Round Globe

[judgement]

Originally posted by 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?

Then which five keys would move you? One thing I like about squares is that movement is very intuitive using the numeric keypad: 8 moves you north, 9 northeast, 6 east, and so on. Its bad enough that with hexes, two of those wouldn't do anything, but for the occasional pentagon, there'd be another button that did nothing, and there's no obvious answer for which one that should be.

Furthermore, look at the pic of Epcot center again: on a geodesic sphere, not only are there some pentagons, but the hexes don't all face the same direction. For the hexes immediately underneath the pentagon that's clearly visible, you can go due north/south, but not due east/west, i.e., the intuitive movement keys would be 7-8-9-3-2-1 (for NW-N-NE-SE-S-SW). But the hexes above the pentagon are oriented differently: the intuitive keys would be 9-6-3-1-4-7 (for NE-E-SE-SW-W-NW). Even worse are some of the hexes to the side of the pentagon: none of the hex faces are directly N, S, E, or W, and there's no easy, intuituve keyboard commands for motion. I can guarantee that people would complain bitterly anytime the mean to go to one hex and accidentally moxed to a different hex because the proper key wasn't the one they guessed.

For the last time: a round globe is only a good idea if they eliminate discrete tiles completely. As long as there are tiles, they should stick to a flat map of regular squares, diamonds, or hexes. Round maps with tiles simply become a geometrical nightmare.

 

[rcoutme]

Then have the geodesic sphere move the pentagon when you are dealing with an area near it (I realize that this would take some serious computing skills, but hey, we're just suggesting). In other words, whereever you are, you see hexagons. The global view would (by necessity) have 12 pentagonal representations, but the larger (played) map would show all hexagons near you. This would allow you to move correctly. This would require, however that the global map be reconfigured each time you go to a different hex.

Either that, or warp the whole thing so that the pentagons are out and hexagons are in (thus not truly globular--more oblong--which would be the case with a bunch of flat surfaces anyways).

 

[Bilko]

Can someone please show me where I can find a proof that any sphere made from hexagons has to have at least 12 pentagons?

 

[Denarr]

I really don't see why a map can't be based on a icosahedron (same shape as a 20 sided die) and the triangles filled with hexagons.
Yeah, sure, you'll be pressing 1-6, instead of the eight keys around the 5, but distances between differenct locations will be more realistic.
Spherical worlds look ugly? I much prefer to use a globe for looking at a world, than a top and bottom distorted rectagular map.
I've taken my rectangular maps from civ and projected them onto a spherical shape. I've found the spherical world to be much more realistic looking and far more appealing than the rectangular representation.
As for playing in the game, how much of the wold do you see at a time in a close up. For a mini-map, they could easily give options of viewing the world as a rectangle or a sphere, probably having the sphere free spinning or manually manipulated as you wanted.
The closeup map would have little, if any distortion because you would be only viewing the the map as if someone handed you an almanac of the region you were viewing.
Real-planet mock ups would be less distorted than their flat projection mockups, even if you did only include a portion of the world. (Unless, you just couldn't get a decent almanac or globe, which seems to occur quite frequently.)

Makes the logics of warfare more complicated?
In what way? Being able to slip by the enemy, if there was a hole in their wall of units, made combat far more complex than conversion to a hex-grid would.

Even if there isn't a way to avoid the 12 pentagonal spaces, it would be very easy to just make those spaces non-useable terrain, or to merely categorize them with special properties as if they were special terrain tiles. It would be less difficult than adding six more terrain tiles, or doubling the amount of resources, as some modded games have done.

As for the directions available to move from the hex tiles surrounding the pent tiles...RTS games don't even have the option to move units with the keyboard, so making a minor adjustment to the ridged 'this key always goes left' thinking should be much easier than the adjustment to moving pieces with the keyboard was.

As far as that goes, a lot of RTS games use a square grid for building/city placement, while still using an apparent hex-based or real distance movement for units. Some even go so far as to show which route the units are going to take, and even allow you to set waypoints for each unit, if you wish to take a specific route.

Sooner or late Civ is going to have to evolve beyond the Square grid system, I'd like to see it happen before turn-based games go the way of the board based strategy games...on the shelves next to Hi-ho, Cherry-O! and Chutes and Ladders.

In my opinion.

 

[Gogf]

I must say again, no offense, but this is a bad idea. It goes against years of civ policy. If a round globe is instituted in Civ4, it will make the game so much less enjoyable.

 

[judgement]

Originally posted by Denarr
I really don't see why a map can't be based on a icosahedron (same shape as a 20 sided die) and the triangles filled with hexagons.

