Actually, I have put a lot of thought into that lately, and I think that I have a working solution. Obviously, random map generation wouldn't work for it. But basically, the traditional four-square planet would consist of 1-3 different terrain types from the desert, grass, plain, and tundra types (noting that tundra only works with itself or grass). That gives us 161 (I think) different possible planets, not including river, forest, jungle, and marsh effects, and landmark adds even more.
Using a shadow effect for the north pole and just barely peeking the south pole past the center of the transition tile graphic, we can then use hills and mountains for rocky and gas planets, respectively. Thus, we could have a 1-, two 2-, and a 4-square for each type. And with forest and jungle (assuming I can force the map to use them) there ends up being 12 different rocky planets and 16 gas planets, again ignoring landmark terrain. Use volcanoes for suns, and you get either 4 or 8 different suns (do volcanoes have a snowy equivalent?), plus you can animate the occasional solar flare.
I would use a large moon for bonus grassland, and potentially use tnt for small moons or other flavor effects. Rivers would add clouds to indicate presence of significant water; maybe floodplains for large bodies of water. For the other planets, maybe use mtnRivers to add an icy moon (Europa-type) to the orbit. You might even be able to use a single hill to represent a particularly large moon for a normal planet in place of normal terrain.
I'm still figuring out the implementation of the forest, jungle, and marsh overlays. The curvature is what makes it so difficult. Maybe rocky space debris around the planet? A nebula of gas for the marsh? Or should it be iconic, more like a resource? It's the major problem I havent figured out.
I have the basic concept, but due to my father passing away this spring and taking my professional exams at the end of the month, I haven't yet started creating any terrain models. I hope to have a sample of what I'm talking about early next year. Someone posted a screen shot of what I was talking about way upthread (in fact, what started my contemplation), though I think it is larger than what I was planning for the major planets (about the right size for the four-square rocky and gas planets, though).
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Looks like the screenshot is gone now. Though reading back through, I may have some use for the marsh such as a small but highly radioactive sun. Could give me quite a few different looks, especially if I also use jungle the same way. And then volcanoes could be used for something else if need be, like a dangerous asteroid belt. Hmmm.... I like using forest as rocky debris field orbiting the planet (won't work for a desert planet, but hey, it's not perfect.
By the way, the diameter of my major planets will be somewhat larger than the larger axis of a tile diamond, depending on how much shadow I use. The darkened crescent will be at the top to give an illusion of looking down like the rest of civ does, rather than an ecliptic view like most space pictures. This is to maximize the size of the planets while still allowing for small rocky and gas planets.
Thanks Vadus for creating this thread. I will link to it when I start my own thread. After all, it's because of you that I even started to think about it.
. However I tried to do that earlier, but I called it Space Terrain instead of Space. I did what I normally do to use alternative terrains.
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