Giant Earth Map for Civ 5

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Genghis_Kai

GEM modder
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As the title suggest, I am thinking of building a new giant earth map for Civ 5 already :)

I am sure civ5 is going to come with an earth map but I am also sure that it is not going to be perfect (at least from my perspective!), therefore, I will certainly be going to build one of my own. So I might as well start doing some preparation and collect ideas from the community now until civ5 is released.

I anticipate that the map size for civ5 is going to be roughly double the size of civ4. (judging from the known fact that in civ5, the base units will have movement of 2 and that cities can extend as far as 3 tiles.) Since maps can be larger now, I will decrease the amount of distortion in the map as much as GEM in Civ4. On the other hand, I still think it is right to build a map with appropriate distortion, no matter how big the map is going to be - it is just a waste of resource to run a map with 2/3 of the tiles as ocean which unfortunately the real world happens to be like.

As a start, I have spent last night trying to build a new basemap as attached. I also attached the original map I started off with for comparison.

Comments are welcome ;)
 

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To generate discussion, these are the steps I have applied on the map:

1) Compress pacific ocean - tiles between Japan and Vancouver are compressed by 25% horizontally. Oceania is excluded from this compression.

2) Compress atlantic ocean - tiles between Ireland and Brazil compressed by 25% horizontally (note that this include compressing some of western coast of Africa).

3) Stretch Old World - tiles between and include Britain and New Zealand on the old world are stretched by 10% vertically.

4) Skew South America - Skew South and Central America by 5 degrees clockwise horizontally.

5) Compress South America - Compress South America horizontally by 5%. Expand South America vertically by 5%.

6) Cut out Arctic ocean - tiles above Greenland are cut out.

7) Cut out Antarctica - tiles below and include the Antarctic Peninsula are cut out.

That's it so far.
 
seeing how important navies are going to (finally) be in civ 5, is lessening any ocean a good idea?
 
I am only cutting 25% out of Pacific and Atlantic. That still makes the ocean to land ratio possibly higher than 1:1. I think the oceans are big enough for naval warfare.
 
Good work. :)

A realistic earth map would be excellent.
 
i don't think civ5 maps will be double of civ4 by average.

comments on map; your cuts and a few compressions don't seem mweird when looked to the whole pic, or at least i didn't notice. there will be no problem unless u make new york close to ireland.
25%cut seems no problem.
 
IIRC there exists an Unicef map of Earth with horizontal and vertical distortions in such a way that all areas have a size close to their true spherical size.
 
Ribannah said:
IIRC there exists an Unicef map of Earth with horizontal and vertical distortions in such a way that all areas have a size close to their true spherical size.
Click to expand...
hmm yess. the OP's maps are not correct at that matter. size isn't correct, i just noticed it.

it is like a usual flat map which shows scandinavia/greenland very large.
but there are even wronger maps which show greenland much larger than australia. this one, at least, isn't so.

by the way, playing on earth map isn't that much fun. bec you know it.

but playing on a terra map is fun. it comes very familiar but you don't know, however a few civs should be placed on new world of terra map.

moreover, the most enjoyale maps are "random" maps. it picks 1 of pangaea, terra, fractal, hemispheres etc.
 
Ribannah said:
IIRC there exists an Unicef map of Earth with horizontal and vertical distortions in such a way that all areas have a size close to their true spherical size.
Click to expand...

I tried find the map you mentioned in Unicef but have no luck. Could you provide me a link?

It would certainly be good to check that out.
 
Ribannah said:
I saw this paper map from before the internet. :)
The projection used was the Peters Projection (rectangular Earth). The Mollweide Projection (elliptical Earth) could perhaps also be doable.

Click to expand...

Arr ok thanks. I saw Peters projection before. The very first version of GEM was very much based on it.

The Mollweide projection is not a bad choice and indeed Rhye's Earth map and many others are based on it. But I personally dislike the skewed Asia and America. It gives a too twisted impression.
 
well. it would be good if map overview was prepared as oval not flat, just like we saw on Ribannah's attachments.
ovality makes the world seem spherical.
 
Yeah, but the problem is that the location of the vertical axis is arbitrary and defines which part of the world looks weird. Since we'd want a zoomed-out view to show a sphere anyway, for practical purposes the Peters projection is probably preferable.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gall–Peters_projection .
 
Ribannah said:
Yeah, but the problem is that the location of the vertical axis is arbitrary and defines which part of the world looks weird. Since we'd want a zoomed-out view to show a sphere anyway, for practical purposes the Peters projection is probably preferable.

See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gall–Peters_projection .
Click to expand...
yeah. this seems more correct. i'm sure it will look weird for most guys as africa looks larger than it is on that north pole exaggurated maps, but this is more correct.

only weird thing is the berring channel. alaska and east siberia look as if they will shake hands.
 
After doing the Peters projection, you might want to plot where civilisations are roughly.

Then do a stretching effect that centres on where major world civilisations existed.

And an inverse effect in areas that where mostly ... empty of people.

The idea is, while there is a huge backwater Russian tundra, that isn't all that interesting. And while the sahara desert is huge, that also isn't that interesting.

Second, you might want to use pre-historic fertility levels, not post-human-environmental destruction ones. Lebanon and the like being a desert ... is, from my understanding, a relatively recent phenomena.
 
Why do we want a map that is geographically correct? A map that is playable is I think more important; this normally requires an over-sized Europe and Japan.

For RL map purposes, I hate Mercator projection and the compression of the southern hemisphere. But for a Civ map, Europe and Mediterannean and Middle East really should be where most of the action is at, and these areas should be stretched appropriately to make the game more playable.
 
please use a pre-devasted map of the Earth
 
“Siberian Tundra”? Are you serious? Tundra at London latitude?

Man, I respect what you are doing, but you definitely need this. Tundra is very rare biome. And also probably you're gonna need this, though maybe it would require some historical correction; I am not sure that Britain always was that bald.

At least I think that you need them if you are aiming for more realistic and detailed image of Earth.

Ahriman said:
Why do we want a map that is geographically correct? A map that is playable is I think more important; this normally requires an over-sized Europe and Japan.

For RL map purposes, I hate Mercator projection and the compression of the southern hemisphere. But for a Civ map, Europe and Mediterannean and Middle East really should be where most of the action is at, and these areas should be stretched appropriately to make the game more playable.
Click to expand...
And you are right, of course. Enlarged Europe is definitely a must have.

My favorite is Robinson projection. It's a compromise.
 
So, we want a larger Europe. We probably want Siberia to be smaller. South-east Asia, the Middle East, and India should be large.

Canada's northern frontier, and Greenland, can be made smaller. Oceans can be made smaller.


So, as a proposal: we rotate North America clockwise. Then Africa swings west relative to where it should be, while Europe gets larger. The middle east gets larger, as does india and south-east asia, which is made up by chomping away at much of Siberia.

Spoiler :
 

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