Google Earth Civ4

[Addled Platypus]

is it nature to be human

[Xorbon]

Originally posted by TimeTraveler
How would one determine the borders of cities, terrain, and terrain improvements on a tile-less map?

I don't know. If anyone could come up with a solution I'd be happy to see it.

[GeoModder]

Originally posted by TimeTraveler
How would one determine the borders of cities, terrain, and terrain improvements on a tile-less map?

Through geographical features (or the general change of terrain) like rivers, a mountainrange,...

Just a thought.

[Aro]

Originally posted by GeoModder


Through geographical features (or the general change of terrain) like rivers, a mountainrange,...

Just a thought.

This is a really good idea. I wonder how difficult could be to implement, though.

[GeoModder]

Yes, such a routine should be capable of auto-bordering territories where the choosen border feature(s) don't link exactly. So a border could follow a river, but eventually the river has an endpoint and for example a piece of hill divides the origin with another river. The routine should then be capable of linking two such starting rivers to "create" a territory.

Also, fertile territories should be smaller (for they can support already a quite large number of people) while territories like deserts should be immense to be able maintaining a similar amount of people.

Another feature could be that in a 3D environment a player can start a single first city, colony, whatever in a certain territory, and that by population growth more other 'settlements' are founded outside player control, just to show the larger number of people living there. A sort of the joys of pretty visuals at close range, and an easier oversight at a general overview

[TimeTraveler]

Originally posted by GeoModder
Yes, such a routine should be capable of auto-bordering territories where the choosen border feature(s) don't link exactly. So a border could follow a river, but eventually the river has an endpoint and for example a piece of hill divides the origin with another river. The routine should then be capable of linking two such starting rivers to "create" a territory.

Also, fertile territories should be smaller (for they can support already a quite large number of people) while territories like deserts should be immense to be able maintaining a similar amount of people.

Another feature could be that in a 3D environment a player can start a single first city, colony, whatever in a certain territory, and that by population growth more other 'settlements' are founded outside player control, just to show the larger number of people living there. A sort of the joys of pretty visuals at close range, and an easier oversight at a general overview

In all honestly, that sounds like using tiles that are irregularly shaped and sized. Where in a region would terrain improvements and/or cities be built? Would two differently sized regions of the same kind of terrain offer different amounts of resources and require different portions of population to work at completely? In fact, how would one determine what regions or portions of regions would go to a city? o.o

I'm not sure how players would respond to not being able to build and control settlers on their own.

[GeoModder]

It is a huge step away from the classic tile system, that's true.

The idea sofar only goes for the overview.

[TimeTraveler]

Well... In any case, two nights ago I decided to compile some other ideas that I think will fit okay in this thread. ...and yes, they do stick to tiled maps.

My thought is that we may as well try to fine-tune the movement rates between tiles of different length. In the Civ series, SMAC, CTP series, and GalCiv, the map is split into a grid of square tiles. Going between two tiles that share an edge somehow requires the same movement points as going between two tiles that share a corner but not an edge. This essentially makes the shape of the range for a unit to go within a certain number of turns (assuming terrain and other units don't affect it) into a giant square. However, a more optimal goal for the range of a unit would involve a shape closer to that of a circle. If the movement points needed to get to any of the closest four and any of the four after that were 2 and 3 respectively, the maximum distances in which a unit can go in a certain number of turns in various directions will even out into a more octagon-shaped range. This will show that it manages to outdo hexes in terms of unit evenness. Of course, having spacing requirements of 5 and 7 would be even better, and in both cases, unit movement rates would have to be multiplied so that they don't take 2 to 7 times as long to go from point A to point B. xP

There will still exist a problem with using a square grid that covers the poles: The map would end up cube-shaped. However, that would still be a step-up from Civ's current setup and its complete lack of poles. Also, if the movement moint requirements are to be fine-tuned, It would also require units to keep going until their movement points drop to zero or less, and if not zero, to combine the resulting negative number with the movement points the unit will be granted next turn. At least then, infantry and cavalry won't be going at the same speed in hills and mountains (unless they're specifically programmed to do so).

Another possible solution is to move on to 5-3-2 symmetry and use 12 pentagons and at least 990 or so more hexes. The unit movement would be decently spaced, and unless leaving a road or going onto a hilly, forested, or mountainous area, a unit won't have to bother with movement points lost next turn. However, there is how things can get quite awkward concerning the shape (and even more so size) of the pentagons in comparison to the hexagons. It could raise some disagreement on how to implement graphics or even the value of the tiles.

One idea I thought up and liked (but might not be popular here) involves keeping 5-3-2 symmetry but going in the direction of triangles instead of hexes and pentagons. The difference in distance of adjacent tiles will definitely mean some individual movements will require more or less movement points than others, meaning further that the movement spent would have to be recorded (like in the cube map). However, at that point a unit's range could look even nicer than even the octagon ranges in that map.

