When I made my post about scales, I based my normal map dimensions on the real dimensions of the Earth globe. Is there anything wrong with my calculations?

Sorry, I had forgotten completely about your previous post. Your "normal" sizeof 280x120 seems reasonable. And as you say it's less arbitrary than the scale I stated. As we get more of the computational guts into the game, we will be better able to assess whether even this size is too large for the "normal" map or not. It's just an awful lot of squares, and some things in the AI increase super-linearly with the number of squares.

LGJ:

Should the basic gamemap include the entire world? For 90% of the game, civs won't be able to cross an ocean. So unconnected continents will be completely unused, and processing time will be used to compute values for a civ/civs that no one will see until the very end.

That seems like such a waste.

I think the basic game should be just one connected landmass. We can have an 'extended' game that could include other continents, for players that want to run thru 5,500 game turns/years before exploring the 'new world'.

Columbus would have been 1492, about 5,500 years into the game. Ericson was what, about a hundred years earlier? (I may be wrong, someone help me there?). I'll even give you back to 1000 a.d./c.e.. But certainly no earlier, at least in an organized, deliberate voyage.

The Romans, Egyptians, Phoenecians, whomever, may all have had individual ships *accidentally* cross the ocean once or twice. I've seen supposed evidence of all these (Thor Hyerdall, the Kontiki, all that stuff, not to mention the 'Quetzacoatl' stories).

But there was not a single recorded attempt to seriously try this by any govt that I am aware of. In no way could they maintain communications. It would have been a one-off deal, almost certainly by mistake.

And most imporantly, how often in playing this game will the technology be available to cross the ocean before about 1000 a.d.? And 1000 is being *v e r y* generous, agreed?

Also you're forgetting the other side of the globe, specifically China who developed the capasity and sustained the capasity of ocean cossing thoughout most of the Pacific for about 100 years till one of the Emperors told them to destroy all the ships because they considered themselves the best nation in the world so why trade with barabarians?

This is something of a wild idea, but it might be possible and if it works it could help the game detail:

Could we start with a smaller square size and rescale the map after the civ gets big? Perhaps the game could start with 25 km squares and have the map cover one sixteenth of the world. This would mean that young, small civs could be covered in a lot of detail.

When the civ learns about areas beyond the map boundaries, the map is resized. The area that was previously four squares would become one square. The squares would have side lengths of 50 km and one fourth of the world would be covered.

When the civ outgrows thus map, the process is repeated so the map has 100 km squares and shows all of the world.

Yes, it's very do-able. The OO design is already laid out to allow the player scale up or down, and play at a variety of levels.

Did you ever play the old KOEI game 'Ghengis Khan'? You first played the 'Mongolia' game, in which you had to unite (conquer) all the provinces of one country. Then, when you finished, you went to the 'world' map and played that country and try to conquer the world.

I love this idea. The scale of the map can be tied to the size of the 'known world'.

Since most worlds will not look like earth in any way/shape or form (well aside form the tiles themselves ), who can say what how a civilization elvolved over time instantly? I mean just look at our world at around say 1000 BCE and 1000 CE... things evolved differntly in some areas, some faster than others and in differnt ways. Also you wouldn't be able to do a situation like playing the aztecs from the dawn of time and having the europeans come by and start attacking your land before you ever know of europe!

This is why i think we should keep track of the whole world, although the display doesn't haveto be worried about being refreshed for unknown parts.