about the other idea, "I have heard there should be land around there, but have never seen it", and then the land (not correct) is shown in the black area is a great idea I think

[Fintilgin]

I really liked the system they had in Machevilli. By FAR the best `hidden land'/`black tile' system I've ever seen in any strategy game.

You'd have to tweak it to fit Civilization a bit though. I'd still include black tiles, but there would be a large buffer of Machevilli style squares too. That way, if you were Rome and had built up a bit, you might have actually mapped Europa, but large parts of Siberia, India and Africa would be done up Machevilli style, getting increasingly inaccurate as you got further from Rome until they faded into blackness in China and the Mid-Atlantic.

As your technology increased and you explored further the black would shrink and you'd slowly map out more territory.

Now, obviously it's WAY too late to do this for Civ3, but they did it in Machevilli very well, so maybe it's something to mull over for for when Civ4 is released in 2006.

Joe

[DonJoel]

About Leif, he knew there was something, namely Labrador, but not neccesarily that there was a continent. It is however likely that Columbus knew about Leif.

Actually the knowledge of Leif discovering amerika is something modern historicians and arkeologist have found out so i dont think Columbus knew that.

[Earthling7]

Originally posted by DonJoel
Actually the knowledge of Leif discovering amerika is something modern historicians and arkeologist have found out so i dont think Columbus knew that.

Not true. The story war written down in the 12-13 century and shortly thereafter it was translated and available in Copenhagen. Denmark was a major European power in the following centuries, both military and trade wise. There are theories that Columbus had heard about this. The church was very powerful, claiming that the earth was flat, using every available means to keep any conflicting theories underground.

I'm not saying he knew about it, but the knowledge was there and twe can not rule out the possibility that he did know something, especially given the fact that he spent years researching before the voyage of 1492.

[DonJoel]

Hmm, i didnt know that it was written down in copenhagen (are you sure??) but im pretty sure that Columbus didnt know of it.

Then he wouldnt be the first and who wants to be second?

[Earthling7]

It was written down in Iceland, along with loads of other literature. It's been called the golden age of iterature in Iceland. That's also where most of our knowledge of the nordic gods comes from. But as Iceland was a part of the Danish empire, much of this literature found it's way into the Danish libraries.

The American was common "underground" knowledge, but wether Columbus knew this is pure speculation.

[ChrisShaffer]

Originally posted by DonJoel
Hmm, i didnt know that it was written down in copenhagen (are you sure??) but im pretty sure that Columbus didnt know of it.

Then he wouldnt be the first and who wants to be second?

Columbus couldn't have cared less who was "first." What he cared about was identifying a new trade route to the West Indies and getting rich.

[isaac brock]

I say leave it as it is. Ralf wants to make it harder, Asmodean wants everything to be easier. Why don't we just all meet half way and CHANGE NOTHING. Thank you.

[orange]

Civs should be more willing to trade maps, and not be able to recover maps so quickly.

What about three map types
Surface
Cities
Units

you should be able to trade information about each separately, or combinations of them. For example, you want to show someone the land you've discovered, but not the huge cities that you've built there. Trade Surface maps.

You want to show where cities are, but you don't want them to see what the land looks like. Trade city maps.

Unit maps can be shared by allies during war against a common foe. Etc.

[Christantine The Great]

CivII beat you to it, orange. In multiplayer there is a human option (AI was too dumb, I guess) to trade three types of maps: land; cities and land; and units, cities, and land. In other words about the same thing you suggested. Of course it would be kind of odd to just show your cities. Revealing the land around them won't give a potential enemy that much of an advantage.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ralf
In civ-games you can uncover black squares unrealistically fast with some early self-supporting in-the-middle-of-nowhere warrior-units. They way I look at it, all units except the explorer-unit (with or without a ship) should have a limited (but still reasonable) black-square uncover-ability. Any suggestions?

Sounds interesting, however you need to further define what you meant by "limited."

