The Map.... Again

[DarkCloud]

How about we do not have special underground cities but we should have special underground improvements because life underground is different from aboveground.

More Resources:

Magma [Power resource *Volcanic Power* (Theoretical Geothermal powersource-Total Annihilation]


Types of underground terrain:

Granite [Mineral-rich]
Sandstone [Trashland (wasteland); fertile]
Soil [Fertile]

[UltraSonix]

Yes! Instead of making wholesale changes, small changes like the magma is better.

Other additions:
*River delta - for land near large rivers, bays etc. Provides extra food obviously.
*High tides - for seas squares, harnessing tidal energy on the square will give a bonous.
*Coral reef - extra marine life?, economy bonus (more tourists)
*Freshwater sea - was a special square in SMAC, but should be made a normal terrain type.

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No, in Australia we don't live with kangaroos and koalas in our backyards...

[DarkCloud]

*BUMP!*

[UltraSonix]

This topic should never be allow to go under.

Some more map squares:

*sea caves/underground caves - both provides extra money because of tourism.
*rock formations - (like the good ol' rock in the middle of Australia) - provides more tourism again.

Also, the forests should be different in different parts of the world (they could just look different but do the smae thing) - eg rainforests, pine forests, bamboo forests, conifer forests, blah blah.

There could also icebergs (not actually a square, but a unit of sorts), like I mentioned in my thread.

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No, in Australia we don't live with kangaroos and koalas in our backyards...

[Ribannah]

I think a spherical map is not too hard to combine with tiles - if you make them dynamic.

Imagine that permanent tiles are only generated for the city map and temporary tiles are used for unit movement and such: each time you centralize on something you see tiles around it, but the exact co-ordinates of those tiles are different.

Hexes seem easier to use than squares for this purpose.


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If you have no feet, don't walk on fire

[Sir Shiva]

Once again, I feel we need a LARGER map which can represent things on a smaller scale.
We need to do away with tiles as the functional unit of terrain. We should have 'co-ordinates' which have specific movement costs to traverse. This way, a unit is given some movement points and each move decreases them.
Also, each point should have an elevation value. Mountains shouldn't be single tiles but a collection of co-ordinates of high-elevation. Each mountain would be different, would have a different gradient and stuff. This way they could be use effectively for attack, defence, fortification and as natural barriers..

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[UltraSonix]

Good to see you back, Sir Shiva.

Has this been said berfore - maybe the map should be done away all together. The game could instead have a RTS-type map (!) where the units still have limited movement, etc, but everything would be controlled like in a RTS game. To move a unit, the player just drags the unit to the intended location with the mouse.

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No, in Australia we don't live with kangaroos and koalas in our backyards...

[Seeker]

I can't understand you, UltraSonix...words are coming out of your mouth that have no meaning to me...
R-T-S??! That's not what we do here...

[Nick-oh]

OK this might be a bit hard to explain, so just bear with me.

The problems with a spherical map have been well explained in this thread and a viable solution (as far as I can tell with my vast knowledge of programming) can be constructed out of a number of ideas already listed.

Sir Shiva, in his second post on this thread, put forward the idea of movement points for units, and different terrains costing differing mp's to traverse.

This would provide a solution on how to make polar areas behave semi-correctly. If the movement cost of a terrain square is also made dependant on latitude so that units can simply move faster in polar areas.

I think that's enough to explain that idea. Now I'll try to explain my solution on how to construct a map which looks somewhat like it should.

I think most will agree that while a pixelised map (see above posts) would be ideal, it would simply be too demanding on the system (I will struggle to afford the game let alone an upgrade) Therefor I think it safe to say that some sort of tile system is necessary.

Sorry I thought I had a solution to this but as I was typing it discovered too many flaws. I only tell you this because it highlighted what the problem actually was.

Attempting to use any variation of a flat map projection is useless because in effect you're not playing on a map, but the globe itself. It appears flat, but is infact spherical.

Ribannah's idea of dynamic tiles is perhaps the only way of gaining a sherical map, whilst still keeping keeping something remotely similar to what we have (though I don't think it would save any memory over pixelising)

Perhaps we should just leave well and good alone .

The movement idea is still valid though.

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"Common sense is not so common" - Voltaire

[Sir Shiva]

You are a brave man, Ultrasonix...

But I do like your idea.. Drag units to move.. It'd help in simultaneous play too...

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[Seeker]

umm, they're using a spherical globe in Sovereign, why won't it work in Civ? And Sovereign zooms in a lot more than Civ does.
use hexes. Make them of a size so that one is the north pole, and the other is the south pole, just like Epcot Center at Disney World. Presumably the main view is zoomed in close enough to avoid to much curvature at the horizons.

[Dienstag]

nit-picker's note: Spaceship Earth at EPCOT doesnt use hexagons; the base shape is a triangle (it's a little more complicated than that...call them "fancy triangles". Anyway, it wouldn't be ideal to make a map like Spaceship Earth because the triangles would have to be arranged so that in most places 6 triangles would meet at a point, but in some places only five triangles would meet at a point. If you can figure out game mechanics that work on a map like this, bring it on.

[Sir Shiva]

And have any of you'll seen the battle map in Shogun. The elevation and environmental effects (environmental effects in civ3? ) representation is pretty darn good...

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[Sir Shiva]

Ultrasonix's idea might work... You click on a unit and click on where you want it to go.. RTS style.. and it figures out how to get there in the shortest number of moves (keeping movement costs of the intervening terrain, presence of enemies and borders etc.)



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[Hannibal3]

Well, I like the ideas here, but I think they are a bit far-fetched. There are certain things I need explained to me, and I think the computer's capabilities have not been taken into account.

Before I go further, I think underground is ridiculous. I think all of the underground stuff should be taken out. Also, the airplanes... you want the planes to be able to fly over what? Enemy cities? I doubt you could just do that. The Iraqis weren't waving at the F-117s, they were shooting at them. And if you mean allied or peaceful units and cities, I think that ALL units should be allowed to occupy the same space under such conditions.

Here's my problem with the pixel system. How are you intending on doing it? Would you use a system like with Paint Brush? How would this be different from just using smaller tiles? And also, a pixel is TINY! How would you know what your looking at on the screen? Could you even SEE cities or units in a single pixel??
And also, theres the issue of the individual pixel attributes. It would not be thousands of pixels. The game has thousands of tiles. No, this would be hundreds of thousands to millions of pixels. Thats a lot of stuff for the computer to know. The game already has enough new features to deal with. I think it would make it impossible to play. Maybe if you could convince NASA to let you borrow one of their computers, you could do it.

As for moving, the RTS system COULD work, but what happens if the units decide the fastest way to a place is not following a railroad or road? They'd be throwing away their movement rate. And if we do it the old-fashioned way... moving pixel by pixel? A painfully tedious experience, no?

Don't get me wrong... I'd love to see a new system. I was always kind of frustrated that I couldn't put Boston, New York and Washington in their real spots on a world map. but I wanna be sure it works.

Maybe having the old grid but with pixels of land would be better. So if you were say creating a map of the World in the editor, Italy would look like it really does rather than being a 3-square blob. It would still occupy 3 grids, but it would still have its shape because you would be painting one pixel at a time. Each grid square would have attributes for all of the pixels inside it (in other words, a mountain square has all mountain pixels in it). Granted, I know this is not what people want, but I think it will have to do.


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"...The highest realization of warfare is to attack the enemy's plans; next is to attack their alliances; next to attack their army; and the lowest is to attack their fortified cities." - Sun Tzu