What are 'map animations,' anyway?

[Helium Pond]

There's that option in the preferences menu, 'turn on map animations'. I usually play with it on, but darng if I see any animations. What are they talking about?

[Googlie]

explosions, new nutrients straining to burst through and finally doing it, volcanoes erupting, etc is my guess

[Helium Pond]

Well, explosions definitely still happen when it's turned off. As for that other stuff, it happens so rarely that it's hard to tell. Hm. Good guesses, though.

[Googlie]

yeah - I tested it with animations off, and still got the explosions. Also still got the 'animated map' at game end (your expanding empire).

Only other thing I can think of is the feature where your needlejets hug the terrain and tilt their wings etc to fly round mountains, and where your Rover's wheels spin when climbing up river beds - didn't test that though.

(What, you mean you don't play with the zoom on ultra?)

G.