Game Development - Round Earth

[DLK_MIKE]

Dont you think they should adapt the squares you walk on so that there are fewer squares around the poles and more squares along the equator. It should be doable and provide for a more realistic game experience without altering anything else.

Alternatively the could make a times function so that you can take more steps when you move in the upper and lower parts of the map, coming to the same result.

 

[Snownova]

I think in this case convenience and gameplay trump realism. So I disagree with your suggestion.

 

[Osmotic]

This is the old debate of simulation vs game. Taking less time moving at the poles would be more realistic but confusing, the player never knowing exactly how far he can go. I guess one coils get used to it but the value created but such a feature is less than the hit convenience of play.

 

[AriochIV]

It would be difficult for the developer, confusing to the player, and would add nothing to the gameplay experience.

 

[Zet]

> Dont you think they should adapt the squares you walk on so that there are fewer squares around the poles and more squares along the equator.

Could you draw such a grid? Because it sounds impossible.

 

[3of5]

It's doable by adopting a triangular tesselation, like on the Buckminster Fuller Spheres, but you'd have to size the triangles down a lot to make it realistic, effectively throwing planar maps and single tiles out of the window, resulting in something like planetary annihilation (the game) in a turn based modus. So cities would be effectively placeable everywhere, but could still have "tiles" projected onto the spherical map for tile yield purposes. Doable, but much less neat and tidy than just hexes.

Could be an interesting experiment. If RTS games can handle it, why shouldn't TBS? In 1995 (?) there was "Conquest of a New World" using a free-roaming map. Sadly it tanked though at the "box office" :-( no clue if that was because players could not handle the freedom! Warhammer tabletop too uses distance measurement instead of discrete tiles to move along.

 

[Teproc]

It would be difficult for the developer, confusing to the player, and would add nothing to the gameplay experience.

Well it would add immersion and realism, but I agree that it's not worth it overall.

 

[DarkestOnion]

This could work and it might open up new avenues of strategy to consider. Do I found cities further from the equator so that I can mobilize forces more easily? Do I found Cities closer to the Equator so that enemies have to travel much further to reach me?

This is an idea that might be best expressed in a Map Type. That being said, I am uncertain as to how it could be encoded in the Game Engine.

 

[AriochIV]

Well it would add immersion and realism, but I agree that it's not worth it overall.

Realistic perhaps, but hardly immersive. Having to navigate something like homolosine projection and constantly having to figure out which tile leads where would seem to me to be immersion-breaking, as compared to the continuous, wrapping cylindrical projection that is currently used, which you don't even notice or have to think about.

 

[AlpsStranger]

I can see what you mean but I have to agree with Arioch and say no.

Civ's gameplay is meant to be snappy and kind of "light." This is very heavy and and uncivlike.

 

[Kennan]

> Dont you think they should adapt the squares you walk on so that there are fewer squares around the poles and more squares along the equator.

Could you draw such a grid? Because it sounds impossible.

It is (almost) possible. You have to mix in a few pentagons to make it work:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldberg_polyhedron

Civ IV BTS had the toroidical wrap option "doughnut world" where the north and south poles where connected as well as the regular wast-east. I found this option to be fun but a bit confusing and my brain could hurt from over-thinking the map.

There are spherical maps in games like: Planetary Annihilation, Populous 3, Spore and Super Mario Galaxy. I find these maps less confusing and more intuitive than the toroidical maps in Civ IV BTS but they are still a bit confusing e.g. a fixed camera angle does not work well on a spherical map.

 

[Lancor]

Well, why not just add some tiles to the equator rows, while removing a tile/some tiles for every row towards north/south. The map could just be a rectangle standing on it's edge, would be accurate enough but could look weird while scrolling.

 

[werothegreat]

Soccer ball!

But no, i'm perfectly fine with a cylindrical Earth. Round planets are more achievable in RTS's, a la Spore.

 

[Olodune]

Civ 4 had those wonderful toroidal maps - with wrapping on "both" edges. Since the Great Mistake obviously caused some weird distortions to spacetime projecting such a map onto a sphere isn't a problem. Bring back the torus, I say

Edit: I see Kennan has the same idea.