Map size problems

[Alinestra Covelia]

This is more or less a matter of personal taste (just like sexual orientation, dress sense, and whether or not dictatorships are really all they're cracked up to be).

I was playing on Civ2. I was playing on SMAC. I was playing on Civ Call to Power.

Now, of all these three, I think SMAC is the best overall. Civ2 has the biggest range of versatility (the scenario idea was a truly genius addition!). But, much in CtP's defence, it boasted the largest maps.

SMAC, in my opinion, actually had *less effective* map sizes than Civ2 did. Here's why:

Civ2 emphasized terrain differences by simply defining about twelve different terrain types, and then assigning each square a terrain classification. The game allowed a 149 by 119 square map. I suspect this might not even be the largest map available either (although it's the size of my present Star Wars scenario effort).

SMAC, however, emphasized terrain differences by raising or lowering the terrain. This meant that the actual physics of each square was more realistic, but it also meant that some terrains needed many squares to adequately express. Mountains, for example, required nine spaces to express (one for the central peak, eight surrounding for the slopes leading up). I suppose you could have a small mountain in four squares (no square for the central peak, just four squares whose common corner is very high).

However, this means that to express the terrain of an entire earth-sized planet (eg, Planet! ) you'd need at least four times the number of squares.

Do you get that?

You do not. The game, even on huge size maps, is actually much smaller in maps than I was expecting from Civ2. Factor in the fact that Planet Busters are capable of such incredible radii of damage (something I'm still rather against) and you have a situation ongoing.

Personally, I thought that each square ought to represent a very large amount of terrain. Therefore, fungal blooms encompassing nine squares were aesthetically not right to me. Also, the idea that a forest could expand utterly and completely in one turn over a square struck me as odd.

Much nicer would have been gradations of forestation, or fungal infestation. (The same goes for bodily hygiene, but you don't want to hear my views on that right here .)

What do you think? Did any of you find this anomalous?

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"In all creation, there can be no task more onerous or tedious than that of playing God." - Stephen Fry, 'The Liar'.

[Grigger]

The problem with gradations would be too many people squinting at the screen saying, "Now is that a transitional forest..." Raininess and rockiness were done in gradations, but add two many gradations and you have no clue at all what uis going on in the square. As it is, it still took me one and a half games before I fully understood the lay of the land. And as to size, you can create ridiculously huge maps, have you seen this Asia map? That picture is only part of it.

[Googlie]

You can either build huge customized maps (my largest that I played out was 1200 x 1000, but you need mammoth computing power to handle that)

or

you can change the default size in the alpha.txt - I have Huge set at 256 x 256.

Huge maps are great for builders, if you don't mind being lonely

[Helium Pond]

I don't know how you guys are doing this! My game is almost unbearably slow on a *tiny* map! And I have 128Megs of RAM and almost 500Megs free hard drive space!

But, as to the aesthetic question; I agree that a sense of scale is lost. When a mountain is a graphic that takes up one square, you can have separate hills, or make a truly impressive mountain range. When a mountain is a nine-by-nine lump on the map, you just can't get the same effect.

[ir]

What about aestetic effect of red and green? This is only one reason why I'm stil playing Civ2.

Attitudes in SMAC are NOT MOUNTIANS. If you think about attitude on Terra it's just how high current place is compare to sea level. Many places in world are flats but 2000+ meters higher than sea level. Rocky areas play role of mountains on Terra. If you want true picks just rise attitude and place rocks.

P.S. Correct me if I'm wrong but is it true that the larger map the slower research? Personally, extrahuge maps not worth of playing unless you are agree to spend hour/turn.

[Travathian]

It is true IR.

A huge map multiplies research cost by 1.6, and I am not sure if custom maps larger than huge affect it even more but I think formula was based on the actual planet size.

[TigToad]

First off let me say to Grigger, thanks a ton for that link! That map is amazing!!! If everyone hasn't downloaded it, just to look at it, you should. Its a work of art..okay, okay, maybe I'm getting a little carried away.

