Please use hexagons instead of squares!

[Suki]

How should the 3D map be set up? The buckministerfuller ball seems to be a favorite, yet I'd like everyone to know there are other options. To append the previous list of 3 potential polyhedrons: any of the 5 platonic solids will work.
4. Isosahedron
5. Octohedron

Note that whenfilled with hexagons the Cube will look like an Octohedron and the Dodecahedron will look like the Isosahedron and vice-versa. The Tetrahedron will look like itself. This is all a matter of vertex:side ratios.

I reallt don't see how you can map hexagons onto a cube...you can pay hexagons onto triangles... which will give you the tetrahedron, octahedron, isoctahedron and all that, and the soccer ball shape is hust a icostahedron that's been mapped that way, if you want higher resoloution just map hex's onto the tryangles making up the hex and pentagns and continue..
but for a cube, just map it with squares....

 

[Saad]

Well Saad, what do you think about the geometry discussed in the previous post? I tried not to put too much information in there so that everyone else can chip in their 2 cents (or 2 dollars, if you have it).

Personally, I think that hexagons are the way to go. True, there is a separate strategy for dealing with corner-corner borders, but I think the equidistant thing is more important.

How should the 3D map be set up? The buckministerfuller ball seems to be a favorite, yet I'd like everyone to know there are other options. To append the previous list of 3 potential polyhedrons: any of the 5 platonic solids will work.
4. Isosahedron
5. Octohedron

Note that whenfilled with hexagons the Cube will look like an Octohedron and the Dodecahedron will look like the Isosahedron and vice-versa. The Tetrahedron will look like itself. This is all a matter of vertex:side ratios.

Maybe we need to stop looking at geometry and try something completely new. For example, playing RTS games like Age of Empires you don't always tell you units to move to certain x,y coordinate. You click a location and the coordinate system is hidden from you. Maybe we can create a world in spherical coordinates, but when we zoom in too manage a city it appears flat. Some land would be unusable to hide distortions, and we could allow unit movement range calculations to remain hidden. Click on a unit would just highlight a region ot the map that it can move to. And when putting workers to use, the tile based assignment might be more general. For example, multiple workers could be assigned to a farm, which would cause the farm to grow in size in map. These are just ideas, I'm just an engineer who doesn't know the best discrete structure/geometry that could be used to represent a 3D world. But I think that hiding the details of world and moving to a more RTS motion system might be a solution.

 

[Crayton]

Instant Cereal: I don't know how Rome: Total War works but you do seem enthused. I quite enjoy the board game aspect, it seems most conducive to turn-based strategy, but again, I haven't played Rome: Total War.

Suki: Oh, you can put hexagons on any of the platonic solids.
._____________.
|..__________..|
|.|\________/|.|
|.|.|./......\.|.|.|
|.|.|/\___/\|.|.|
|.|.|.|___|.|.|.|
|.|.|\/.....\/|.|.|
|.|.|_\___/_|.|.|
|.|/________\|.|
|____________|

Okay, my character drawings are terrible but you can see the 6 square sides of the cube (the center, four trangles, and the outer square). You can also see 8 hexagons (four surrounding the center square and four bordering the outer square). Each of the hexagons can be expanded ad nauseum depending on how large you want the map to be. If you want I can make an attempt to draw these on MSPaint.

Saad: the game is still turn-based so movement must be measured in some increments, meaning if you select a far away destination units will still move 1, 2, or 10 tiles each turn. I like the idea of spherical coordinates very much. Any of the polyhedrons discussed before can (and should) be projected out wards onto a sphere, so that the 'globe' looks like a ball. Likewise, cities could be built on the spherical coordinates so that the computer does not need to make too many calculations.

EDIT: Does anybody else see room for improvment upon the original model or any model discussed here? The more ideas => the more good ideas.

 

[Crayton]

Hmm... So Hexagons or Squares?
Does anybody have a definite preference?
Does anybody have a unique way of solving this aspect of Civilization?
Does anybody really care?

My ideas are so limited, therefore I enjoy reading the varying ideas from everybody else; like You.

 

[Mylon]

Hexagons would be pretty nifty. The "fat cross" which seems to be purposefully chosen as it prevents a tessellation of cities (being able to harvest every tile with no overlap) would need to be redesigned. A round would could be simulated by several triangle-like shapes formed out of hexagons. If presented in a typical flat manner, this would be simple to draw but soem what difficult to use. The hexagons could be dynamically arranged to present a sphere, but I magine that would be significantly more complex.

I know that the current method of drawing the map as a globe with huge spots of black on the top and bottom looks rather, well, weird and unconvincing.

 

[Suki]

The "fat cross" which seems to be purposefully chosen as it prevents a tessellation of cities (being able to harvest every tile with no overlap) would need to be redesigned.

I disagree, the fat cross is more an argument for using hex grid, "everything within two squares is close enough to harvest...except those corner ones, they are within range but it just doesn't look right if you include them" hex grid has no diagonals so this problem is elimintare and your lack of tesselations is just a convienient side effect.
as long as we're rebuilding the game from the ground up: don't put a set limit on where you can farm for a city. just make it less eficient the longer the walk from the farm to the city. then get the farmers out of the city and remove the worker units have your farmers do all the 'worker' jobs. Then have the 'town' type improvements just increase the efficiency of working the tile. then you'd have something interesting.