Why can you transverse the world east to west but not north to south?

[76561198063812731]

Doesn't this seem a bit unrealistic to anyone?

[thedUWUmslayer]

Well, we've never actually been to the North pole, too much ice so no ship can go there, and its too cold. Every expedition thats tried has failed, and their success has been measured by how close they've gotten. We've been to the south pole only because Antartica is there, there's actually solid ground to walk on.So its actually quite realistic.

[76561198063812731]

Hmm, I guess you are right. I seem to recall being able to go from north to south in alpha centauri, maybe thats just bad memory though.

[thedUWUmslayer]

Correction: We actually HAVE been to the North pole, but its only recently been accomplished with airplanes and nuclear-powered ice breakers :P So, crossing the poles would only come into the game really late, and by then it'd just be useless.

[cow_hater]

the map tiles would be really weird if the world was a Sphere

[ziggystardst]

Let's say I'm in the UK and I travel north till I go across the north pole, I would be coming down the antimeridian, north to south, to the east tip of Russia, near Alaska. Now say I'm in Argentina and I go South through the South Pole, I would end up traveling south to north till I came near the southwestern coast of Australia. That would all be very weird gameplay wise, don't you agree?

[Supermarine]

Get your history and geography right, people!!!

Think about it: when you go from Europe to Japan, and keep going East, what do you find? The Pacific. And keep going East, and you find America. Keep on and you're back again in Europe. Need I mention it works both directions?

Now, in that same imaginary plane, take off from London and head directly North. What do you find? Scotland, right? and then sea. Then we get to the North Pole. Can you still go North? NO. North and South have limits. East and West do not. There is no point to the North of the North Pole.

Once you fly past the pole, if you don´t stop, you are now heading South. You hve not altered your traveling direction.

Ok, now... did you magically appeared at the South Pole?? NO. That would happen if the Earth was a toroid, not a sphere. I'm not even explaining that. If you cannot recognize simple shapes, Wikipedia is your friend.

Now, for the history guy... YES, people have visited the North Pole. Lots of people. The first documented and officially recognized expedition to reach the pole (on foot) was by R. Amundsen in 1926. Many others organized expeditions before that, and some got pretty close. After that, there were flyovers, a submarine (the USS Nautilus) navigated under the ice cap and later another one (USS Skate) surfaced, breaking it.

Today, some people actually reside there, mainly scientists and researchers. Many commercial airlines have daily routes over the North Pole. It's easier and faster to fly over the pole rather than around the globe, for certain travels.

Conclusion: Civ V is actually as realistic as can be, topologically speaking.

Seriously, guys. Even if you slept through elementary school, knowledge is only a Google away...

[Bob the Boomer]

Originally posted by Supermarine:

Get your history and geography right, people!!!

Think about it: when you go from Europe to Japan, and keep going East, what do you find? The Pacific. And keep going East, and you find America. Keep on and you're back again in Europe. Need I mention it works both directions?

Now, in that same imaginary plane, take off from London and head directly North. What do you find? Scotland, right? and then sea. Then we get to the North Pole. Can you still go North? NO. North and South have limits. East and West do not. There is no point to the North of the North Pole.

Once you fly past the pole, if you don´t stop, you are now heading South. You hve not altered your traveling direction.

Ok, now... did you magically appeared at the South Pole?? NO. That would happen if the Earth was a toroid, not a sphere. I'm not even explaining that. If you cannot recognize simple shapes, Wikipedia is your friend.

Now, for the history guy... YES, people have visited the North Pole. Lots of people. The first documented and officially recognized expedition to reach the pole (on foot) was by R. Amundsen in 1926. Many others organized expeditions before that, and some got pretty close. After that, there were flyovers, a submarine (the USS Nautilus) navigated under the ice cap and later another one (USS Skate) surfaced, breaking it.

Today, some people actually reside there, mainly scientists and researchers. Many commercial airlines have daily routes over the North Pole. It's easier and faster to fly over the pole rather than around the globe, for certain travels.

Conclusion: Civ V is actually as realistic as can be, topologically speaking.

Seriously, guys. Even if you slept through elementary school, knowledge is only a Google away...

