The Earth is round!!!!!! (maybe...)

[Silv Something]

I like the poles-reward, kind of like the natural wonder gold in CivRev, no?

 

[playshogi]

Yeah, I don't think that Firaxis would want pentagons on the map. That would be kind of strange in the game. Imagine: "Aw crap, I started on a pentagon tile! ....

I would hope that the 12 pentagons would be surrounded by impassable tiles or oceans, so that this could not occur. Pentagons would also mess up their path-finding routines.

 

[Cliftor]

I sincerely doubt they'd have pentagons hidden among the hexagons. If for no other reason than aesthetics, symmetry or simplicity. IF they were gonna have a true spherical globe for us to play on, I'd expect irregular hexes long before I expected them to throw in out-of-place polygons.

Unfortunately, afaik there are exactly five and only five regular polyhedra, and none of them are made of hexes. None of them even have that many faces to work with, for a wargame. There's the tetrahedron, cube, octahedron, icosahedron and dodecahedron.

Honestly, while we're talking about the change from squares to hexes in general, I don't understand the motivation. AFAIK, the advantage of hexes is that distances are more accurately represented, which I guess is desirable with they're making battles more tactical. But Squares, despite the diagonal oddities, allow every square to have 8 connections- one for each cardinal and ordinal direction. In a hex grid, just to move from east to west is gonna make us zig zag, and tbqh that feels weird.

If anyone can make me forget my worries and make me love their game, though, it's Firaxis. I'll just have to wait for more news.

I also really doubt they'd try and throu

 

[Hans Lemurson]

The 12 pentagons would occur on the corners of the icosahedron. Incidentally, projecting a sphere onto an icosahedron is called the Fuller projection, after Buckminster Fuller. The pentagons wouldn't actually cause that huge a disadvantage to their local area as one might think. Building a city (like a damned fool) on a pentagon only results in a 17% decrease in the workable land around it (15 tiles rather than 18). Building a city adjacent to one results in only one missing tile. The only wonkiness that sets in is in the city-packing in the local region, but further away, the effect basicly disappears. You don't need to make the pentagons impassible, just put some sort of goody resource on them to compensate the slightly more cramped location.

For those of you less geometricly inclined, just imagine a d20 where the surface of each face is covered with hexagons, each edge is also covered in hexagons, and only its 12 points have a single pentagon each on them. The faces and edges can have as many hexes as you want on them, but there will only ever be 12 pentagons. The bigger the map, the less effect the pentagons have. You might not even notice they were there. Well, that is, until you find one. Then you'll notice it for sure. But at a distance of more than 2 hexes, they should have basicly no effect on gameplay whatsoever. A small price to pay for a GLOBE.

 

[22bebo]

I concur, I would enjoy being able to go through the poles, and I'd probably build two cities, each on one of the poles, or at least, as close as I can come, just for the heck of it.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

If they do make a globe the best place to put the pentagons would be the poles.
I just hope they let us still play on flat earth maps.

 

[Wodan]

If they do make a globe the best place to put the pentagons would be the poles.
I just hope they let us still play on flat earth maps.

I think they pretty much have to, for scenarios.

 

[bestrfcplayer]

Nice. Well, if what your saying is true, then Civ5 will be the best one yet!

 

[SHS`]

I'm pretty certain even the smallest maps will be globes and that said 12 pentagons will be of zero-issue. Take a look:

See how every hexagon is 6 triangles and each pentagon is 5 triangles? So for each of the 12 pentagonal "poles", there are 12 "anti-poles" which are furthest possible distance from each pentagon. As long as the viewpoint points to this "anti-pole", the pentagons will be so far off into the distance you wouldn't even care about them (ie: sub-pixel on the horizon entities).

So as long as the "anti-pole" is kept viewpoint dead-centre, you can have your hexagonal grid stretch off to infinity for all you care, yet it'll still "magically" wrap (because of pentagons that are "beyond" view)...

Still not convinced? Even with a tiny Mario Galaxy sized globe*, you'd have a hard time spotting the pentagons:

* This globe is probably about 25 hexagons around the equator... that's smaller than even micro-maps in Civ4.

 

[Taalen]

...yet, it seems like nobody realized that it could be a hint to a much more awesome change to the gameplay: using hexes, it's possible that we'll play Civ V on a globe, rather than on a flat map ...

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=8910962&postcount=7

*gloat*

Beat you to it But you have a point - doesn't look like anybody noticed me noticing it

 

[Sava]

I am hoping for globe maps, but I suspect we are still stuck with flat maps for now. I'll be pleasantly surprised if they manage to give us globes.

 

[DroopyTofu]

I could see this idea working, but they'd proably make sure the pentagons were in the middle of oceans or on the poles.

On the other hand, wouldn't the poles be covered by ice? By Civ IV requirments, at least, you'd have to have a submarine go under the icecaps and to get to the poles. I think they'd have to make more viable ways to find the poles.

 

[22bebo]

Make it like the ice covered land in cIV possibly? No cities, no improvements, or something like that . . . Though my North and South pole ideas wouldn't work in that case . . . How about this, assuming that it does work, what would the benefit be? I would think something related, like that circumnavigation thing with water units, it didn't have to be completed with them, but you had to use them to get it. +1 movement for land units seems too generic, and too good, perhaps +1 sight? Or something along that note?

 

[Hans Lemurson]

Arg, the pentagons do NOT need to be treated like an unholy abomination!!! There will just be slightly more cramped land in their proximity than in other places. At WORST there will only be 17% less land. Also, you can't "hide all the pentagons at the poles". Geometry doesn't work like that. Just treat pentagons with the same respect and dignity that you would give to a hexagon, you racist caress gentlys!

hmmm... "Dr. Buckminster Fuller, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Pentagon."

 

[Tusked]

I think a bunch of pentagons would be hilarious. We could pull a succession game variant whereby we have to find and settle every pentagon on the map.

 

[Sava]

It seems like this is all conjecture and has nothing to do with Civ 5.

 

[Hans Lemurson]

It seems like this is all conjecture and has nothing to do with Civ 5.

Heretic!!! How dare you sully our rampant illogical speculation with reasonable observations!!!

 

[22bebo]

AAAARRRGGGHHH! Get him! *Angry mob forms and surges forward towards Sava*

 

[Bibor]

Maybe there will be a new possible objective called "Capture all Pentagons?" It's just logical!!! *gurgle*

 

[Tusked]

I feel the irrational urge to design a geometry-based civ spinoff where the tiles are all random shapes with numbers of sides ranging from three to six.