Have the map scale as you progress

[plastiqe]

Here is a concept I came up with which might work in a mod or future civ game. Imagine if at the beginning of the game your starting area was magnified. That is to say the map would be much more detailed and tiles would represent tiny areas in relation to the whole world. As you advanced in technology (maybe to coincide with each age) the map would zoom out as if the world was getting smaller. By the time you reached the modern age the display would be what we are used to now, each tile representing a very large area.

So for example lets say you started as the Romans on a world map. As you advanced through the ages the map size would scale so first you'd be focused on the area around Rome, then Italy, then the Mediterranean, then Europe, then the world.

As the map gets smaller and tile sizes become larger, other things would scale up as well. Units would go from representing a few men to entire armies and settlements would go from a few houses to large metropolises.

 

[Naokaukodem]

It is already the case in the map screen: it adjust according to the portion of world you uncovered.

As to change the map size, it would cause a problem: if your units have 1 movement point, how to reproduce this slow movement with an upscaled map?

 

[Scilly_guy]

Someone has suggested this recently in a thread, and I think I suggested it a while back when I was new to the forum, I expect it is a recurring suggestion, so it must be good.

 

[Tholish]

It IS a good idea, but it would be a big change from traditional civ and would be really hard to work out the details of. Maybe it should happen like once in the game. The start map would be one of those finite ones, like Great Plains. Play on that map is entirely ancient, classical, and maybe medieval eras and represents an area the size of say Mesoamerica, China, or the Middle East.
When you conquer that map, reach a randomly determined "outside contact year" such as 1492, or research a Rennaissance tech, the following happens:
a new world map is generated, advanced start for all civs but you. Your area is a randomly placed 1/5 scale rendition of your old map. If the map size is 60 by 40, your old map is now just a 12 x 8 rendition of it pasted onto an otherwise empty part of the larger map. 5 by 5 portions of it are averaged so that the predominant terrain of the 25 former tiles now becomes the terrain of the one tile that replaces it. If the 5 by 5 has roads going all the way across both vertial and horizontal, it gets a road. If it has at least 5 improvements of any type, the imp type it has most of becomes the new one and only imp. Only your largest cities remain, with populations divided by 5, rounding down. Smaller cities are eliminated if they would be adjacent to larger ones on the larger map, with their population added to the larger city. If the area has a bonus, it has a 1 in 5 chance of keeping it, if this leaves two then one is randomly selected.

All time scale related stuff should also accelerate or decelerate at this point as well. And the whole thing should be optional. The scale change is so drastic. Maybe if it was 3 repeitions of factors of 2 that would be milder. Ancient to Classical doubles the map size, averages 4 tiles to 1. Classical to Medieval does it again. And Medieval to Rennaissance does it a third time, so a Renn map is 8 times the size of an Ancient map without the sudden drastic break. And maybe it could somehow be based on when a unit touches the edge of the map. However, multiple stages like that would require lots of civs. Until the Renn, you could use generic regional leaderheads with names from a list. When you grow into the last map (maybe a tripling?) the new civs generated with Advanced Renn starts will be the standard array.

 

[Onionsoilder]

The only problem I see with this is a potential loss of resources... Since you can only have one resource in a tile, what happens if say... you have both Gold and Iron in an area that will later become one tile?

 

[plastiqe]

Here is how I envison the transition between early ages. You build your first town and explore the area, meeting other minor civ's towns. The goal of the opening era is two things, cultivate the nearby land to set up your city for future growth and trade, and to become the dominant city in your region. Say the game you are playing was set up for 7 regions like this, then the map would have room for about 30 civs of which only 7 or 8 are going to emerge as world powers in the late game. Contact with other regions would not be impossible, just difficult due to the distance and the units available in the beginning.

As you move into the next age the map scales so that 4 ancient tiles now make up one classical tile. Tile improvement done before affects what you get in the classical age, so if you spent the time to work the land you'd now have some prime tiles for building farms or quarries. You'd build on what you'd already started in the ancient age, and set yourself up for the future. By now one civ is dominant in each region (due to culture, commerce, diplomacy, war etc). Since the map is smaller you'll have relations with more civs in neighbouring regions.

The cycle starts again in the next age as you upgrade with newer technologies. You'd build new roads over your olds ones that would have advantages in movement and commerce. If you had cities that were nearby in the last age you're given the option to turn smaller towns into improvements for bigger towns. Resources could be set up so that they are spread out enough that to not overlap. Or you could have resources that merged or phased out as the map changed sizes. Like a gold and a silver would change to a precious metals when the map scaled.

 

[Onionsoilder]

Hmm... It sounds like a very good idea for a different game, but it doesn't really fit into Civilization.

 

[Naokaukodem]

Someone has suggested this recently in a thread, and I think I suggested it a while back when I was new to the forum, I expect it is a recurring suggestion, so it must be good.

Again ,

As to change the map size, it would cause a problem: if your units have 1 movement point, how to reproduce this slow movement with an upscaled map?

 

[Scilly_guy]

When the map scales up it is assumed that technologies have improved and transport is now quicker, that sort of thing. Units go from representing a few men to an entire company, they are now more efficient at marching, camping, fortifying so they can cover larger areas just as quick. You could also reduce their movement points.

 

[Naokaukodem]

When the map scales up it is assumed that technologies have improved and transport is now quicker, that sort of thing. Units go from representing a few men to an entire company, they are now more efficient at marching, camping, fortifying so they can cover larger areas just as quick.

So a large company of macemen would be as quick as some only horsemen?

You could also reduce their movement points.

Except if they only have 1 move in ancient era...

 

[Scilly_guy]

You can make it so that it makes sense; each tile represents an increasingly larger area of land. If a unit can travel 1000 miles in a turn that is more tiles in the ancient era/before the map scales.

If a unit moves that slow that in ancient era it only has 1 movement point then it probably won't be a very useful unit on a global scale as it moves so slowly!

 

[deanej]

All land units except mounted units and non-combat units start with only 1 movement point until Tanks.

Also, I think this is currently represented by the number of years in a turn (it's 40 at the start of the game and 1 month around 2050).

 

[Scilly_guy]

Yes but those movement points are already global, my point is that if the map scales then movement points should be adjusted accordingly, if each square is divided into 4 then movement points could be doubled from what they are now.

 

[Tholish]

Have various grades of road. Initial dirt tracks that increase Warrior movement should be ubiquitous and get lost in the detail when the map upgrades. Paved roads are now necessary for the increased movement, so the Warrior is back to having a move of only 1. Similarly, canoes that have a move of 1 are replaced by better galleys with a move of 2 by the time you get to the second scale, but now these galleys are reduced to 1 and you don't see canoes any more. In short, technology increases movement on the initial map, so that by the time you get to the next stage there is nothing left with a move of 1 that would now be a move of 1/2.

Resources loss would be determined randomly. If you had gold and iron on adjacent squares, one would be selected to be the larger deposit, significant at the larger scale, and the other would disappear.

 

[Scilly_guy]

Resources loss would be determined randomly. If you had gold and iron on adjacent squares, one would be selected to be the larger deposit, significant at the larger scale, and the other would disappear.

That or make a ruling that you can't have adjacent resources, or at least not in tiles that will be combined. It would be frustrating if all of a sudden you lost iron and the ability to build those units. Although we could see it that the smaller mine is unable to sustain the increased demand to make bigger platoons.