I'm not sure why so many people have problems running Alpha Centauri and complain of slowness when their PC's are strong. My lap top is unbearably slow in all but tiny games but its a P150 with 40 megs of ram..however my desk top a PII 400 with 64 megs of ram never slows down..and runs like a champ.

Tig

[Omega]

What's the default size of a huge map?

[Googlie]

64 x 128

sizes are:

Tiny planet|(early conflict), 24, 48
Small planet, 32, 64
Standard planet, 40, 80
Large planet, 44, 90
Huge planet|(late conflict), 64, 128



[This message has been edited by Googlie (edited March 10, 2000).]

[Alinestra Covelia]

That map is a work of divinity. I am fully blown away.

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"In all creation, there can be no task more onerous or tedious than that of playing God." - Stephen Fry, 'The Liar'.

[Travathian]

I almost dont want to ruin that map by playing on it, it looks soooo damn good.

I think I'll add names to the significant land and sea areas.

googlie, i tried that, but it threw the proportions out of whack...

[Ned]

Travathian, I downloaded that map of Asia. My god is it large!

As to your question concerning whether even larger map sizes slows research down proportionately, I believe it must. I am playing the Data Angels and it took me 40 turns to get my first tech on this map. The date in the game is now around 2200, and still no Industrial Automation - and I am in the tech lead!

You figure. There must be a formula somewhere that relates map size to research rate.

Ned

there is a corralation of map size and tech research... but i'll be buggered if i could remember where that thread is. i remember seeing it somwhere here...

[Googlie]

Tiny planet .6
Small planet .8
Standard planet 1.0
Large planet 1.1
Huge planet 1.6

[Ned]

Googlie, Asia is about 10 times the size of Huge. It is ENORMOUS! The research rate also seem to slow proportionately. I guess that it must be around ten times slower than for a huge map.

So - I do not believe we have only four or five choices for research rate. I believe we have a formula that relates map size to research rate.

Download and play the Asia map and see just how slow the techs come. You will be SLOWLY, but I believe, surely, convinced.

Ned

[Googlie]

According to Prima's guide (figures courtesy of Chris Pine, Firaxis)

Where DIFF = difficulty level (Citizen,0,Transcend,5);

TECHS = #techs your faction has discovered;

MOSTTECHS = greatest #techs discovered by any one player;

TURNS = # turns elapsed;

WORLD = worldsize, with the modifier as set out earlier;

Formula is:

Research costs = [ 11 + (DIFF x 4) + {(TECHS x 6) / 5 } - (TURNS / 8 ) - ( MOSTTECHS / 5) ] x TECHS x WORLD

If tech stagnation is selected, divide the TURNS by 12 instead of 8, and also multiply the final result by 1.5

The greatest factor is (according to Chris Pine) not the world size, but the # techs you have already discovered

WORLD factors are fixed at the multipliers given earlier.

Having said that, prima also goes on to say that research costs vary from about 65 (citizen level, tiny map, game beginning) to about 9000 (Huge map, Transcend, about 70 techs already discovered, or 13,000 with tech stagnation.

I routinely play on an 960 x 900 world, and in a tech stag game at the end my tech costs were over 30,000 per turn, which does suggest that humungous maps do attract a higher than 1.6 multiplier.

Who knows?

Googlie



[This message has been edited by Googlie (edited March 14, 2000).]

[Travathian]

The Worldsize figure does factor into as a multiplier. And the actual figure for is somewhere else in that book, have to check it when I get home. I dread checking to see what the Asia map multiplier will be.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Custom sized maps do get a different multiplier than the standard settings. Reference the Fsaest Transcend Thread by Korn469 and the result obtained by David Byron in his fast transcend in a smaller than tiny map. His ability to achieve tech gains quickly were largely in part to the smallest scale map possible (with his unique strategies not withstanding) allowing tech multiplier of less than .6 for tiny maps.

The opposite I assume holds true for Colossal maps and tech multipliers in excess of 1.6.

[Chowlett]

Googlie, that's almost funny, you typing all that out. I did exactly the same a couple of days ago in this thread - you could have just copied it