Inverted Mediterranean

[Crayton]

Hmm... I'm still kind of stuck on the whole "Mediterranean" thing. If you make a map with the North Pole being, say, Siciliy, the South Pole would be the Middle of the South Pacific Ocean, that would be great. I don't know of many atlases that have a Mediterranean polar projection of the world but I'm sure you could extrapolate using just a globe. I'm starting to like this idea more and more, with the South Pacific on the outer edges! North and South would still be easy to discern while near the Mediterranean and I don't care at all if Australia turns out to be really small and lopsided. Although I still think it would be cool wrapping around the map from Rome to Carthage or from Greece to Egypt, this map idea would definately have more use.

Just make sure those far and away places aren't too big, like the Americas or Antarctica (if you decide to keep it at all).

Edit: And that 5 tiles per line of latitude could work but you'd end up with Greenland being as big as North America (in the South Pole projection). You should gradually dissipate it down to 1 tile per line of latitude. Greenland will look like a pancake but it is a projection of the Antarctic Ocean. The Same can be said about Australia being as big as Asia on the North Pole projection. And the same can be said about the Mediterranean projection too.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Mmm, yeah, I'll have a think about reducing the scale towards the borders... but keep in mind that it's simply not possible to have a 3D sphere turned into a 2D map at all accurately. There's just no way to do it, it's as simple as that... somewhere, you have to make sacrifices - some distances will have to be much larger than they really are, while others will be cramped up. It's unavoidable.

Um, with your post above... aren't you requesting the exact opposite of what you were before? (Before, you were treating the mediterranian as the South Pole, so that it was America which was tiny, not the mediterranian. So which one are you actually after? ) Either way, a map centred on the mediterranian OR the south pacific would be a lot harder to do (because I'd have to rework latitude and longitude, and use curved lines and such rather than just simple straight ones). I'm sure I could do it, but it'd be very tricky... and I honestly can't really picture what on earth it'll look like - I'd actually have to make it to see how it'd turn out...

 

[Crayton]

Either one. Put the Mediterranean in the center and expand the representation of the center hemisphere. Put the South Pacific in the center and expand the representation of the outer hemisphere (original request). Because it is a square representation of a circle, the map will need to be distorted further. 90* longitude could form each of four triangles stemming from the center to the cornors.

I'm having fun churning numbers in my head after you proposed that 5 tiles per line of latitute. I forgot, in Age of Empires II, I staked out maps with cliffs and then, kind of, painted by numbers with a map in front of me. I may try doing the same with Civ3.

You work on the North and South Pole. I'll work on the Mediterranean and South Pacific Pole. By the time your finished with those, these will be 10 times better than in the original post.

 

[Crayton]

Here are two models of the polar map.
Both are skewed with either the center or outer hemisphere accounting for 2/3 of the map area.
Of the 3 concentric circles, the second is the equator, and the others are 45*(or whatever latitude separates a hemishere into equal areas). The 1st and 3rd circles are also skewed to the 1:2 ratio.

The first map could be used for putting the Mediterranean on the outside and the second map could be used for putting the Sea in the center.
Actually, these maps could be used for any polar projection.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Yep, that's exactly the way I was thinking of doing things. Except I use "Sea" terrain for the lines... that way, they're thinner and I can fit in more lines for more accuracy. Also, I reckon it'd be better - for longitude - to start off with pretty much "perfect" circles in the centre of the map, and gradually stretch them out to be "almost" squares (with rounded edges) at the edges. Otherwise, you're going to get some strange effects going on at the centre of the map...

I think what I'll do tonight is have a go at doing some rough drawings (just on paper) of what various latitude and longitude stretches and compressions do to the maps, so that I can see which method would make the best looking (and the most [possibly] accurate) map, before I go and invest a whole lot of time in something that'd turn out to be really weird-looking. It may be (in fact, it probably will be) that I'll need to use different methods for the North and South Pole centred maps... for instance, I'll definitely need to "curve in" the longitude lines a lot more for the South Pole centred map... otherwise there'll be some very weird-looking right-angle turns going on in the middle of Russia and Canada. And in the North Pole centred map, I'll probably stretch out latitude a lot more in the centre, so that there'll actually be a decent sized Europe/Russia/North America.

