Is there a chance to make a world that is actually spherical?

[Manu]

I don't expect to see that in Civ VI, but maybe in VII? I suppose technically is possible to do it

[Cipollino]

Not with a regular grid. Someone actually made it using an irregular grid made of 5-6-7-sided tiles.

[Havan_IronOak]

There WAS a version of Civ some time ago that had a spherical map but I think that that was back before they went with hexes. Personally, I'd think that they'd have SOME kind of work around.

Though right now I'm playing on a map that doesn't have a sailing route along the Northern Border and it "feels" pretty realistic but then I'm still in early days.

[donald23]

There has never been a spherical world in Civ.
Civ4 had the visual thing where scrolling backward far enough showed you a globe, but those worlds weren't spherical when actually playing.

It simply is impossible with the current tiles. Perhaps if they went to triangular tiles it could be done? I'm not sure, that's not my strongest part of math.

[Prometheus]

You should look into the issues there are with making a globe into a map expressed as a rectangle. The issues are legion and are a major point of study in geography and cartography. While it can be done, there are not solutions that are not without major drawbacks. So you cannot pick one solution without strong backlash. That is not a major improvement of what we have.

The second option is to make the player interface into a globe instead of a square map. Back in the days when Civ was squares on a map, that was impossible. Now with hexes, it IS possible. But then you have to ask, what are the gameplay improvements compared to the drawbacks. One major drawback would be the entire user interface, having to scroll a ball around instead of a flat surface. More realistic - yes, more cumbersome and annoying - yes!

So that is your spread of considerations. Given that Civ is basically a beer and pretzels boardgame on steriods, flipping to a globe would be a break of genre. Maybe it is possible. Maybe it would produce good results. But the chances are low.

[BlackSmokeDMax]

Originally posted by donald23:

There has never been a spherical world in Civ.
Civ4 had the visual thing where scrolling backward far enough showed you a globe, but those worlds weren't spherical when actually playing.

It simply is impossible with the current tiles. Perhaps if they went to triangular tiles it could be done? I'm not sure, that's not my strongest part of math.

Rimworld dev did it and said he ended up needing to use a handful of pentagons towards the poles. Forget the exact number used.

Not sure how well that would work here, as in that portion of the Rimworld game there isn't much variation in the art. That would likely cause a MAJOR problem for Civ VI, as they have a lot of 3d rendered moving art for each tile. Not to mention possible pathfinding issues!

[Prometheus]

Rimworld did it because:

1) they faked it
2) it didn't matter

1) The vast, vast majority of the time you are playing the game, you are looking at a square map where you have a base, which is in reality a hex (so faked it it, a rectangle is NOT a hex).

2) As said above, the time you spend in the UI on the zoomed in hex, which is a square is probably 99,9%, which means doing a globe is of no consequence whatsoever. Try it when it is your MAIN interface!

[keith_dackson]

At least a year ago, I posted some links to map projections that showed a spherical map on a planar surface. I was denounced for posting something "off topic".

However, there is a projection (don't recall what its official name is) that looks like an orange peel with splits (open spaces) where the the map is "cut" to flatten it out. With the way units seem to "teleport" when going through tunnels, it may be possible to implement it.

[Prometheus]

Which is supposed to represent that one unit moving from one hex to another at one part of the map, is doing the exact same thing and moving the same distance, as the unit moving through the teleport.

You are never going to sell that to the vast public. Some people might get it, and a smaller subsection might approve, but it will literally never sell.

The ONLY option is taking advantage of the fact that hexes can make an approximation of a perfected sphere. Which means UI problems, and AI problems galore.

[tulle040657]

You would need to add a handful of pentagons into the mix of hexagons

For example, a soccer ball is made up of 20 hexagons and 12 pentagons.

[w.f.schepel]

I am sure it is possible, but the question I would like to ask is: why would you want to? I can't see any added value when it comes to playing the game.

[sdgabai]

My husband and I have been playing tabletop RPG's for many decades. The type that use those funny dice. As a math nerd, I've been studying all sorts of bizarre math stuff, and would construct those out of paper during the 1970's. They have all sorts of fancy names. There are also the hexagon/pentagon soccer ball things you described:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldberg_polyhedron

The general category is described in that link. It should include all the basic Euler's polyhedron and the more bizarre stuff too. I'm a little rusty on some of this stuff though.

[Sir Clavius]

I liked the world globe in the CIV4, also i liked the Palace in the CIV3... Why we dont have such simple but nice thing?

[donald23]

Originally posted by T40-1 Ulrich:

I liked the world globe in the CIV4, also i liked the Palace in the CIV3... Why we dont have such simple but nice thing?

Because that would mean something else isn't in the game. Everything in the game means something else isn't.
And apparently people at Firaxis made the priority list so that those items didn't make the cut.

[TheCollector]

Here is an official basic layout for Earth with 20 triangles. You can divide each triangle into smaller triangles (e.g. 1 -> 9) to form hexagons but you will always get 12 pentagons on the vertexes.

https://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/image/images/etopo2icosahedron.pdf

This kind of grid is already used for some RPG maps :
http://inkwellideas.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/ico-map.png

Search for "icosahedron world map" to find more examples.

[DutchToast]

didn't the console version "revolutions" have a globe like map? not sure if it was truly a globe or just appeared to be one...