The Map.... Again

[Sir Shiva]

When I say a pixel, I mean a small tile... And cities will be many 'pixels' large, not just on a single pixel.. But i see what you mean.. It's the idea of it which I would like to see attempted...

And as for layers, subs DO sail underneath enemy ships and planes like the U2 can fly over enemy cities...

One more thing - maybe Warlords and above should be allowed to post pictures in their posts.. I'm feeling too lazy to link to the Shogun pics, but I feel that if you guys have the time, hop over to www.totalwar.com and check out the battle-map screenshots of Shogun: Total War...

THAT's what I mean by pixels...

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-Shiva
Email: shiva@shivamail.com
Web: http://www.shivamail.com
ICQ: 17719980

[Ribannah]

quote: Originally posted by Hannibal3 on 09-26-2000 06:12 PMHere's my problem with the pixel system .... 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.

There is no need to store all pixels. Pixel contents can be generated and regenerated by seeds. With the speed of present-day computers, there should be no problem.

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

[Sir Hawkeye]

The crazy-fool semi-newbie speaks!
Okay, Lets see...
I think we should still have tiles but they won't be consistently the smae distance. Each tile should be perhaps 2 degrees -Longitude- square(approximately, they'd be narrower at the top), getting smaller and smaller, converging into one circular tile at the pole. Movement points could still be applied, smaller sqaures take less to enter.(possibly applied to resource collection, but these squares would also take fewer people to work, so it's a moot point).
(What i wrote makes sense to me. please tell me if i'm incoherent here)

Underground and Aerial layers are also a damn good idea. Recon planes two layers higher would be hard to destroy except with special equipment, subs will be more realistic.(tranports can't find subs anymore- until it's too late )



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-Rale Hawkeye
-Rale Hawkeye
"Dammit, where is the 'shoot messenger' button?"

[I c e d a n]

nope! Tiles are out the window! They limit the game too much! Civ is known for its depth. Lets keep it that way.

[Sir Hawkeye]

Well, I was thinking some sort of 3D rotating globe style map, or at least have tha as a mode, and that with one polar tile, that wolud handle the polar crossing quite nicely...

If Firaxis does use this pixel format they'd obviously do it well but
I have a few questions.

How big is a pixel?
How many pixels on an average world?
How many citizens to harvest a pixel? wouldn't micromanagement become insane if you had to harvest each individual pixel?
How many pixels is a unit?

Thx for any explanations.

Sir Rale Hawkeye
Most insane CivII game: World War '79, Approx. 95 nukes in 10 years

[wernazuma]

A pixel: Open a bitmap-file, view it at 800% and you know what a pixel is... it's the tiniest unit of a graphic file.
If a pixelized map is used, you can be sure that there won't be "heads" working on them, they'd have to redo all the occupational system for citizens.

"How many pixels is a unit?"-I actually don't understand the question.- If you mean how many pixels a unit occupies: We can't say. They'd probably redo even the whole units and moving system if using a pixel-based map.

If you ask me: "Pixeled" maps are good for the eye and good for RTS but not for game-based games. Maybe graphically pixels should be used for the map, while game-technically the tile continues to be the reference frame.

[Dienstag]

Here's an Idea:

Instead of being set on Earth, or even an Earth-like planet, CivIII can be a game about different civilizations fighting for survival and control of something like Larry Niven's Ringworld!!! This is a huge cylindrical world that orbits it's star all the way around!! Making this map will be EASY!!!

OK, sorry for the irreverence. Keep up the good ideas.

[Ribannah]

quote: Originally posted by Sir Hawkeye on 10-04-2000 07:11 PM I have a few questions.

>How big is a pixel?
There will be 1024x768 on your screen.

>How many pixels on an average world?
Still 1024x768. Pixels exist only for that part of the world which is presently on your screen.

>How many citizens to harvest a pixel?
I hope none, or there will be nothing left of your vision

>How many pixels is a unit?
A unit will have co-ordinates to indicate its absolute position, and will occupy a tile if it is on screen.

I hope this clarifies things a bit. A pixel is not a small tile!


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

[Sir Shiva]

How many people to harvest a pixel?

Well, resource distributions will span many pixels.. For example, you could have 20 hectares (there would be an inbuilt pixel to hectare convertor) of plains next to your city. Its productivity will depend on the number of people you set to work it. Say 6 heads or so... Perhaps 1 head per hectare would yield the maximum...

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-Shiva
Email: shiva@shivamail.com
Web: http://www.shivamail.com
ICQ: 17719980

[Adm.Naismith]

I suggest to shift to the CTP II concept of "city range used area", where you don't need to distribute "heads" for basic resources production.

Every city has available every resources in a controlled area (the area grow when the population of city is greater). The number of citizen + slaves (not specialist) is the workforce that use the area resources producing trade, food, mineral.

You can still tune the production converting common worker in specialist, to enhance food (farmer), research (scientist), or money (taxmen) against the other production (the baseground of common worker become reduced).
So you don't have to care to assign "head to pixel" still you keep the control of cities. You can have a hidden grid to define resources available per area, without the need of visible tiles at all.

Movement can be taken care of with the "assigned waypoint" method already mentioned with RTS.

"Step by step" tactic movement will go out of the window, but we can replace them (for fine tuning) with point & click general order (scout, charge, transfer, etc.) that troops will obey when needed during turn change.

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Admiral Naismith AKA mcostant

[Sir Shiva]

Waypoint would really simplify movement... Click on a unit, hold down CTRL to set up way point and then click on its final destination. The AI should be smart enough to navigate between waypoints.. This would eliminate the need for tiles in movement.

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-Shiva
Email: shiva@shivamail.com
Web: http://www.shivamail.com
ICQ: 17719980

[Sir Shiva]

Check out the post on the Populous 3 map...

Though I feel a Railroad Tycoon 2 or Shogun style map is what we want...

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-Shiva
Email: shiva@shivamail.com
Web: http://www.shivamail.com
ICQ: 17719980

[Tim White]

Great Ideas!! I was going to add a new topic covering this very thing, but now I dont have to! I totally agree with everything you suggest.

[Nikolaos]

All right, I know I'm new here, but. . .

It seems to me that the only units that should be going over the poles are subs and planes and other flying objects. Even in the early part of this century (yes, this century will end Dec. 31, 2000) people had troubles or died getting over the poles. It should not be easy to cross them and realistically, very few units would be able to survive the temperatures.
As far as using pixels, I like the idea, I'm just unsure how city borders will work. Pretty graphics are nice and all, but gameplay is more important.

[DarkCloud]

The map should only be 20% correct when first explored in terms of geography,
for the first settlers to America did not have the maps correct, so places should
be roughly in the wrong areas by a pixel or two.

After discovering geography, maps are 70% correct, and after triangulation they are 100%
correct.