Geez, this idea has got me SO excited too!!

 

[Crayton]

Here It Is!!!
Just kidding.

This is my first try. I found a polar map centered on a radio station in Denmark, so I used the map model that emphasized the center (Denmark along the edges of the whole map would be silly). I used Mountains as guides, but I think Sea terrain would be much better. I did run in to trouble when Canada and Russia looked like right angles (even Greenland looked like a boomerang) but I polished that up.

There is a whole lot of Hills everywhere so this map isn't playable. In fact most of Asia is actually European Russia. I will modify the terrain so it looks like China etc. The continents have been altered a bit from the cut and dry lines from my previous post so that they look a little more life like, Australia still looks like a squished Easter Egg but who cares.

What do you guys think?

Oh... and I did the calculations 30*N separates the Northern Hemisphere into two regions with equal area (aprx. the pole and the tropics).

P.P.S. Everyone feel free to modify all you want, my name is no where on this map.

 

[Lord Parkin]

...Australia still looks like a squished Easter Egg but who cares.

Well, the Aussies probably would.

As for general comments:
- It still looks a little "right-angle-ish" at the edges, but I guess that can't be helped much, for a spherical conversion.
- Europe is way, WAY larger than it should be... but I'm guessing that was your intention for this map?
- If so, that's fine I guess... but it's kind of warped Asia quite a lot (that big right angle just East of the Mediterranian doesn't work too well). Not sure if there's much you can do about it... but it'd look a bit better if it was smoothed a bit.

Other than that, it's looking reasonably good... definitely recognisable as Earth, unlike the earlier tiny-sized one.

 

[Crayton]

I'm continually working on the map (slowly) to make the continents more realistic (especially Asia).

I'm still looking for a polar map centered on the Mediterranean though; so I can fulfill my original purpose.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Uh... isn't that what the above map is? (The original had the South Pacific at the centre of the map, IIRC. )

 

[Crayton]

The map is centered on a radio station in Denmark. Actually I'd prefer the map centered on the South Pacific but the Ocean is such a big place and it is unlikely that someone would create such a map (in addition, it most likely won't be exactly opposite the Mediterranean). If I found a map centered at the Mediterranean, I would just draw up a grid (radii and circles), paint the inner sectors in the outer sectors of the map, and viola! I could use some creative liscense and make the Denmark map a Mediterranean map, but then I'd have to draw eggs and curved radii. Yuck! My mind can't manipulate that much in my head.

Anyways, I got rid of those obnoxious hills from the Denmark map and corrected a few of the absurdities. The map is 15% better, so I placed resources and starting locations. There are two files, one with all 31 civilizations from Civ3 and the other with 18 civilizations.

The best part is: you can get on Civ3's Hall of Fame!

EDIT: if there is an Azimuthal map creator on-line somewhere: I'm thinking of somewhere around Crete as a pole.

 

[Perugia]

I've been wanting to play on a real-world map that has x and y wrapping.

I just voted to say you need to explain more. Specifically, I don't understand what the problem you are tyring to solve actually is.

I think I understand x wrapping in that you move off the map edge and rejoin on the other side at the same latitude. Most maps are of this type.

I don't know much about y wrapping but think possibly that the old Civ1 games worked that way however I don't think y warpping is enabled on most maps, certainly not the ones I play.

It sounds likethe problem is you go off the top and appear on the bottom at the same longitude. That means you leave the north pole and instantly appear at the south pole and so doesn't it work on a standard real world map? Can someone explain how the maps you are drawing help solve the problem.

 

[Crayton]

Well...

First off, most maps of the entire world are cylinder representations of the globe which means that the polar areas get stretched out a bit.

Secondly, y-wrapping would be unrealistic on these maps because a unit should not be able to teleport from the arctic to the antarctic in one turn.

