The Map.... Again

[DarkCloud]

How about we do not have special underground cities but we should have special underground improvements because life underground is different from aboveground.

More Resources:

Magma [Power resource *Volcanic Power* (Theoretical Geothermal powersource-Total Annihilation]


Types of underground terrain:

Granite [Mineral-rich]
Sandstone [Trashland (wasteland); fertile]
Soil [Fertile]

[UltraSonix]

Yes! Instead of making wholesale changes, small changes like the magma is better.

Other additions:
*River delta - for land near large rivers, bays etc. Provides extra food obviously.
*High tides - for seas squares, harnessing tidal energy on the square will give a bonous.
*Coral reef - extra marine life?, economy bonus (more tourists)
*Freshwater sea - was a special square in SMAC, but should be made a normal terrain type.

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No, in Australia we don't live with kangaroos and koalas in our backyards...

[DarkCloud]

*BUMP!*

[UltraSonix]

This topic should never be allow to go under.

Some more map squares:

*sea caves/underground caves - both provides extra money because of tourism.
*rock formations - (like the good ol' rock in the middle of Australia) - provides more tourism again.

Also, the forests should be different in different parts of the world (they could just look different but do the smae thing) - eg rainforests, pine forests, bamboo forests, conifer forests, blah blah.

There could also icebergs (not actually a square, but a unit of sorts), like I mentioned in my thread.

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No, in Australia we don't live with kangaroos and koalas in our backyards...

[Ribannah]

I think a spherical map is not too hard to combine with tiles - if you make them dynamic.

Imagine that permanent tiles are only generated for the city map and temporary tiles are used for unit movement and such: each time you centralize on something you see tiles around it, but the exact co-ordinates of those tiles are different.

Hexes seem easier to use than squares for this purpose.


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If you have no feet, don't walk on fire

Once again, I feel we need a LARGER map which can represent things on a smaller scale.
We need to do away with tiles as the functional unit of terrain. We should have 'co-ordinates' which have specific movement costs to traverse. This way, a unit is given some movement points and each move decreases them.
Also, each point should have an elevation value. Mountains shouldn't be single tiles but a collection of co-ordinates of high-elevation. Each mountain would be different, would have a different gradient and stuff. This way they could be use effectively for attack, defence, fortification and as natural barriers..

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-Shiva
Email: shiva@shivamail.com
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[UltraSonix]

Good to see you back, Sir Shiva.

Has this been said berfore - maybe the map should be done away all together. The game could instead have a RTS-type map (!) where the units still have limited movement, etc, but everything would be controlled like in a RTS game. To move a unit, the player just drags the unit to the intended location with the mouse.

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No, in Australia we don't live with kangaroos and koalas in our backyards...

[Seeker]

I can't understand you, UltraSonix...words are coming out of your mouth that have no meaning to me...
R-T-S??! That's not what we do here...

[Nick-oh]

OK this might be a bit hard to explain, so just bear with me.

The problems with a spherical map have been well explained in this thread and a viable solution (as far as I can tell with my vast knowledge of programming) can be constructed out of a number of ideas already listed.

Sir Shiva, in his second post on this thread, put forward the idea of movement points for units, and different terrains costing differing mp's to traverse.

This would provide a solution on how to make polar areas behave semi-correctly. If the movement cost of a terrain square is also made dependant on latitude so that units can simply move faster in polar areas.

I think that's enough to explain that idea. Now I'll try to explain my solution on how to construct a map which looks somewhat like it should.

I think most will agree that while a pixelised map (see above posts) would be ideal, it would simply be too demanding on the system (I will struggle to afford the game let alone an upgrade) Therefor I think it safe to say that some sort of tile system is necessary.

Sorry I thought I had a solution to this but as I was typing it discovered too many flaws. I only tell you this because it highlighted what the problem actually was.

Attempting to use any variation of a flat map projection is useless because in effect you're not playing on a map, but the globe itself. It appears flat, but is infact spherical.

Ribannah's idea of dynamic tiles is perhaps the only way of gaining a sherical map, whilst still keeping keeping something remotely similar to what we have (though I don't think it would save any memory over pixelising)

Perhaps we should just leave well and good alone .

The movement idea is still valid though.

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"Common sense is not so common" - Voltaire

You are a brave man, Ultrasonix...

But I do like your idea.. Drag units to move.. It'd help in simultaneous play too...

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-Shiva
Email: shiva@shivamail.com
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ICQ: 17719980

[Seeker]

umm, they're using a spherical globe in Sovereign, why won't it work in Civ? And Sovereign zooms in a lot more than Civ does.
use hexes. Make them of a size so that one is the north pole, and the other is the south pole, just like Epcot Center at Disney World. Presumably the main view is zoomed in close enough to avoid to much curvature at the horizons.

