Round Globe

[Suki]

@Ribannah

yeah i know I was just pointing out where and how those problems would express themselves.

 

[King Aldous XI]

It sound innoative, but I think that would give players like me a headache!

 

[Mewtarthio]

How about a dynamic "rotation" of the globe? The minimap centers on the tile you're looking at. Naturally, there will be some nasty distortions beyond the center, so the programmers will have to choose a global flat projection to use, preferably one that emphasizes area as much as possible. Then there's the problem of the computer needing to redraw the minimap every time the view shifts. Perhaps there should be a "center minimap" button?

The only other possibility I can think of is setting up a "teleportaion" point to simulate travelling over the poles. E.G. The poles could be set up like this:

012345543210

With each number representing a different tile. If a unit goes north from a tile, they "warp" over to the other tile of the same number. It's not a perfect simulation, and the LoS gets really screwy, but it's a possibility.

 

[Ribannah]

If a projection and dynamic tiles are used, the trick would be to keep any distortions just outside view.
That would require small worlds to always be zoomed in, if they're supposed to represent an entire globe, so a nice option would be to have small worlds represent only a part of the globe.

 

[akhicks]

yep I agree with Ribannah. If you had a small representative view of a large globe it would be fine. I think a massive global near spherical map would be great. It would encourage massive maps...

 

[Bilko]

It's possible to make a globe out of just hexagons without using pentagons: Just take a look at that picture there, with the globe made of triangles. Combine 6 of the triangles and what do you have? A hexagon! They're just a little curved is all. And on a 3d map, that curvature is easy to emulate, and you can easily cover a sphere in hexagons. Not only that, but hexagons make a hell of a lot more sense than squares.

 

[judgement]

Originally posted by Bilko
It's possible to make a globe out of just hexagons without using pentagons: Just take a look at that picture there, with the globe made of triangles. Combine 6 of the triangles and what do you have? A hexagon! They're just a little curved is all. And on a 3d map, that curvature is easy to emulate, and you can easily cover a sphere in hexagons. Not only that, but hexagons make a hell of a lot more sense than squares.

Sorry, but no, look at the picture at little more closely. Most of the triangles can be combined into hexes, but not all. Start at the very top of the sphere and follow the line of bars that is very nearly vertical. About a third of the way down, you will see a point where only 5 triangles come together instead of six, i.e., a pentagon instead of a hexagon.

 

[warpstorm]

Since Civ4 will likely be 3D, it should be possible to implement it.

If it were me doing it, I'd use it as triangles.

 

[croxis]

I can just hear the moders complaining about this one!

The avantages to civ is that it has always been sprite based, making it mre easy to mod than 3D games. One person can mod civ, while you would need a larger team to do a 3D game

 

[Bilko]

Judgement:
I'm not 100% sure, but it looks to me as if you could just enlarge the sphere's surface area by 6/5 while keeping the same size triangles, and that would solve the problem of having a pentagon there.

But, even if I'm wrong and that wouldn't work, there are only two pentagons there anyway (the one seen, and one opposite it on the backside,) so they could just be used as the poles.

 

[warpstorm]

Originally posted by croxis
I can just hear the moders complaining about this one!

The avantages to civ is that it has always been sprite based, making it mre easy to mod than 3D games. One person can mod civ, while you would need a larger team to do a 3D game

This may be true, but Firaxis has said that they are going that direction and hired the people to do it.

 

[Bilko]

It'd look something like this:
I didn't bother to finish the whole thing, but you can see that there would only be the two pentagons on the whole sphere.

 

[judgement]

Originally posted by Bilko
It'd look something like this:
I didn't bother to finish the whole thing, but you can see that there would only be the two pentagons on the whole sphere.

Actually, since you can't see the entire sphere in the picture, it is not possible to see that there would only be two pentagons. More importantly, there would not only be two: there would be 12!

All geodesic spheres have 12 pentagons, no matter how many hexagons they have. In the picture, there is one at the very top of the dome, and 5 arranged around the upper half: the one that is clearly visible, 2 more which are quite hard to see because they're near the edge of whats visible (where all the beams blur together because you're not looking at the surface straight-on) and 2 more on the backside. If the dome was a complete sphere, the bottom half would have the same six pentagons as the top half. Its pretty hard to tell what I'm talking about from the picture, but if you go to Epcot center and walk around the dome, you'll see what I mean.

If a trip to Florida is out of the question, just do a google search for "geodesic sphere" or "Buckminster Fuller." Its mathematically impossible to make a sphere out of hexes without also having 12 pentagons. Sorry to disappoint.

 

[Ribannah]

I see three redlined already.

Bilko, it's not possible. Ask a math teacher, the proof isn't that hard. You need pentagons to create the curvature, and since (minimum) total curvature is fixed, so is the (minimum) number of pentagons.

Now, it IS possible to create a sphere from hexagons alone, but not in plain 3D. You wouldn't get normal planets and you would be unable to create an Earth map.

 

[rcoutme]

How about just adding the pentagons and living with the results? So some places you have only 5 (instead of 6) choices of direction, so what?

 

[Bilko]

Well, I wish I'd taken geometry. Almost any kind of math is really interesting to me. I'll probably be taking it next year though, I'm pretty sure it's a second year engineering course.

 

[pirke]

What if you create a globe as minimap and when you scroll the map the globe turns to the current view. Of course when you want a flat view of the world it would look a little stretched here and there, but you can have a perfect round world in this way.

And I do hope Civ4 will stay 2D, that's the strength of Civ! 3D will only look ugly, lot of work for nothing and it won't run on slower pc's.

 

[warpstorm]

Why is 2D a strength?

Why do you think 3D will look ugly? How 3D looks has more to do with the quality of the artists rather than the technology.

 

[pirke]

True, but that's the experience I have with games that are implemented in 3D, just to be 3D. There is no need for Civ4 to be 3D. Most games that go 3D, just to be 3D will lose gameplay.

Of course Civ4 can be an exception, but I fear the worst.

 

[Bilko]

No, going 3D I think would improve it quite a bit: It allows for possibilities like a round globe, plus it will look more realistic, etc. Normally, I prefer 2D games to 3D ones, but I think civ is an exception here, considering the nature of the game