Finally, these maps put one pole along the edge of the entire map. This stretches the pole nearly 4 times more compared to a traditional map! The bonus, though, is that the center pole is nearly perfect and both x and y wrapping are possible without the teleportation problem. The trick is to place that extremely stretched out pole on one of the more featureless parts of the globe.

Did I clarify it well?

 

[Tholish]

I did something like this for my Marz scenario for PTW. Made a globe of mars on a ball, drew a big four pointed star in the middle of a useless cratered region, then made each point of the star the center point of the edge of a square, which I then gridded by drawing lines around the globe to the opposite side. From this I made a distorted but almost complete map including both poles, leaving out only the useless cratered region to the East of Hellas.

 

[Crayton]

That sounds like a pretty good way so that the edges are not one pole wrapped around the entire outside of the map. On the other hand, you may not be able to do quite as big of a 'star' because it would be hard to fit. On the other, other hand, the Pacific Ocean is a rather big place.

 

[Kal'thzar]

Lord Parkin

is this the general idea you had?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=66282

its the only one i've seen like it, and its too big for me :/

 

[Crayton]

Yes, this is very similar. That map in the link was an interrupted map, which means that the creator dealt with the extreme stretching on the outsides with breaks in the southern seas (Owain used those 0 movement tiles, and he made triangles in the middle of the oceans).

The idea for this map could benefit greatly from such a design (that 0 movement could be very effective for the outer edge). However, the original idea neglected the idea either because the edges of the map needed to represent a larger area or because it was inconsequential to the map's purposes. On the other, other hand, the link has a good map and the general orientation desired but it is big. Personally, I'll keep working on the map centered on Denmark and will keep looking for a model of a Mediterranean centered map.

What size map would be suitable for you?

 

[Crayton]

Here is the as of now version. Resources were placed randomly. I don't know if that is preferrable or not?

 

[I am the Future]

interesting i like the way it is turning out.
Otns better then mine

 

[Lord Parkin]

@Kal'thzar: Yes, that's sort of along the right lines. Not quite the same thing, as Crayton said. But close. (And remember I'd also be doing one centred on the South Pole as well.)

@Crayton: I think that in general, Standard (100x100) to Huge (160x160) maps are what the majority of players prefer. (There'll always be exceptions of course... but a map somewhere in between that size bracket should cater for most of the players around, I reckon.)

About the "ocean" thing... I don't think that I'll use it in the maps that I'll be doing. Sure, it's a nice idea... but the way I'm doing things, the outer areas of the map will represent a heck of a lot more area than the inner ones... so it'll actually work out okay, I think. Sure, the scale comparison between the centre pole of the map and the edges will be WAY out (something like the centre representing about 300km per tile and the edges representing 50 km per tile!)... but that won't matter much IMO, because the edges of the map will all be at the same scale, which is the most important thing. The scale will gradually warp outwards from the centre... which is far better than having sudden leaps of thousands of kilometres, IMO.

Also, about resources... actually, it's preferable if they're placed on the map by a human, so that they can be dealt out fairly and correctly. But the resource generator does save quite a bit of time. So it's up to you - if you want to put in the time, I'm sure it would be appreciated.

 

[Rambuchan]

Gentlemen, I like the work you have been up to a lot.

This is some really cool map making going on. You are really approaching the work in a sound theoretical fashion and you must be commended for that. Kudos too for opening up modding away from the usual boring rigid historical accuracy.

I have embarked on a long and exhaustive article on the history of cartography in the History Forum, precisely to help people with interests such as yours. What I find quite amazing it that the map in Crayton's OP is very similar to early Greek and Phoenician maps.

You can go and read in detail about all this in the “Imago Mundi” (The Image of the World) thread in the History Forum. I am also linking some thumbnails in for some actual historical maps which closely allign with your work here. I have loads more of these if you need them, together with some theory on their execution.

If I can be of any help do send me a PM or post in the Imago Mundi discussion thread.


Click these images for big ones. Then click those for full size image.


Homer's World Map derived from Phoenician Geography.


Al Idrissi's Map for King Roger II


Macrobius 9th century map