No more Mercator projections!

[opus95]

A really revolutionary map idea would be to completely dispense with Mercator projections of the globe.

Is there any feasible way to generate a global map? ... A map on which one would literally move around on the surface of a sphere ... no more distortion in the polar regions, and then we could actually use "great circle" routes.

A map on which you could go straight north until you reach the north pole, and then continue moving forward in the same direction, but now going south on the opposite side of the world. Now, THAT would be something.

This idea would require a different way of subdividing the surface of the earth. Some computer genius should develop a way of doing this.

 

[sir_schwick]

Its not a question of computer skills, its a question of interface needs. I am not sure what using a spherical map would allow you to do better that a flat map would not. The negatives to a spherical map is camera controls and such, as well as only being able to view at most 1/2 the world, probably a lot less at detail levels that are relevant.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Well I agree Civ shouldn't have a Mercator projection, but there are other, good, flat projections available (the biggest problem is the polygon based nature of the terrain which means a true global model would be probably impossible)

 

[rhialto]

Has anyone ever considered using the Peter's projection for the map? That one is true to relative area, as opposed to Mercator's projection which is true to compass directions.

btw, the actual maps used aren't quite Mercator's, as the polar regions aren't as vertically distorted as you'd expect for Mercator's.

 

[DoTheMath]

For those who haven't seen it, here's a Peter's Projectionhttp://www.petersmap.com/peterms.gif

I think the ability to switch between Mecator, Peter's and a globe should be easy to implement, let the user decide which one he/she wants.

 

[rhialto]

Between Mercators and Peters is trivially, as its just a matter of changing the map for the start game. A true globular map would require very different programming.

 

[ancestral]

Rhialto is right. It's just like airplanes flying over the arctic to save time. The map would need to be somewhat spherical, at least as presentation. The problem is when you have two "squares" next to each other, for example, the square above would be touching both and thus not be able to be square.

Otherwise, if you retained the square format, if you have a sphere and you put a square grating on top. When you look down onto the sphere through the grating, the places in the middle will be larger than the ones on the outside.

Basically, either there'd have to be some sort of fake square lengthening or you'd have to abandon squares altogether. Think about polyhedrons as a starting point.

 

[{|}$~\]

A sphere could be covered with hexagonal tiles, but 12 tiles would need to be pentagonal.

 

[Horus Kol]

how about a flat map of hexagons?

 

[ancestral]

how about a flat map of hexagons?

You know, thinking this over, even the small family of platonic solids wouldn't be very helpful. And a flat map of hexagons wouldn't work, because you can't make that into a polyhedron (at least, a regular polyhedron, where all the sides are the same shape - http://www.georgehart.com/virtual-polyhedra/platonic-info.html)

So where does that leave us? If we want the player to be able to move in any direction and make shortcuts around the globe, we have to have a map that will treat cases at the poles. This means the map would have to be spherical.

So we need some sort of projection for our the game, as a global projection (i.e. just the earth as a sphere) is probably overkill and won't yield much detail easily for our two-dimensional screens.

A map projection is used to portray all or part of the round Earth on a flat surface. This cannot be done without some distortion.

Every projection has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. There is no "best" projection.

http://erg.usgs.gov/isb/pubs/MapProjections/projections.html

So what's optimal for our needs? I think an azimuthal design would work. This kind of interface would be perfect, with the map readjusting when you move/re-center, of course. It would be a little different to navigate, but it would certainly give the game a "global" perspective

Maybe an azimuthal equal-area map projection is what we'd want.


(The best game to show multiple and sorta interactive projections is the venerable SimEarth. You remember the global projection, yes? Though it avoided the poles as much as possible.)