[Dienstag]

nit-picker's note: Spaceship Earth at EPCOT doesnt use hexagons; the base shape is a triangle (it's a little more complicated than that...call them "fancy triangles". Anyway, it wouldn't be ideal to make a map like Spaceship Earth because the triangles would have to be arranged so that in most places 6 triangles would meet at a point, but in some places only five triangles would meet at a point. If you can figure out game mechanics that work on a map like this, bring it on.

And have any of you'll seen the battle map in Shogun. The elevation and environmental effects (environmental effects in civ3? ) representation is pretty darn good...

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-Shiva
Email: shiva@shivamail.com
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Ultrasonix's idea might work... You click on a unit and click on where you want it to go.. RTS style.. and it figures out how to get there in the shortest number of moves (keeping movement costs of the intervening terrain, presence of enemies and borders etc.)



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-Shiva
Email: shiva@shivamail.com
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ICQ: 17719980

Well, I like the ideas here, but I think they are a bit far-fetched. There are certain things I need explained to me, and I think the computer's capabilities have not been taken into account.

Before I go further, I think underground is ridiculous. I think all of the underground stuff should be taken out. Also, the airplanes... you want the planes to be able to fly over what? Enemy cities? I doubt you could just do that. The Iraqis weren't waving at the F-117s, they were shooting at them. And if you mean allied or peaceful units and cities, I think that ALL units should be allowed to occupy the same space under such conditions.

Here's my problem with the pixel system. How are you intending on doing it? Would you use a system like with Paint Brush? How would this be different from just using smaller tiles? And also, a pixel is TINY! How would you know what your looking at on the screen? Could you even SEE cities or units in a single pixel??
And also, theres the issue of the individual pixel attributes. It would not be thousands of pixels. The game has thousands of tiles. No, this would be hundreds of thousands to millions of pixels. Thats a lot of stuff for the computer to know. The game already has enough new features to deal with. I think it would make it impossible to play. Maybe if you could convince NASA to let you borrow one of their computers, you could do it.

As for moving, the RTS system COULD work, but what happens if the units decide the fastest way to a place is not following a railroad or road? They'd be throwing away their movement rate. And if we do it the old-fashioned way... moving pixel by pixel? A painfully tedious experience, no?

Don't get me wrong... I'd love to see a new system. I was always kind of frustrated that I couldn't put Boston, New York and Washington in their real spots on a world map. but I wanna be sure it works.

Maybe having the old grid but with pixels of land would be better. So if you were say creating a map of the World in the editor, Italy would look like it really does rather than being a 3-square blob. It would still occupy 3 grids, but it would still have its shape because you would be painting one pixel at a time. Each grid square would have attributes for all of the pixels inside it (in other words, a mountain square has all mountain pixels in it). Granted, I know this is not what people want, but I think it will have to do.


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"...The highest realization of warfare is to attack the enemy's plans; next is to attack their alliances; next to attack their army; and the lowest is to attack their fortified cities." - Sun Tzu

When I say a pixel, I mean a small tile... And cities will be many 'pixels' large, not just on a single pixel.. But i see what you mean.. It's the idea of it which I would like to see attempted...

And as for layers, subs DO sail underneath enemy ships and planes like the U2 can fly over enemy cities...

One more thing - maybe Warlords and above should be allowed to post pictures in their posts.. I'm feeling too lazy to link to the Shogun pics, but I feel that if you guys have the time, hop over to www.totalwar.com and check out the battle-map screenshots of Shogun: Total War...

THAT's what I mean by pixels...

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-Shiva
Email: shiva@shivamail.com
Web: http://www.shivamail.com
ICQ: 17719980

[Ribannah]

quote: Originally posted by Hannibal3 on 09-26-2000 06:12 PMHere's my problem with the pixel system .... Theres the issue of the individual pixel attributes. It would not be thousands of pixels. The game has thousands of tiles. No, this would be hundreds of thousands to millions of pixels. Thats a lot of stuff for the computer to know.

There is no need to store all pixels. Pixel contents can be generated and regenerated by seeds. With the speed of present-day computers, there should be no problem.

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If you have no feet, don't walk on fire

[Sir Hawkeye]

The crazy-fool semi-newbie speaks!
Okay, Lets see...
I think we should still have tiles but they won't be consistently the smae distance. Each tile should be perhaps 2 degrees -Longitude- square(approximately, they'd be narrower at the top), getting smaller and smaller, converging into one circular tile at the pole. Movement points could still be applied, smaller sqaures take less to enter.(possibly applied to resource collection, but these squares would also take fewer people to work, so it's a moot point).
(What i wrote makes sense to me. please tell me if i'm incoherent here)

Underground and Aerial layers are also a damn good idea. Recon planes two layers higher would be hard to destroy except with special equipment, subs will be more realistic.(tranports can't find subs anymore- until it's too late )



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-Rale Hawkeye
-Rale Hawkeye
"Dammit, where is the 'shoot messenger' button?"

nope! Tiles are out the window! They limit the game too much! Civ is known for its depth. Lets keep it that way.

