In Civ VII: spheres or cylinders?

[qadams]

I'm continually impressed by how many bright, highly educated people there are in this forum.

 

[SephiBBZ]

Some are. Others have a mix of hexes and pentagons. There are other patterns too.

Only hexes is not a possible construction.

 

[Sostratus]

You need at least 12 pentagons to make a sphere of hexagons.

I find it a funny geometric coincidence since 12 pentagons makes a dodecahedron which is a 'sphere' (okay, spherical polyhedron, sue me.) So you need a sphere to finish the hexagon sphere!

Just make it a toroid (donut). That's close enough to a sphere for Civ.

Also fun fact: you can make a toroid out of regular hexagons:

Although displaying this in a 3d fashion in game would start to get trippy.

Aren't soccer balls spheres made of equally sized hexes?

i know like 10 people have already replied, but certain shapes can never make closed objects in 3+ dimensions. For triangles, they always can form some kind of shape. Imaging trying you have 3 (equilateral) triangles, and you want to put them together so they all meet at a single point, and touch to form a sort of cone. Well that's basically the top of a pyramid. If you use 4 triangles you will also get the top of a pyramid, but now its a wider cone. If you use 5 triangles, you get the top of an icosahedron (a 20 sided die) and it's even shallower. To fit 6 triangles around a point, you end up making a hexagon, which is perfectly flat! In the same way, this is why you can almost make a sphere of hexagons but you can never make a perfectly closed one. For those who are nerds, look up Euler's Polyhedral Formula for a real explanation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anyways...
If they brought the map itself to be able to be translated between flat and spherical - like civ4 had- then you could get a lot of what people want (zoom out and see a globe) without making a mess of the internals.

The bigger problem is so much of the game is built on using a grid of (X,Y) which perfectly maps a cylinder, and a la civ4 you can stretch it a little to cover the areas between the poles of a sphere.
But in a true spherical map, the grid breaks down because different "latitudes" have different numbers of tiles in each "row". (they get thinner/fatter depending on how north/south you are.)

Okay, so, we need to introduce a new table to tell the game what tiles touch what tiles. With that go-between, there's no reason you couldn't have pentagons on the map; of course, that would add some issues with graphics- you would need hexagon and pentagon supported designs for districts, for example- but I don't think I can emphasize enough how much extra work that "translation" step to connect tiles would make for virtually every subsystem. You can't really just say "range of 2 tiles," you need to search for every tile within two tiles, for example. It loses the intuition aspect.

This might work better in a beyond earth style game than a historical civ game, though, where you have flying ships and satellites and such. And in a space setting, a 3d map space would even allow you to add in other geometries. For example, a moon or second celestial body that players could get to and play on. A binary system of planets would make for quite the "terra" or continents map... A ringworld map. A ringworld encircling the planet! Etc.

I would totally be a fan of a improved civ4 style "zoom out and you see a sphere" thing though. Imagine zooming and seeing hurricanes from space...

 

[AsH2]

I find it a funny geometric coincidence since 12 pentagons makes a dodecahedron which is a 'sphere' (okay, spherical polyhedron, sue me.) So you need a sphere to finish the hexagon sphere!


Also fun fact: you can make a toroid out of regular hexagons:

Although displaying this in a 3d fashion in game would start to get trippy.


i know like 10 people have already replied, but certain shapes can never make closed objects in 3+ dimensions. For triangles, they always can form some kind of shape. Imaging trying you have 3 (equilateral) triangles, and you want to put them together so they all meet at a single point, and touch to form a sort of cone. Well that's basically the top of a pyramid. If you use 4 triangles you will also get the top of a pyramid, but now its a wider cone. If you use 5 triangles, you get the top of an icosahedron (a 20 sided die) and it's even shallower. To fit 6 triangles around a point, you end up making a hexagon, which is perfectly flat! In the same way, this is why you can almost make a sphere of hexagons but you can never make a perfectly closed one. For those who are nerds, look up Euler's Polyhedral Formula for a real explanation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Anyways...
If they brought the map itself to be able to be translated between flat and spherical - like civ4 had- then you could get a lot of what people want (zoom out and see a globe) without making a mess of the internals.

The bigger problem is so much of the game is built on using a grid of (X,Y) which perfectly maps a cylinder, and a la civ4 you can stretch it a little to cover the areas between the poles of a sphere.
But in a true spherical map, the grid breaks down because different "latitudes" have different numbers of tiles in each "row". (they get thinner/fatter depending on how north/south you are.)

Okay, so, we need to introduce a new table to tell the game what tiles touch what tiles. With that go-between, there's no reason you couldn't have pentagons on the map; of course, that would add some issues with graphics- you would need hexagon and pentagon supported designs for districts, for example- but I don't think I can emphasize enough how much extra work that "translation" step to connect tiles would make for virtually every subsystem. You can't really just say "range of 2 tiles," you need to search for every tile within two tiles, for example. It loses the intuition aspect.

This might work better in a beyond earth style game than a historical civ game, though, where you have flying ships and satellites and such. And in a space setting, a 3d map space would even allow you to add in other geometries. For example, a moon or second celestial body that players could get to and play on. A binary system of planets would make for quite the "terra" or continents map... A ringworld map. A ringworld encircling the planet! Etc.

I would totally be a fan of a improved civ4 style "zoom out and you see a sphere" thing though. Imagine zooming and seeing hurricanes from space...

Well, then make tiles (to improve) triangle-shaped though let units move on edges to nodes between those (triangle-shaped) tiles and that some constructions (eg districts, wonders) require several tiles (like national parks do now).
Of course they could show a hexagon- or pentagon-shaped tile of influence around the unit's location/destination.

 

[AsH2]

Well, then make tiles (to improve) triangle-shaped though let units move on edges to nodes between those (triangle-shaped) tiles and that some constructions (eg districts, wonders) require several tiles (like national parks do now).
Of course they could show a hexagon- or pentagon-shaped tile of influence around the unit's location/destination.

IE Compared to Civ6, units would be able to move distances of half (hexagon) tiles and along rivers.

 

[AsH2]

Well, then make tiles (to improve) triangle-shaped though let units move on edges to nodes between those (triangle-shaped) tiles and that some constructions (eg districts, wonders) require several tiles (like national parks do now).
Of course they could show a hexagon- or pentagon-shaped tile of influence around the unit's location/destination.

IE Compared to Civ6, units would be able to move distances of half (hexagon) tiles and along rivers.

..which would unclog paths; and as terrain on the sides could differ, I think 3UPT would fit well here.

 

[Naokaukodem]

K.I.S.S.

Stick with the cylinder we all know and lo... hate. This is one of the quirks of Civ, that honestly doesn't bother me at all. I would prefer that they save the brain power in Civ 7 for something else.

This. A sphere would be impressive and a good amount of work, but wouldn't revolution the game at all. This series needs a revolution.

 

[AsH2]

Well, then make tiles (to improve) triangle-shaped though let units move on edges to nodes between those (triangle-shaped) tiles and that some constructions (eg districts, wonders) require several tiles (like national parks do now).
Of course they could show a hexagon- or pentagon-shaped tile of influence around the unit's location/destination.

IE Compared to Civ6, units would be able to move distances of half (hexagon) tiles and along rivers.

..which would unclog paths; and as terrain on the sides could differ, I think 3UPT would fit well here.

Also, this would allow BOTH spheres AND cylinders (and donuts).

Sorry if I killed this thread..