Tiling a Globe Impossible with old grid of squares

[troyjgrice]

Gnawing Questions...If the game is grid based, how do you grid a sphere... or is the world really just a glorified cylinder like the other versions (no going over the poles)? In order to tile a sphere you would need a polygon of some type (hexagons) or a staggered grid (like brick-laying) with each higher latititude having fewer grids I would imagine. This would change game play a little bit. Are there any mathmaticians out there that can explain it to me?

Can you select "flat world" for continent specific scenarios?

[Grandpa Troll]

good questions

I allways try to have a little of the old "look-its-Santa Claus" approach

Its a game and have fun and overlook a few minor areas..minor to me major to most

I mean..its not like we are really "Ruling the world" I just trry to over look some of these areas..although maybe they need to be more precise and perfect?

[drekmonger]

I dunno for a fact, but from looking at the screenshots and gameplay videos I'd say it's a normal flat civ map (with wrapping around the x edges). It's only graphically distorted with wrapped around the sphere--if that's the case it won't be possible to go over the poles with units.

There do seem to be limited size maps that are not wrapped.

[Grandpa Troll]

so wasnt there a way to still go over the poles in CIVIII: Conquests?

I never really paid attention to the tiles..just used the option to go north and south and east and west

Maybe it would be more realistic not to be able to do this?

havent really made up my mind yet.....

[troyjgrice]

Too bad. That's a slight disappointment for me. I thought a true "globe" would be a slick (albeit not critical) feature. I seem to recall a game called Populous having a spherical world way back in the day.

technically, I think wrapping the Y grid would give you a doughnut shaped world rather than a sphere.

[Tventano]

Easiest solution mapping squares on a globe is to make a cube. As a consequence there will be 8 irregularities on the map (the corners of the cube). When that can be solved for the working of the city, the only remaining problem is showing this in a reasonable way to the user.

Of course just declaring the top and bottom sides as being full of ice and unpassable, brings back our well known cylindrical earh.

[TimeTraveler]

I don't think a cube map will be too bad. I'd play on one.

However, I think that for tiling a map with poles, there may be some better-looking options, if one's willing to code the game so that the tiles connect as such:

Of course, one idea I would like to see is one where the tiles on the map are a bunch of triangles, like on a geodesic grid. Cities and terrain stuff would be on the tiles themselves, while units can go to and from the center and vertices of tiles, or in several cases the centers of adjacent tiles.
[sample image not yet available]

[Kristjan]

I really hope that in the next generation of Civ, the Firaxians will give up the tiles... It is VERY outdated concept by now. Use just co-ordinates instead and calculate necessary distances for engagement and everything else. It opens up a horde of new possibilities - cities and units taking up different amount of space in the map etc.

It would be a rather revolutionary change, but it would do only good for the game.

[Grandpa Troll]

Originally posted by Kristjan
I really hope that in the next generation of Civ,

any rumor to the release date for CIV V?

the Firaxians will give up the tiles... It is VERY outdated concept by now. Use just co-ordinates instead and calculate necessary distances for engagement and everything else. It opens up a horde of new possibilities - cities and units taking up different amount of space in the map etc.

It would be a rather revolutionary change, but it would do only good for the game.

Ok..just asking

[troyjgrice]

Nice concept globes! I think your triangle tiles can be combined to form a hexagon grid. Is Civ 4 modable to that extent?

[Blake]

It's impossible to tile a globe with hexagons, you need a few pentagons too.

[Tventano]

Using hexagons means you need 12 pentagons.
Main problem remains how to represent this for the city.

But for the time being Civ will be squares, on a cube this means 8 irregular points. How to solve this for the concerned cities?

[alms66]

Originally posted by Tventano
How to solve this for the concerned cities?

Simple. Make each tile a city, independent of other tiles.

[Locutus]

Re: Tiling a Globe Impossible with old grid of squares

Originally posted by troyjgrice
Gnawing Questions...If the game is grid based, how do you grid a sphere... or is the world really just a glorified cylinder like the other versions (no going over the poles)?

It's a cylinder.

Can you select "flat world" for continent specific scenarios?

Yes. For scenarios and map scripts, you can select any map wrapping combo:

1) X wrap, Y wrap ("doughnut")
2) X wrap, no Y wrap ("earth/cylinder")
3) No X wrap, no Y wrap ("flat")
4) No X wrap, Y wrap ("uranus/titled axis")

Each of these options occurs among the 20ish default map scripts that the game ships with.

[sophist]

Originally posted by Tventano
Using hexagons means you need 12 pentagons.
Main problem remains how to represent this for the city.

I'd be ok with making those 12 pentagons impassable. There are several ways of doing it so it blends in relatively well, be it a lake, mountain, or some "iceberg" terrain type. You'd extend it so that neighboring squares were part of the same lake or mountain range, of course, so it would be less regular.