Along the same veins I suggested a few months ago that, before Mapmaking is discovered, maps aren't permanent. They slowly change shape - the further away from your own civ the faster the changes are.

Merchant Prince does the best job with the map.

[isaac brock]

In response to the subject "Blackened map - can it be done better?" Sir Isaac Brock has prepared this very important and unexpected response:





No.

[ETS]

Re Columbus knowledge of New World.

Whalers from Portugal processed their catch (primarily small menkes (sp) ) off the coast of Labrador during the early 15th century.

Columbus had made trip to Lisbon before starting his efforts to sell his project,and talked to seamen so he probably knew the land existed.

Columbus was telling everybody that the Indies was 3000 mi to the West (and 5000 mi over land to the East). All learned men since the time of Caesar knew the Earth was round and had circum of 25,000 mi (geometry of solar angle along the Nile).

Thus there was no question of Flat Earth, just a point that what Columbus proposed was impossible (and still is!!). He was just lucky to have been mistaken on targets and not run out of water.

The Flat Earth and Isabella's jewels were inventions of US writers in the 1890s.

[Asmodean]

Originally posted by isaac brock
In response to the subject "Blackened map - can it be done better?" Sir Isaac Brock has prepared this very important and unexpected response:


No.

LOL

But still I don't agree. I didn't exactly go for an easier game, allthough I agree it would make it so. I went for realism, and I just happen to think that the game would be made more realistic this way.

Let's say that it could be done this way: In civ3 you get culture points. The larger a culture, the greater the extent of said cultures interaction with the outside world. Now, I have always resented the notion, that the only inhabitants of your civ that actually get to see the world, are the units that you send out. Off course there are scholars, adventurors, merchants and all kinds of other persons that travel the world, and do so frequently. Furthermore a great culture is visited by people from all corners off the world. Just think of Marco Polo going to China in the thirteenth century, in a time where such journeys were almost unheard of. I think a system could be devised under which your visible map would expand, the more culture points you had amassed.

Another point, albeit a small one: I am from Denmark. I think I can safely say that in the year 1400 no Dane had ever been in China. However to deduct from that, that in the year 1400 the King, and the ministers of Denmark had absolutely no idea where China was, is absurd. Off course they knew. Maybe not exactly where, but they certainly knew direction, Sea-routes and even approximate distance.

I rest my case

Asmodean

[Roman]

Hey, Asmodean!

What does your user name mean? I think I recall it being the name of some legendary God. Am I right?

[mactbone]

Naaaah, he stole it from Robert Jordan's Rand-Land series

Don't deny it Asmodean

[Inverse Icarus]

how about blue fog?

[orange]

Originally posted by Christantine The Great
CivII beat you to it, orange. In multiplayer there is a human option (AI was too dumb, I guess) to trade three types of maps: land; cities and land; and units, cities, and land. In other words about the same thing you suggested. Of course it would be kind of odd to just show your cities. Revealing the land around them won't give a potential enemy that much of an advantage.

Yes, but this was only an MP option. Make it an option for AI as well.

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by UberKruX
how about blue fog?

Nah, that couldnt work. Then you'd need to equip your scouts with gas-masks

[Asmodean]

Originally posted by MacTBone
Naaaah, he stole it from Robert Jordan's Rand-Land series

Don't deny it Asmodean

And off course you're right, MacTBone

Asmodean

[Provost Harrison]

I think the existing system is the best way of doing it, I couldn't envisage another way to do the exploration thing effectively. However what should be done is to make it impossible to determine where in the world you are until you have discovered, for example, the polar regions and can only assess things relative to one another in your known world. Once you have discovered the poles you can pinpoint yourself accurately. Basically what I mean is that you could not determine where in the world you are by looking at the mini map which will locate you at a point in the world; it should automatically be in the middle...

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
Basically what I mean is that you could not determine where in the world you are by looking at the mini map which will locate you at a point in the world; it should automatically be in the middle...

Provost, thats a very good idea Civ 2 gave us too much info that we shouldnt have had right at the start.