It even looks well enough in 3D. What you see on the globe view is one hex in the center and pieces of the other six hexes around it, as you would expect if you just forgot the problem of picturing the dark side and don't paint the borderlines. Click on any of those pieces and the view is centered on that hex, without any inconsistency.

So what if the seven hexes don't really make a globe, but some odd-dimensional monstrosity? You won't see it and you won't notice anything strange when you play the game on it.

The maximally zoomed-out terrain map shows one big hex and parts of the six other hexes at the borders, with borderlines where they should be, again like you would expect, for all seven possible views. The big hexes will then be divided into smaller hexes as you zoom in.

These are the actual zoomed-out views, hexes numbered from 1 through 7 and centered in turn:

.6.7
5.1.2
.4.3

.7.5
1.2.4
.3.6

.1.2
4.3.6
.7.5

.5.1
2.4.3
.6.7

.3.6
7.5.1
.2.4

.2.4
3.6.7
.5.1

.4.3
6.7.5
.1.2

The only drawback is that there can't be both a north- and a south-pole (there could be 7 poles though ). But here is the good news: instead of 7 hexes, we can just as well take 20, and have two poles. The distortions with 20 hexes instead of 7 are minimal.

It is also possible to make a "globe" out of 5 squares, by the way, it goes like this:

...5
4.1.2
...3

...5
1.2.4
...3

...1
4.3.2
...5

...5
2.4.1
...3

...3
4.5.2
...1

but of course the distortions are much bigger and more obvious here. And I prefer hexes over squares any time.

quote: flat, isometric square

Apparently Firaxis trimmed map management difficulties to put more efforts in other part of game. It's sad, because I'm sure they can do something better (yours 20 hex globe been an interesting proposal, BTW ), but they won't.

OTOH, it seems from a leak of info, appeared into another thread, that CIV III is going to change for better quite a bit of game rules, so I'll let Firaxis team end its efforts before complaining

[1] I found that there is exactly one equivalent alternative to present hemisheres with consistent corners (3-land-points).

World B

.6.7
5.1.2
.4.3

.7.4
1.2.6
.3.5

.1.2
4.3.5
.6.7

.5.1
7.4.3
.2.6

.2.6
3.5.1
.7.4

.4.3
2.6.7
.5.1

.3.5
6.7.4
.1.2

[2] And, there is a way to have two poles after all with just the seven hexes. Instead of in the middle of one of the hexes, the poles go into opposite corners.

Huh? Seven hexes and opposite corners?
Yes, there are! Say we put the North Pole in the "123" corner, then the South Pole goes into corner "476" (World A) cq "475" (World B) - in either case the only 3-land point involving hexes 4,5,6, and 7. Or if "156" is the North Pole, then "374" (World A) cq "274" (World B) is the opposing corner, and so on. Or even "246"/"357" (both A and B), to show that hex 1 can be the tropical region, too .