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Spherical (like a planet) maps

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RUrankXXX
4 years ago
Dudes, what do u think about spherical maps? It could give many tacticals maneuvers, such as coming from behind, bcs the map will be closed.
+0 / -1
USrankNighthawk44
4 years ago
I am not entirely sure, but I dont think the engine would support it.
+1 / -0
ITrankbinko
4 years ago
its annoying to navigate with camera
+2 / -0
BRrankManored
4 years ago
I think PA demonstrated quite well that its a bad idea. Visualizing the battle is a pain and little is gained from it.

I think it would work in an extremely large-scale RTS, where individual battles would for all intends and purposes be happening on a flat plane, just like the modern tank commander probably doesn't worry terribly about the curvature of the Earth (although I imagine fighter jets do).
+1 / -0


AUrankAdminGoogleFrog
4 years ago
I don't think PA demonstrated that it's a bad idea. I think PA did quite a lot of things wrong so it is hard to draw a conclusion. Besides the issues with the underlying game, they barely tackled issues related to spherical maps, such as the difficulty in visualising them.

Populous the beginning, while not set on a sphere, does this sort of idea quite well.

The engine does not support spherical maps, but that won't stop anyone trying to add them. I think the first step would be to aim lower and start by implementing a flat torus (ie a pacman world). If you generalise the required parts of the engine properly, such as by writing more generic distance functions and pathfinders, then it will be easier to work on spheres.
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BRrankManored
4 years ago
To be fair, saying it would only work on extremely large scale might be a little harsh. I feel PA's core issue with the cam was that it was a very "gotta go fast" game and huge exponentially growing armies moving and fighting extremely fast everywhere is not the kind of situation you want to be fighting with the camera on.

On strategy games with a chiller pace, the coolness factor might be greater than the bother factor.

However, Zero-K is a fast game happening in a small space, which makes me think that it would run into the same fundamental issue with a spherical map.
+2 / -0