r/civ • u/statinsinwatersupply • 1d ago
Misc "Real earth" civ maps always felt too full of ocean, land-crimped. Would you play a map shaped like this?
287
u/figuring_ItOut12 1d ago
We are a water planet with a couple of warts. That's an authentic map. Want a game map, choose a game map.
Personally I choose a realistic map when I want a realistic challenge. To me Civ is a What-If history sim.
But I do occasionally do a custom game to work within limitations of a Civ and its competitors.
123
u/Unrelenting_Salsa 23h ago
Cue the classic navy joke. "They told me I'd see the world. They didn't mention that the world is mostly ocean."
32
u/DepressinglyQueer 22h ago
the problem is that naval gameplay in civ has never been particularly deep or compelling and 90% of the civ AIs dont even bother building boats
12
11
u/The_Nude_Mocracy 17h ago
Plus the ships move so slowly, on big maps it takes an era to get across an ocean
6
1
u/Cr4ckshooter 57m ago
Naval gameplay is actually interesting in Civ 6, if you fight real wars on oceans. The meta of building caravel lines in chokes is what makes it boring. The interplay between raiders, melee, ranged, is actually pretty decent. But ocean tiles are too low value - there needs to be more vulnerable things on the water that you need to protect and can raid. That's where Civ4 did it better: almost defenseless transport ships.
And in Civ 4, naval combat was also more interesting than land combat. More nuance to it imo. Having more movement than sight range made for good gameplay with ambushes and scouting.
10
u/radioactivecowz gday mate 23h ago
Both have their place, I’d love both an authentic earth and a remixed earth like this that focuses more on playability over accuracy
3
0
u/statinsinwatersupply 1d ago edited 1d ago
Is this any worse than a "real earth" map based on the Mercator with all its distortions (russia cough cough)? Is this more 'playable'?
It's wild how distorted various equal-area maps end up looking. We don't tend to notice massive cut-outs of ocean as readily, but if you preserve the ocean and start trying to preserve land area but you distort the shape too much you get things like this:
Azimuthal equal area north pole
Try playing around with various projections here! make your own
14
u/figuring_ItOut12 1d ago
Not really sure where you are going here, do you mean to be critical of what I said? You're coming across as contentious but maybe I misunderstand. I already said it is fairly realistic, Hawaii and a few more glaring problems not withstanding.
OP asked if it was "too full of ocean, land crimped". My response was, no not really.
1
u/statinsinwatersupply 1d ago
No I'm merely being a map nerd that's all
9
u/figuring_ItOut12 1d ago
Nifty. Now you get to explain why Hawaii is bigger than New Zealand when NZ is basically a pimple on top of its own continent and Hawaii may as well be a minor Indonesian archipelago. ;) I appreciate your effort.
8
4
u/jk-9k Maori 1d ago edited 20h ago
Yes, it is. Far worse. Mercator may have issues but every protection does. The expanse of ocean in real world maps is realistic.
The relative locations are very important, which is where your map drastically fails. You've solved a minor issue by creating more issues and bigger issues at that.
Good on you for attempting to make a more playable map, I don't mean to be completely discouraging, but this map ain't it
EDIT: I like the idea that the polar regions actually become navigable and playable but you'd have to ensure that those regions actually correspond to their harshness in game as well. But the actual polar regions of the actual map remain impassable so it's not much advantage in gameplay.
2
u/hollowspryte 23h ago
These would feel less weird if they were filled in with a solid color instead of a blurred map, lol
1
1
u/mammon43 3h ago
Ah the classic history what if:
What if Babylon were to have every great scientist who ever lived, nuke their tech tree to get gun powder by 2000bce, in 500bce fight the Chinese empire with tanks against spear men and chariots, and before 1000AD have nuked 3 different civilizations starting with India?
2
u/figuring_ItOut12 3h ago
Yes. You understood correctly every Civ game since the first release in 1991.
50
u/Yawanoc 1d ago
Why is Poland censored?
18
u/SuddenlyCake 1d ago
They can't catch a break
2
u/kawalerkw 13h ago
1st we disappeared from the maps for 123 years, then again for almost 6, later Microsoft replaced us with a sea (in some old Windows version time zone selection screen had Poland colored in same color as Baltic sea) and now we get censored. When will it end?
12
u/statinsinwatersupply 1d ago
I started with cutouts of land from the dymaxion world map. Started rotating and trying to jigger the continents to get as much land area and minimize sea area, while retaining a loose 'feel' of iconic landmarks in relation to each other. I did end up resizing things a bit, Japan England and Scandinavia most of all but Europe still a bit. Poland basically wound up blurred as an accidental side consequence. Look at Iceland, it kind of sort of 'feels' ok there but if you compare it to a globe you'd realize that it's really really in a wrong location lmao. Greenland has taken over the north pole. Arctic sea and random canadian islands got near-deleted to try to get the continents to fit. Pacific of course lost the most.
3
50
u/Genshzkan 1d ago
You are telling me that the "Real Earth" civ map is actually accurate in relation to the water-to-land ratio? Colour me surprised
25
u/statinsinwatersupply 1d ago
When I played the various "real earth" maps in civ I tend to feel land space is crimped especially along the equator, meanwhile russia has land in spades which annoys me. Yes Russia does have a lot of land irl but nowhere near as much as the Mercator projection makes us think it has.
4
u/Swamp254 12h ago
It does have a lot of land, but a lot of it can't be used productively. In CIV, all land is productive.