Take a look at your icosahedron if you have one handy. There are twenty sides, each with 3 corners, for a total of 60 corners. The corners come together in groups of 5, for a total of 12 "points" on the icosahedron. Now, if you subdivide the triangles into more and more triagles, you can get more and more places where 6 triangles intersect, i.e., more hexagons. But you're always left with the original 12 points where 5 triangles intersect, i.e., 12 pentagons. You can't get rid of them, no matter how many times you divide up the original triangles, and no matter how many hexagons that results in. It is precisely because a geodesic sphere is based on an icosahedron that it always has 12 places where 5 triangles meet instead of 6.

As to the rest of your post, "RTS games do it" is not a very compelling arguement for those of us who don't care for RTS games.

 

[judgement]

Originally posted by Bilko
Can someone please show me where I can find a proof that any sphere made from hexagons has to have at least 12 pentagons?

Well, sphere's full of hexagons don't necessarily have 12 pentagons: they could have other shapes intersperced instead of pentagons: squares, triangles, octogons, etc. But, its relatively simple to prove that spheres made entirely from hexes are impossible.

Here is a page I found about this topic. Read the parts about Platonic solids and Archimedean Solids. Here's another document, if you're more mathematically inclined.

There are only five Platonic Solids possible, 3 with triangular faces (tetrahedron, octahedron, icosahedron), 1 with square faces (cube, aka hexahedron), and 1 with pentagonal faces (dodecahedron). A solid comprised entirely of hexagonal faces doesn't exist.

There are 12 possible Archimedean Solids (in which the faces are all polygons but not necessarily the same polygon). Of these, 5 involves hexagons. The {5,6,6} solid (the "truncated icosahedron") has one pentagon and 2 hexagons at each vertex (think of a soccer ball: each corner touches 1 black pentagon and 2 white hexagons). This solid has 20 hexagonal faces and 12 pentagonal ones. To make a geodesic sphere (like the picture of Epcot center shown) you can start with this shape. Chop each hex into 6 triangles and each pentagon into 5 triangles. Then chop all the triangles into smaller and smaller triangles, and finally, reassemble into hexagons and pentagons. The more triangles you chopped into, the more hexagons there will be, but there will always be 12 pentagons, because there will always be 12 places where 5 triangles intersect instead of 6.

Now, like I said, if you wanted, you could try making a sphere with hexes and squares (start with the {4,6,6} solid), hexes and triangles (start with {3,6,6}), etc. But its all academic, since I really doubt Civ 4 will have a grid system where the tiles come in different shapes, just so that it can be on a sphere.

 

[judgement]

Originally posted by Denarr
Sooner or late Civ is going to have to evolve beyond the Square grid system, I'd like to see it happen before turn-based games go the way of the board based strategy games...on the shelves next to Hi-ho, Cherry-O! and Chutes and Ladders.

Well, it has been a couple decades since I played Chutes and Ladders, but my family and friends still play boardgames relatively regularly. I even know some people who play board games more often than computer games, if you can believe that. Are you saying that a game like Chess is extinct? I'd consider that a "board-based strategy game" and I think it has a little more staying power than any of your FPS computer games. Speaking of chess, when was the last time you heard someone suggest that new chessboards should all have hexagonal tiles (or be spheres?) because chess must "evolve" or become obsolete.

Turn based games are not going to disappear, because there is a segment of the gaming public that prefers them over other types of games, and will continue to buy them, antiquated square-grid pattern or not. I don't mean to sound too agressive here, and I do admit there are some advantages to a hex-grid. But your arguments that civ "needs to evolve" are very far from convincing. Having 12 pentagonal tiles on a mostly hexagonal map, and giving those tiles special properties? How is that possibly a good solution? IMHO, a good solution is a regular grid that's easy to understand, and on which the same commands always do the same thing. A flat grid of squares is my preference, and a flat grid of hexes would be an acceptable alternative. I'd be in favor of a spherical map if it was possible to do it with a regular grid, but it isn't, simple fact. To me, a regular grid is more important that a round globe: one is good for playability, the other adds very little to gameplay and is purely for "realism."

 

[warpstorm]

Originally posted by judgement
Turn based games are not going to disappear, because there is a segment of the gaming public that prefers them over other types of games, and will continue to buy them, antiquated square-grid pattern or not.

And I am one of them.

 

[Ballazic]

I think that it would help but maybe in an expansion pack after they improve the ai.

 

[warpstorm]

This is the kind of feature that is designed into the game, not put in an expansion pack. It is too hard to make that kind of sweeping change after a code base is established.

 

[Denarr]

Sorry, folks, I had a lot of thoughts to put to type, and some of those thoughts may have overlapped or been incomplete.

I am very familiar with a icosahedrons, and had noticed all the five pointed corners. I am more than willing to concede that it's impossible to make a sphere entirely out of hexes.

I am also a fan of turn based strategy games, I only used the RTS games as an example of how a hex based system for movement could be simulated, even with the problems presented with trying to use a fixed shape for terrain tiles.

