[Freeciv-Dev] Re: (PR#7287) Extended Topologies

["rwetmore@xxxxxxxxxxxx" <rwetmore@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

<URL: http://rt.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=7287 >


Marcelo Burda wrote:
> <URL: http://rt.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=7287 >
> 
> Le mar 24/02/2004 à 04:15, Jason Short a écrit :
> 
>><URL: http://rt.freeciv.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=7287 >
[...]
>> Note that if you went to the 
>>singularity point out in the ocean the equator would make a 90-degree 
>>turn.  If you kept following the equator straight out you'd end up going 
>>back in the direction you came.  Very confusing.  This is why the 
>>singularities need to be hidden.
> 
> Not really hidden but place there were the gameplay impact is minimum.
> in ocean or in center of poles.
[...]

I think we are probably zeroing in on the real source of the problem in
all these complicated explanations of what distortions the singularities
are introducing.

I agree that for a single untiled map, this is a interesting way to view
the Earth. That the distortions are off in the ocean at points where no
one really can see them hides them and makes the rest look better in some
ways. They don't really impact game play because they are off in the
corners.

But all this changes when you start tiling these maps, because now the
relationships across these singularities are important and they are not
off in obscure corners but in the middle of the tiled edge separating
key land elements.

In game play, one doesn't expect to make a 90 or 180 degree turn while
still moving straight ahead, and neither is this builtin to the game
mechanics so that relationships between various non-sea features are
maintained.

Thus for a Flatearth map, the quincunx is fine, but for a tiled map, aka
torus-world in 2-D, this doesn't work. And teaching an 11-year old that
S. America is due west of N. America is not a particularly good way to
advertise the value in the game - in fact it is a very bad one.

So, frankly, I think tiled quincunx is a non-starter unless something can
be done to minimize or avoid such distortions.

But since the problems that this topology is trying to address and
techniques used are in fact common to a large class of extended topologies,
I would really like to see the issues and workarounds developed so that
more interesting map types could be used and explored. But not bad map
types that do not conform to the 2-D gaming model used in Freeciv.


Cheers,
RossW
=====