However, I personally had figured that triangles might be bad as the shape of tiles on which cities and terrain improvements are to go on. One idea I had was to split each triangle into three equal, symmetrical kite-shaped tiles. On one hand, determining the distances to certain adjacent tiles wasn't very easy, but I think I found an okay approximate solution:

Furthermore, I decided to see how even the movement point requirements would be further out and I got this:

Like I said before, it might not be too popular, but I think it would be interesting. :P

[sophist]

A problem with the cubic world is that the 3 squares around each corner would only have 7 neighboring squares, not 8 like the rest of the squares.

[TimeTraveler]

Originally posted by sophist
A problem with the cubic world is that the 3 squares around each corner would only have 7 neighboring squares, not 8 like the rest of the squares.

That wouldn't be new issue. In previous Civ games, the map edges cause a lot of tiles (some even number depending on the size of the map) to each have only five neighboring squares. The only exception to that is the doughnut world in the CTP series.

[Darkstar]

We've been doing spheres for a long time in computers.

You'd need point and click as well as keyboard (back to the old standard with 2 = N), but that isn't a big deal. We already have it.

I'd like to see Civ play on a globe for a change. It's not very difficult. Civ's cartography should move out of the 1950s and join us in the 21st century!

Time Traveller, very nice system!

[sophist]

Originally posted by TimeTraveler
That wouldn't be new issue. In previous Civ games, the map edges cause a lot of tiles (some even number depending on the size of the map) to each have only five neighboring squares.

Which I've always found annoying, but I've been unable to come up with something game-appropriate that works better.

Originally posted by Darkstar
We've been doing spheres for a long time in computers.

You'd need point and click as well as keyboard (back to the old standard with 2 = N), but that isn't a big deal. We already have it.

I'd like to see Civ play on a globe for a change. It's not very difficult. Civ's cartography should move out of the 1950s and join us in the 21st century!

Seriously? I've had zero luck coming up with a scheme that meets the following requirements:

1) roughly spherical
2) all tiles have roughly the same size
3) all tiles have the same number of neighbors
4) the frame of reference is absolute, not relative
5) all tiles have roughly the same orientation

I can see dropping #5, but even with 1-4, I'm not sure it's possible.

[Darkstar]

Sophist, no need for "tiles". It's all just data points on your globe. For players, you can grab an area and call that a "tile" for old civ players. Then, they'd overlap slightly on the edge. But every "tile" then becames unique. A rocky mountain may be all moutain, or just mostly mountain. Both would render different potential production problems.

Graphically (display), it's all relative. You just call a particular point as "origin", and that becomes your North Pole. In the actual memory map, you can have different kinds of representation depending on what you want to optimize your data for. Indeed, you could even have layers on your sphere, if you wanted to simulate a bit of continental drift, faulting, etc.

Spherical mapping and modelling isn't anything new in computers. Just because a game designer would rather use a simple array to represent a 1 for 1 mapping between tiles and game display doesn't mean they have to.

Even if you insist on that, you can generate a more approxiamate sphere by simply turning the 2x array on its point. Each pole then is a solitary tile, and connects to the two tiles beneath it (all other directs "connect" it to itself). Those two tiles then connect to the three beneath it, etc, etc etc. At the left and right edge of your map for a "row", it connects back to the other side (wraps around). The equatorial row is the full size of your world grid, and it tapers back from there to a solitary South pole tile. It's remarkably simple to do, and a simple function lets you convert any tile on your display into a proper location in your memory's 2x array. Navigation is familar to the iso familar. Path finding is easy. You've got all the standard map behavior (zooming in and out)... and you can even roll the map to change the apparent center square. But it will be apparent it's the old square, just dressed as a diamond. But that would still be a more global setting then the current Civ.

It's just how married are you to seeing your world as a square map? there's plenty of other regular shapes we could use. Heck, the old 20 sided triangle would make for a relatively round model. Graphically, you could then round it out, to make it look like a sphere (I believe something similar was actually done for Populous 3).

We should be playing on a globe. It's a global game. Why, oh why, are we stuck with the very first game map representation ever made for computers?

[sophist]

Then you run into problems with quantizing your sphere. I can't figure out how a game like Civilization would work with real number coordinates rather than integral ones. I'm not saying it can't, as obviously lots of games and other software can handle spheres just fine, just that it seems like it would have change Civ a lot. Right now, it's easy to say "mine this tile" or whatever, but how do you do that when you have no tiles?

[Darkstar]

Mine this point. If a mine can access X distance out for resource harvesting, it still hasn't changed the game from a UI point of view. Just your tiles are now "sloppy" instead of being snapped to a particular grid.