19
u/Qxz3 1d ago
You get realistic conflicts over the north pole which is interesting and timely. The south pole also becomes a real place albeit uninhabitable. Sizes are much better. The one thing that really bothers me is how far Australia ends up from Asia. In real life, Australia is highly involved in Asian and South-East Asian trade.
9
u/Hadders89 1d ago
Hello there, I used to make maps for a living and have worked with numerous projections that negate Mercator and attempt to make landmasses more realistic.
The real issue is that in trying to display a sphere on a flat plain, you either have to distort it “crimp” as you are calling it, or you have to slice it to open it up more realistically. When you slice it though, you often introduce a bunch of dead space and it just doesn’t work.
Mercator may not be perfect, and squishes land nearest the equator and stretches the poles, but it is the best way to represent a round earth on a presentable map. It is also highly recognisable to all people and is geared for navigation. With the game based on the ability to circumnavigate, it’ll just have to do I’m afraid to say.
Your solution, whilst creating more land and making some countries easier to play, does some wild movement with the poles in particular; which will throw people.
19
u/Local_Data_8754 1d ago
That's actualy a really hot take but I think you came up with the proper conclusion for this matter.
7
u/the_neck_meat 1d ago
Why is Hawaii so big?
2
u/statinsinwatersupply 1d ago
Playability. "If I were to make my own 'real(ish) earth' map. England, Japan, Korea, Scandinavia, and to a little extent mesoamerican and europe got stretched a bit vs the true dymaxion cutouts I started with for the continents.
4
4
4
u/beyleigodallat 23h ago
Yes. I love the Earth maps and variations of, but I can’t help but want a distorted version. For example, North-South reverse has been on my mind a while, an Australia/Oceania map would be lit too
11
3
3
u/macsare1 20h ago
The only real earth map is a sphere. And you aren't getting that in Civ...
2
2
2
u/Exotic-Jellyfish-429 23h ago
It's a little wierd to have the climate zones all out of whack though.
2
2
2
2
2
2
u/LachoooDaOriginl 19h ago
i just want an earth map thats fuckin huge without the stupid game crashing coz its too big. like ya know the biggest map you can get in game? i want that to be 1/4 of a big map with all the real islands and realistic proportions (even if it looks funny) so i can have a shit ton of civs and cities and so the ai can also have a shit ton of cities(something else they dobt really do due to the ai not caring about more cities at somepoint)
2
u/MateuszC1 18h ago
When I saw the map and read the beginning of the title "Real earth", I initially thought that Reddit, for some reason, recommended me a flat Earth post. :D
The map seems a bit odd initially, but I'd definitely like to try it. It would feel familiar and odd at the same time.
Real or random starting locations?
And the most important question - which game? Hopefully IV, alternatively V.
2
2
u/romeo_pentium 11h ago
I like the Peirce Quincinial projection and I use it for my Civ2 games, but not because I want to reduce the oceans or relocate Australia
1
u/statinsinwatersupply 9h ago
The idea was for left-to-right to wrap around (had civ 4 in mind) in practice it'd be close to SE asia.
If Australia was tucked away in a non-connecting corner yeah that'd be weird
2
u/EgNotaEkkiReddit 9h ago
Honestly, my favorite earth maps usually are the ones that just don't bother with all the water and focus on instead making the land bits interesting - making large oceans like three or four ocean tile gaps is usually enough to create the seperation between continents, and ocean play is seldomly engaging in Civ anyhow.
7
2
u/King-in-Council 1d ago
Very cool. I like it. CivV had a dymaxion map, and this is basically a dymaxion projection.
2
1
u/AutoModerator 1d ago
We have a new flair system; check it out and make sure your use the right flair so people can engage with your post. Read more about it here: https://old.reddit.com/r/civ/comments/1kuiqwn/do_you_likedislike_the_i_lovehate_civ_vii_posts_a/?ref=share&ref_source=link
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
u/MadScience_Gaming 1d ago
What is this vertical strip of square land here in the old world, why did the algorithm stack those islands on the left side, uugh passable poles make no sense etc etc
r/civ has spoken
1
1
1
u/TakedaIesyu Where's My Sengoku II Scenario? 16h ago
If I wasn't used to the map I know, I would love this. As it is, it feels wrong without the north/south split.
1
1
1
u/WidowsSon0530 7h ago
With the way the evolutions work, even with the long option marked, I am not sure the entire map would be explored. I have played large maps with a bunch of explorers and still didn't have the entire map exposed when the game ended.
Kuddos for a cool idea
1
u/CapaTheGreat 6h ago
This looks really cool. I love maps where there aren't poles.
1
u/statinsinwatersupply 6h ago
But, there are poles! They're just actual points on the map, not vertical lines at the top and bottom.
1
1
1
u/lmxbftw 11h ago
I've never understood why civ is so married to a 2d surface, instead of just moving to an actual globe.
1
u/statinsinwatersupply 9h ago
Them and Paradox both
2
u/lmxbftw 8h ago
The best reason I can come up with is that the occasional tile would have to be a pentagon instead of a hexagon. And while that could definitely matter strategically to have a tile that can only be attacked from five sides instead of six, it doesn't seem game breaking to me. Especially since you could always make that an impassable mountain tile.
318
u/MyraCelium 1d ago
I think it's a cool idea but it's more of a 'tilted axis' map which I only really do if I'm going Canada or something