I have no problems with board games, in fact I still play them on occasion. I was trying to point out that I don't know of any people who still play civ style board games, most of them preferring to play the electronic versions, rather than deal with hundreds of piles of unit pieces and trying to keep track of which pieces had been moved and which still have moves left to them.

Sooner or later spherical worlds will be used for civ style games, and I'd like to see it happen before I lose interest in, or the ability for, playing these types of games.

Chess would not be chess if it were played on a differetly shaped board. Even 3-D chess isn't really chess. There are, however, chess style games that are played on differenly shaped boards, and there have even been a few versions that use a spherical board. (On computer of course.)

Classic games don't become obsolete. Some people prefer the classic versions of games, as has been said, while some people like to see new things, or are required to wait until someone can find enough of a market for the more innovative versions of games they already enjoy playing.

I never much cared for chess, but I loved All the King's Men, which was a chess variant.

Maybe Civ 4 won't have a spherical world, but I look forward to a day when Civ works out the problems for making it happen.

 

[judgement]

Originally posted by Denarr
I have no problems with board games, in fact I still play them on occasion. I was trying to point out that I don't know of any people who still play civ style board games, most of them preferring to play the electronic versions, rather than deal with hundreds of piles of unit pieces and trying to keep track of which pieces had been moved and which still have moves left to them.

I'll concede that point... haven't played Shogun or Axis & Allies in years. Although I recently did get invited to play some game that my friend said was sort of like a board-game version of Master of Orion. Couldn't make it, oh well...

Sooner or later spherical worlds will be used for civ style games, and I'd like to see it happen before I lose interest in, or the ability for, playing these types of games.

Yes, that's undoubtedly true, the question is whether spherical worlds will ever be used in the Civ franchise itself. Using the chess example again, there are two types of new games that can occur: variations on chess (that are similar but have "new" features) and new implementations of chess (i.e., computer chess games with smarter AI, different user interface, etc.). The former can incorporate hexes or spherical boards of whatever, but the latter never will.

Are new Civ versions more like the former or the latter? To me, they're somewhere in between. The do change the rules (its not just cosmetic and AI improvements) and even add new features, but at the same time, they also try to be pretty faithful to the original. There are plenty of other games out there that are inspired by Civ, and I'd prefer tp leave the more radical changes (which includes spherical worlds) to those games.

Maybe Civ 4 won't have a spherical world, but I look forward to a day when Civ works out the problems for making it happen.

I think the only really simple and logically consistent way to do it would be to scrap the tile system alltogether. Would I like to see this happen in Civ? No. Would I buy a Civ-type game that had a spherical world without discrete tiles? Yes - or at least, I'd consider it if other aspects of the game were also good. In other words, I don't think a spherical world is a bad thing, and I'm sure we'll eventually (probably even soon) see a Turn-Based Strategy game with that feature. I just don't want it to be Civ itself, since I don't like the inelegant options for doing a sphere made of tiles, and I think a tile-less system isn't faithful enough to the classic concept of the original Civ game.

 

[pirke]

I've got Axis&Allies at home, as well as the Civ board game. They both don't use a tile system, but countries where units can be in.

When I posted my arguments for a round world, hex tiles etc, I didn't had in mind that the num keypad couldn't be used the same way and I really think a lot of people use it, it's easy to use, logic and prevents RSI

Although a hex map would be more realistic, I prefer to use the num keypad as it is right now, if they can make a way with the hex to use it just as easy and logic as it is now, I say use hex. Perhaps only keys 7,8,4,5,1,2 or keys 7,8,9,4,5,6 or 4,5,6,1,2,3. I'd prefer one of the last two possibilities.

 

[Duke_of_BOOM!]

The one thing that kind of erks me, is the lack of a sense of scale. Having an Empire that spans a hemisphere would be kind of nice, as would knowing that the enemy is just beyond the curvature of the planet.

I know it would be difficult to draw a grid on a globe (at least at the poles anyway), and this would greatly increase system requirements, but I feel it may give more depth to the Civ gaming experience.

 

[warpstorm]

A globe is simple if you go to 3D (which I think Firaxis is).

 

[Philips beard]

To me this has no importance at all! Like the resources spent on units, better warfare/trading/diplomacy-systems and more cultural spefisic civs!

 

[Chieftess]

Didn't SMAC have a globe view? It could switch between globe and flat view.

 

[Denarr]

There is already a thread about a Round Globe, please take the time to look around before starting a new thread.
Some of the difficulties and suggested solutions for using a round world have been posted here.

 

[Duke_of_BOOM!]

My bad, I looked through the first 3 pages and did not see a thread.

Just because the game area is a grid, does not mean that the display has to be flat, the areas on the side would have to be streched/shrunk when not in the center of the view.