[Sir Hawkeye]

Well, I was thinking some sort of 3D rotating globe style map, or at least have tha as a mode, and that with one polar tile, that wolud handle the polar crossing quite nicely...

If Firaxis does use this pixel format they'd obviously do it well but
I have a few questions.

How big is a pixel?
How many pixels on an average world?
How many citizens to harvest a pixel? wouldn't micromanagement become insane if you had to harvest each individual pixel?
How many pixels is a unit?

Thx for any explanations.

Sir Rale Hawkeye
Most insane CivII game: World War '79, Approx. 95 nukes in 10 years

A pixel: Open a bitmap-file, view it at 800% and you know what a pixel is... it's the tiniest unit of a graphic file.
If a pixelized map is used, you can be sure that there won't be "heads" working on them, they'd have to redo all the occupational system for citizens.

"How many pixels is a unit?"-I actually don't understand the question.- If you mean how many pixels a unit occupies: We can't say. They'd probably redo even the whole units and moving system if using a pixel-based map.

If you ask me: "Pixeled" maps are good for the eye and good for RTS but not for game-based games. Maybe graphically pixels should be used for the map, while game-technically the tile continues to be the reference frame.

[Dienstag]

Here's an Idea:

Instead of being set on Earth, or even an Earth-like planet, CivIII can be a game about different civilizations fighting for survival and control of something like Larry Niven's Ringworld!!! This is a huge cylindrical world that orbits it's star all the way around!! Making this map will be EASY!!!

OK, sorry for the irreverence. Keep up the good ideas.

[Ribannah]

quote: Originally posted by Sir Hawkeye on 10-04-2000 07:11 PM I have a few questions.

>How big is a pixel?
There will be 1024x768 on your screen.

>How many pixels on an average world?
Still 1024x768. Pixels exist only for that part of the world which is presently on your screen.

>How many citizens to harvest a pixel?
I hope none, or there will be nothing left of your vision

>How many pixels is a unit?
A unit will have co-ordinates to indicate its absolute position, and will occupy a tile if it is on screen.

I hope this clarifies things a bit. A pixel is not a small tile!


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If you have no feet, don't walk on fire

How many people to harvest a pixel?

Well, resource distributions will span many pixels.. For example, you could have 20 hectares (there would be an inbuilt pixel to hectare convertor) of plains next to your city. Its productivity will depend on the number of people you set to work it. Say 6 heads or so... Perhaps 1 head per hectare would yield the maximum...

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-Shiva
Email: shiva@shivamail.com
Web: http://www.shivamail.com
ICQ: 17719980

[Adm.Naismith]

I suggest to shift to the CTP II concept of "city range used area", where you don't need to distribute "heads" for basic resources production.

Every city has available every resources in a controlled area (the area grow when the population of city is greater). The number of citizen + slaves (not specialist) is the workforce that use the area resources producing trade, food, mineral.

You can still tune the production converting common worker in specialist, to enhance food (farmer), research (scientist), or money (taxmen) against the other production (the baseground of common worker become reduced).
So you don't have to care to assign "head to pixel" still you keep the control of cities. You can have a hidden grid to define resources available per area, without the need of visible tiles at all.

Movement can be taken care of with the "assigned waypoint" method already mentioned with RTS.

"Step by step" tactic movement will go out of the window, but we can replace them (for fine tuning) with point & click general order (scout, charge, transfer, etc.) that troops will obey when needed during turn change.

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

Waypoint would really simplify movement... Click on a unit, hold down CTRL to set up way point and then click on its final destination. The AI should be smart enough to navigate between waypoints.. This would eliminate the need for tiles in movement.

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-Shiva
Email: shiva@shivamail.com
Web: http://www.shivamail.com
ICQ: 17719980

Check out the post on the Populous 3 map...

Though I feel a Railroad Tycoon 2 or Shogun style map is what we want...

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-Shiva
Email: shiva@shivamail.com
Web: http://www.shivamail.com
ICQ: 17719980

[Tim White]

Great Ideas!! I was going to add a new topic covering this very thing, but now I dont have to! I totally agree with everything you suggest.

[Nikolaos]

All right, I know I'm new here, but. . .

It seems to me that the only units that should be going over the poles are subs and planes and other flying objects. Even in the early part of this century (yes, this century will end Dec. 31, 2000) people had troubles or died getting over the poles. It should not be easy to cross them and realistically, very few units would be able to survive the temperatures.
As far as using pixels, I like the idea, I'm just unsure how city borders will work. Pretty graphics are nice and all, but gameplay is more important.

[DarkCloud]

The map should only be 20% correct when first explored in terms of geography,
for the first settlers to America did not have the maps correct, so places should
be roughly in the wrong areas by a pixel or two.

After discovering geography, maps are 70% correct, and after triangulation they are 100%
correct.