Right or wrong, there isn't a need to come off like that toward people - it comes across condescending at best.

[76561198063812731]

Civ 5 can't be considered "realistic as can be" unless the map is changed to be a 3d sphere. What I am saying is not that you can't go to the north pole then just immediately wind up at the north pole, but if the game was fully realistic their would be nothing to stop you from transversing the distance between them EVENTUALLY.

"Ok, now... did you magically appeared at the South Pole?? "
FYI, its appear.
The funny thing is how you condescend others when you can't even use the right grammar in your writing.

The way the poles are atm in Civ 5 i unrealistic. No, the poles are not 5 seconds from each other, - although gameplay wise this would be fine IMO.

But for me to be unable to transverse them whatsoever? No distance between them just a "TOP" and "BOTTOM" of the World?

I guess Galileo was wrong - I guess if I had ordered my worker past the North Pole he would have fallen off...

And again - Civ 5 is only realistic in the 2D Map sense - our earth is a SPHERE, not a flat 2d object.

[Supermarine]

Originally posted by Recktum Wrecker:

Civ 5 can't be considered "realistic as can be" unless the map is changed to be a 3d sphere. What I am saying is not that you can't go to the north pole then just immediately wind up at the north pole, but if the game was fully realistic their would be nothing to stop you from transversing the distance between them EVENTUALLY.

Between the poles, no. Across and over them, yes. I understand that. I agree with you.

But... Civ is as realistic as can be. The key word here was topologically. I was not speaking about projections or 3D modelling, but about surface-restricted movement. Since the plane in which the action happens can be considered as a restricted surface, and warped and/or wrapped in various manners, it can be conformed to a shpere with no problems. This happens even if you can also see it as completely flat (for example, as it is displayed on screen).

This is not a true projection in geographical or cartographical sense. That's why, for example, in Civ4 you could actually start a game in a toroidal map with no problems.

As someone pointed out, if this was a cartographical issue it would really be very weird. In that case, many answers are possible, like altered and irregular tile shape/size. It can be seen from various perspectives, and that is why there are many conceptualizations of the Earth in a flat surface.

For simplicity's sake, a 3D model would indeed be easier to handle. You can also find an example of this in past iterations of Civ games. Other games solve it this way also, like the old Risk 2. Others opt for full 3D interaction, like Kerbal Space Program.

Originally posted by Recktum Wrecker:

"Ok, now... did you magically appeared at the South Pole?? "
FYI, its appear.

I was still talking about the "imaginary airplane". Anyway, thanks for the correction. English is not my mother tongue.

Originally posted by Recktum Wrecker:

But for me to be unable to transverse them whatsoever? No distance between them just a "TOP" and "BOTTOM" of the World?

I'm not following you here. In some way, Civ understands the map as having a top and a bottom, and they are functional limits. Geographically speaking, this doesn't make any sense. For this to be realistic, you should be able to either traverse by land (like with ski infantry) or fly over both poles. Here I agree with you.

I gather that our difference was conceptual.

Having the ability to fly over the poles would open nice strategic implications. I'd love to see that some time in the future. Imagine a surprise bombing from the other side of the world!
(Historically, both Russia and the USA had plans for that in the Cold War era. The Valkyrie bomber was developed specifically for that role.)

[Danny]

This is getting to be interesting and Ill continue to post if people continue to be active BUT, the way civ is now it wont work itll be a huge overhaul the way the map is viewed. It would have to change the camera to make it look likeyou are playing on a 3d spherical planet. This way you can actually navigate the map camera and units to do the travel over the nothpole and not make the globe w/e that weird shape is called.

As of now the civ5 camera is like a popup book. Flat 2d yet has these different elevations. Still great idea and I wished for this a few times but all we can do is hope itll happen in civ6. ALSO the camera whe zoomed out would be like zooming out from a planet and seeing space on the edges due to the curve of the planet. Honestly really wished this would happen, it would add more depth domination tactics. I can imagine it, another hanniabal move, making elephants cross the north pole from alaska to europe lol.

Edit: Would also be cool to have units or maybe work boats allowed to break glacial ice caps at a far point in the tech tree so you could a bit more depth to that too, maybe even make paths through mountains with dynamite and such.