Every game that uses the entire Earth should use a globe to prevent distortion that comes from flattening out spherical things. I'm thinking about future games of course.
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In most cases the minimal gain in realism isn't worth the added resource requirements. This is particularly true for the older historical eras where the areas most affected by map projecting aren't relevant due to inaccessibility.
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I agree with both of you. I love globes in games but maybe we don't have the power yet for them. I think that in a decade or so globes might make a lot more sense.
Anyone remember Populous: The Beginning? That game was played on a globe and that was 18 years ago.
That wasnt exactly the same scale, though.
Of course games are able to render globes and spheres. But the question is how good of a map that would make.
Like in Superpower 2, but map had huge problems with the selection of tiny province. Yes the nuclear war looks awesome, but the rest of globe use is limited
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Globes are terrible for gameplay. Look at Planetary annihilation. Awesome idea but terrible usability.
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I prefer a 2d map view over a globe. The 2d map can have a better detailed 3D environment to add atmosphere. Though that is just me. I was one of those people who liked the toy soldiers night-day look of HOI 4.
I like zooming in and actually seeing the life of my great empire.
A globe view as interesting I would prefer with 2030s or 2040s gaming tech.
I like zooming in and actually seeing the life of my great empire.
A globe view as interesting I would prefer with 2030s or 2040s gaming tech.
but not only devs dont want to prevent distortion, they actually add more distortion to the map that is not due to flattening earth but for gameplay reasons.... if tiny islands of pacific had the real dimensions...you would zoom in for half a minute to the vast ocean to try and find them and maybe land your units there.... long story short...from a gameplay perspective they really shouldnt use a globe...
Is a sort of compromise possible where, as you pan towards the poles, the screen covers a greater proportion of latitude?
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I think that there should be a switchable option between the globe and the flat map
I think that a hypothetical Cold War game would have to be on a globe as most of the nukes were supposed to fly over the north pole in a nuclear war. combat would(mostly) be limited and regional, so you wouldn't need a fleshed out military map in your face all the time. And who knows what technology will bring. maybe if you zoom in the map stretches into a flat map automatically without you noticing.
If you don't want a globe, at least advocate for an accurate map projection, rather than the skewed continents that are present in all the recent games' maps. North and South America are not that far north, nor is New Zealand. Make the map accurate. In a map-centred game, that is all I ask. And also use an equal-area projection.
That is intentional in order to minimize wasted space on the map. Stretching SA out and shifting it south would result in a whole bunch of useless water provinces across the rest of the map.
I know it's intentional. It's stupid. Should we halve the width of the Pacific Ocean because it's useless water provinces? Or how about widening the English Channel, it's so important yet so narrow...
Or how about making an actually semi-accurate map, which begins with getting the relative locations of CONTINENTS correct, at the very least.
Hmm.. This would be rectangular without being swedocentric. It's not perfect but much better, at least for games where the north isn't important...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Equirectangular_projection_SW.jpg
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Equirectangular_projection_SW.jpg