Solution: The Globe in Civ V, a really spherical map with only hexagonal tiles!

Ok, so I've just finished reading the entirety of the thread, and I don't see what's so bad about the pentagon solution.

Now, I understand that we would get double the amount of artifacts, but at the same time we would get 5+10+15 tiles instead of 6+10+14 tiles with orthoceros' solution which means that in the end, cities will have the same maximum tile area on a pentagon tile than on one of the overlapping hexagon tiles in the Orthoceros Solution. Also, and to me, this is a very important point, the pentagon solution just looks better.

Now, I understand that in the Hex Planet link that was posted, this was because the planet was actually subdivided into triangles and the tiles assembled from these triangles, which then produced the hexes and 5 pentagons.

The more I look at the Hex Planet demo, the more I like it. There is no large amount of variation in tile shape like there is in the Orthoceros Solution. I mean no disrespect, I'm very impressed with Orthoceros' work, but the variation in tile shape just doesn't look as good to me as the 2-D map in the current game does. I love the underlying geometry of the world and I think that's partially lost in a map where the tiles do not have perfect geometrical shapes. This is not so in the Hex Planet.

Now, I understand that there are some very important issues with gameplay, especially combat and sieges, as well as pathfinding and enemy AI with adding pentagonal tiles to the mix, but would it really be more difficult to fix those than it would be to fix the graphical problems that we're having with the Orthoceros Solution?

I personaly would have no problem adapting to having to deal with 12 tiles of a different shape on a huge, planet sized world, and I'm sure that many other players would agree with me. Of course, we could always make these 12 tiles impassable by, say, placing natural wonders on them, or employ any of the other sugestions made to "fix" the disadvantages of such tiles, but I think they are small enough that I would accept them without fixing.

I don't know, what do you think? What makes the Orthoceros Solution so much better than the Hex Planet? It seems to me that it all really comes down to is every tile having 6 neighbours and that the majority of the algorithms for the current 2-D game engine can be used without modification. There is also the goal of making every tile strategically identical, although as many units have ranged attacks or area of effect abilites that go beyond a one tile radius, this is already not so in the Orthoceros Solution. I personally think that these are acceptable differences if we don't have to deal with the problem of deformed tiles.

It seems obvious that the best solution to this would be to get rid of the tiles all together and replace them with unit motion radii and area of effect based gameplay, but, of course, that's a completely different conversation.

What are your opinions on this?

Oberon James said:

Now, I understand that in the Hex Planet link that was posted, this was because the planet was actually subdivided into triangles and the tiles assembled from these triangles, which then produced the hexes and 5 pentagons.

The more I look at the Hex Planet demo, the more I like it. There is no large amount of variation in tile shape like there is in the Orthoceros Solution.

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Which hex planet link you have on mind?

sammual said:

If we were mapping a true sphere with no distortion I believe you would be correct.

I got interested in this in 2007 when I came across The Hex mapped Sphere.

Sammual

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The one linked in post 53.

Again, what's wrong with assymetric tile shapes ?
It's not like if the areas were diverging ! Maybe go outside and tell me if the people you met there are all equal in shape and abilities.

I personally like the parallel rings demonstrated in post #66


But getting back to more important issues, how do we deal with "pole" tiles in-game? These tiled spheres are really neat, but they'll never be marketable unless the major balance issues that come with them are definitively sorted out. In particular, any city within 2 tiles of a "pole" tile will have a reduced number of tiles available to work. If you don't think that's cause for concern, then take a look at this (for the cylindrical tiling scheme):



While every unmarked tile suffers no loss in workable tiles, around each of the four equator poles there are 18 tiles that will ultimately result in fewer workable tiles, regardless of map size (for a total of 72 inferior tiles in the world, excluding the north and south polar areas).

Blue dot: 29 workable tiles
Green dot: 28 workable tiles
Yellow dot: 27 workable tiles
Red dot: 26 workable tiles
White dot: 24 workable tiles
And god help you if you settle on a black-dotted tile, for those will yield 23 workable tiles, with a loss of 1 in the first ring, 2 in the second ring, and 4 in the third ring.

Granted, this is a better situation than in the original proposed model with 12 evenly-distributed pentagons, where there are 192 (12x16) such inferior tiles on any globe. But this is still a non-negligible issue for random map generation. What are we going to do about it?

Well, I think you would have just to live with that. If you play standard Civ game, not always cities have whole area workable if two cities overlap for example.

I labeled my ideas, because I want to be able to label sub-ideas. It makes it easier to discuss them (I hope) but is by no means intended as some sort of statement about their worthiness (such “my idea is the number 1 idea” or something like that). Maybe it would be a good idea for the administrators to label all ideas, so it becomes easier to make a list (for the purpose of voting for instance).

Idea 1: A Globular World

So the earth should be shape as a globe, rather than as a beer can as it is now. No shock here, it has been discussed before in other threads (but rather than a suggested improvement for Civ6, it was discussed as something that we all hoped would be included in Civ5, which as has turned out isn´t the case). I even sent a letter (yes, a letter) to Micropose after the release of Civ2 (must have been around 1997) including this idea and many others, so it´s about time they implement it.

