World Maps?

[Lord Parkin]

Sorry if this has been asked before... I did do a quick skim though and don't think it has been recently.

My question is this: is civ4 going to ship with world maps? And if so, will they be DECENT? (I mean, consider the ones that came with civ3 - AWFUL! The standard one was WAAAAAY warped, and although the huge one was not so bad with respect to warping, it had an even worse error IMO: it was MISSING NEW ZEALAND!!! )

 

[The Last Conformist]

If not, there'll no doubt be good fan-made ones out quick enough.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Yeah, of course. But what I'm wondering is, will they actually bother to make a decent effort themselves this time?

 

[Left_Wing_Liber]

Lord, you are totally right.

The Civ 3 maps were so annoyingly bad.

Thanks for the user-created maps. My favourite was always europe cos i could never be bothered to do a world map as i hate ships and crossing oceans.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Well, it's all personal taste.

I doubt however whether we should expect any decent Europe maps, let alone World Maps, to be shipped with the game. You never know though...

 

[Darwin420]

Given that they said the maps were going to be smaller, because of the 3D engine, I would wager we won't get a very decent world map. BUT, that doesn't mean we won't get some good region maps.

 

[mastertyguy]

Anyway, I am tired of world map games, I almost only played them in civ2, and the map was so bad I stop playing them in civ3.

 

[KrikkitTwo]

Well Given that the maps will be smaller, even if they have a decent world map, I doubt it will include New Zealand (*although maybe a 2 square island but I'm afraid thats the most NZ could expect to get)

 

[Lord Parkin]

At least those two squares recognise that we're there...

And besides, your logic is floored - the smaller map DID have NZ in it.

@masterguy: Try downloading some decent ones, there's a lot around.

 

[Speaker]

See this thread: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=120262

 

[Lord Parkin]

Thanks, Speaker. Though that's not quite the same topic...

 

[HourlyDaily]

A two square NZ map, all the better to invade the Kiwis...ha ha ha.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Actually, all we need in that case is one city and one unit, and we're invincible until the late industrial age.

 

[CoolioVonHoolio]

i prefer the user created maps better than the firaxis made maps thier just better quality...
so frankly i dont care if they put a world map in...

 

[Brain]

I think a lot of people complaining about world maps don't really understand what the problem is. Let me explain...

In C3C a huge map has 160 tiles across and 80 tiles down (because the 160 tiles are interleaved). That means that every tile represents a longitude of 2.25 degrees and a latitude of 2.25 degrees. To represent New Zealand you have to find squares of land that span 2.25 degrees of longitude and latitude. Not only do you have to find such squares, but they also have to coincide with the map grid.

The same problem exists with the rest of the "forgotten" locations. In order to represent those locations well the only solution is to have a better "resolution" (more squares). Unfortunately, that probably won't be the case.

 

[Lord Parkin]

No, there's no problem with resolution, the maps just plain sucked. New Zealand fits on a Tiny, Small, Standard, and Large map, so why the heck should it not fit on a Huge map?

 

[Brain]

No, there's no problem with resolution, the maps just plain sucked. New Zealand fits on a Tiny, Small, Standard, and Large map, so why the heck should it not fit on a Huge map?

It doesn't, if you want to represent the world accurately. The world maps that represent such tiny objects are exaggerating sizes and are technically incorrect.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Uh... dude, maybe you should check your atlas. New Zealand's small, but it's not THAT small. And having made extremely precise world maps myself, I know that it DOES, ABSOLUTELY, fit on small maps, let alone huge ones.

 

[Brain]

Uh... dude, maybe you should check your atlas. New Zealand's small, but it's not THAT small. And having made extremely precise world maps myself, I know that it DOES, ABSOLUTELY, fit on small maps, let alone huge ones.

Did you even read my post? On a small map you need a contiguous mass of land that spans 4.5 degrees AND coincides with the map grid if you want to have even a one square island. I did actually check my atlas, and it's pretty hard to find a 4.5 x 4.5 degree square of land in New Zealand. Just beause you've seen New Zealand represented on a small map doesn't mean the map is accurate and not distorted.

 

[Lord Parkin]

Dude, I've made small maps like that.

Okay, probably I'm not explaining myself correctly. The way I do things is to say "if that tile has more than 50% land, it's a land tile... and if it has more than 50% sea, it's a sea tile". That seems to work quite well for the small maps.

But for the huge maps, you have to agree, there ARE a few "land-filled" squares even going by your method.