Most of us, I think, agree that this should be achieved by using hexagons and pentagons. If you build a city on a pentagon, this constitutes no problem if in Civ6, as in Civ5, the tiles used by the city or not confined to a pre-defined shape (the former 21-square ´fat cross´). Your pentagon city´s cultural border will include the same amount of tiles as any other city, only it´s borders´ shape will be different.

I don´t know how many hexagons and pentagons the earth should contain (probably a variable which depends on the world size as chosen by the player), I´m not a mathematician. I do know though, from previous discussions which you people had with each other, some of you are. And some of you have explained which possibilities there are (unfortunately I can´t find the thread in which this discussion took place, I will add the link if I find it).


EDIT: I just saw somebody already started a (rather brillant) thread about this subject (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=356334), so moderators please close this one.

Moderator Action: Merged with other thread

Okay, but the pentagon tiles are still going to be more strategically valuable, since any unit or city on a pentagon tile has one less potential weak point.

To OP: amazing concept and good coding skills for a theorist! But make sure to cover those "kinks" with impassable mountains tiles, otherwise it will definitely affect gameplay.

Ramesses said:

Okay, but the pentagon tiles are still going to be more strategically valuable, since any unit or city on a pentagon tile has one less potential weak point.

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I think that I could live with it. But I also have idea how Civ could work without plots, just sphere in full 3D environment, and all movement and build just based on vectors. But question - if it still will look like Civ?

Ramesses said:

Okay, but the pentagon tiles are still going to be more strategically valuable, since any unit or city on a pentagon tile has one less potential weak point.

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You´re absolutely right, and I must admit I didn´t think of that. Although -just like Noob- I wouldn´t mind so much (if you create a city next to an ice tile in the current release then you also have a corner less to defend, not to mention having an entire border less to defend if you´re a northern civ).

Having said that, I think the OP´s idea is probably better.

Ramesses said:

Okay, but the pentagon tiles are still going to be more strategically valuable, since any unit or city on a pentagon tile has one less potential weak point.

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But, you forget. A cylinder map's edges also have less potential weak points. Actually the ENTIRE EDGE of the cylinder has less weak points and there's also two edges, so this isn't really a big problem compared to the current maps.

qwerty25 said:

But, you forget. A cylinder map's edges also have less potential weak points. Actually the ENTIRE EDGE of the cylinder has less weak points and there's also two edges, so this isn't really a big problem compared to the current maps.

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exactly my point.

i proposed this a while ago..noby payed atention..but you..thank YOU for doing this! i wanted this globe OH so teribly bad!

PEACE! said:

i proposed this a while ago..noby payed atention..but you..thank YOU for doing this! i wanted this globe OH so teribly bad!

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Yep, so do I!
I think if I had to chose just 1 thing they would change about the game, it would be this! (that's why I would like to see a poll about all civ ideas, they can't ignore the really popular ideas like -I think- this one).

Part_Time_Civer said:

Having said that, I think the OP´s idea is probably better.

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Why?

I actually think it is worse for a number of reasons.

1)The idea in the OP generates 6 vertices where 4 tiles meet, and thereby reintroduces diagonal movement in those points. (And getting rid of diagonal movement was one reason to move to hex-maps in the first place.)

2)All 4 tiles around those points are pentagons, so this idea introduces 24 pentagons rather than the 12 needed in the more conventional approach.

3)By reducing to 6 instead of 12 special locations the actual geometry of the map is an octahedron instead of an icosahedron as you would get otherwise. This means that the map is less round an that the visible tile distortion mapping to a sphere is bigger.

Although Orthoceros' idea is novel, I don't think it will work very well. I've been toying with the idea of a spherical hex map for years. And I've concluded that a hex map with 12 pentagons is the best way to go. A game designer would just have to deal with that problem using brute force. Luckily, there are only 12 of them no matter the size of the world. If there is a tactical advantage to building a city on a pentagon, so be it. If the designer's intention is to recreate a spherical hex map of the Earth, Buckminster Fuller designed a map of the earth that divided the globe into triangular faces of an icosahedron where the vertices are placed where there is only ocean. This would place those pentagons on water.

I'm curious as to how Orthoceros initially generated his spherical hex map that contained the 12 pentagonal cells. Did he have a problem arranging the cells so that each hex center was equidistant? If he had that problem, I know the solution.

orthoceros said:

(reserved)

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How would this improve the game? It might make some pathing easier, but it would really break the historical aspect if an army could just walk across the poles.

This is the most awesome use of geometry I've seen in my life! I'd love it if they implemented this somehow, I couldn't care less about strategic issues when I see this, I mean, WOW!

I don't know the match but . . .

Could you do it with circle tiles? Obviously you would have 'dead' space in between, but that would just be a graphical issue (maybe a serious one?).

This isn't a physical object we're building, so we if you had units and cities exist in 'circles' which are pressed together it might work just find.

I suspect without thinking about it too hard, that you'd have issues, because for game balance purposes you would want each circle to border the same number of circles, and then you would have all the same problems which have all ready been discussed, but you'd just be drawing circles inside your hexagons and pentagons.

I think I just answered my own question . . . but I'll leave the comment in case it sparks anything for anyone else.