The Map, Tilted?

[brymht]

One of the things I loved about RTR 7.0 (Biggest let down EVER) was the idea to tilt the map, to include less of the Sahara, less of Sideria, and the plains, and a greater concetration on the "civilized" world. It was a shame this map was never used. Any effort to utilize similar map changes on EB2, or significant map changes at all?

[Foot]

Personally I found the tilted map to be quite disconcerting, and it is not something we have considered. The EBII Map will largely be copied directly from the EBI map with minor changes to province borders and names.

Foot

[Tellos Athenaios]

While I thought that the idea in intself is quite neat; the way it works out in a game as EB.... I am not to convinced. For one thing some of our factions would experience some pretty inconvenient geography as a result of projecting a sphere onto a rectangle like that.

For RTR this isn't that big an issue, AFAIK, as they focus more on what you call the 'civilised' world; but EB has a fair few factions more on the 'outer-spheres' of the map. Not too practical from what I saw on the screenshots to go for a 'tilted' map then...

[brymht]

I suppose it would be problematic for the Saba if noone else.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Sauromatae and Saka possibly as well. And possibly... uhm, well you'll hear about that soon enough...

[chairman]

AAAGGGGGHHHHHH!!!! They KNOW something we don't know!!!

Chairman

[azzbaz]

Sauromatae and Saka possibly as well. And possibly... uhm, well you'll hear about that soon enough...

HA HA! You got me thinkin all week about this one, Mâh-Sakâ, Apâ Sakâ, Qataban, Gandhara, Erain, Sklaven- WHO COULD THEY BE?? , another clue, end the sleepless nights!!
....please

[lobf]

While I thought that the idea in intself is quite neat; the way it works out in a game as EB.... I am not to convinced. For one thing some of our factions would experience some pretty inconvenient geography as a result of projecting a sphere onto a rectangle like that.

For RTR this isn't that big an issue, AFAIK, as they focus more on what you call the 'civilised' world; but EB has a fair few factions more on the 'outer-spheres' of the map. Not too practical from what I saw on the screenshots to go for a 'tilted' map then...

I don't understand what this means. Specifically how the AI knows/cares the map is tilted.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Okay, take a breath. Here goes:

As you'll know the earth isn't a neat rectangle; so whenever you try to do cartography with it on any 'worldwide' scale you will have some obvious problems. One: no matter what you do you will always end up with an incorrect map due to the distortion you get from projecting some sphere onto a rectangle. Two: either your proportions will be all wrong or your angles will; again due to the fact that you project your sphere of sorts onto a rectangle.

What RTR has done is that they have chosen to go with correct angles; which means that if you would view their 'Earth' from 'space' you would see the same rough shape as you would with the real Earth; i.e. their map can be seen as a flattened sphere. However towards the boundaries of their map you will notice that in order to keep the angles the size of the various land-masses/provinces had to be stretched/shrunk; a natural consequence of their 'circular' map. Imagine a circle intersected by two lines who intersect each other in the center at some angle as well. Now imagine a circle with the same center but half the radius. Again the lines will intersect the second circle but the distance between the first two intersection points and the latter two will reveal a signficant difference.

Hence factions which dwell on the rims of the RTR map will have much more of a distance to cover from one city to another on the map than they would have to in real life. Since RTR has more of a focus on the Mediterrean this isn't too much of a problem for them as they simply can chose the center of 'their circle' to be somewhere in the middle of that sea; and the need to shrink provinces won't become as obvious due to the rather large amount of provinces already located there -- and the need to stretch provinces can be considered a small price to pay as relatively few factions will ever need to traverse those stretched provinces. In fact part of those provinces are the steppes for which it doesn't really matter too much as one can always claim to incorporate part of one region into another.


EB on the other hand has chosen to stick to the more common approach of rendering the proportions correct but the angles wrong. So you could view the EB map as an 'unfolded' Earth. This means that distances on the map correspond to distances in the real world; but that moving directions will not. A simple example is that 'north' doesn't correspond to 'up'; but differs from which point on the map you look at it.

[lobf]

Thank you very much, that was exactly the explanation I was looking for.

Plus, it would look a little lame to xerox an idea like that, amirite? :P

[mcantu]

One of the things I loved about RTR 7.0 (Biggest let down EVER) was the idea to tilt the map, to include less of the Sahara, less of Sideria, and the plains, and a greater concetration on the "civilized" world. It was a shame this map was never used. Any effort to utilize similar map changes on EB2, or significant map changes at all?

um...we haven't released RTR VII yet

[Hax]

I think that's the letdown he's referring to.

I'm really looking forward to it though ;)

[brymht]

No Offense to any RTR VII People here meant. When I gave up waiting for RTR VII I, after all, came into the arms of EB .8

[mcantu]

No Offense to any RTR VII People here meant. When I gave up waiting for RTR VII I, after all, came into the arms of EB .8

yeah, i've been addicted to EB since 0.8. try beta testing EB 1.0/1.1 and working on RTR/RTR-TIC at the same time...talk about frying your brain

[Cartaphilus]

One question:

Do you consider allow a pass (as in the Bosphorus or in Sicilia) in the Channel and in Gibraltar?
That would be interesting. So it will end the boring isolation of the Casse and will allow more movement between Hispania and Africa - you know pretty well that the IA hates the sea campaigns and the transport of the troops.

[Hax]

Doesn't hate them as a bad in M2TW.

[MarcusAureliusAntoninus]

No landbridge across the English Channel in EB1 was decided because it is a decent amount of distant and a rough sea. Where as you could commandeer a merchant fleet at other landbridges, you would need an actual fleet and a lot of planning to cross the Channel.

Thankfully, the M2TW AI is not afraid of making naval invasions.

[Cartaphilus]

No landbridge across the English Channel in EB1 was decided because it is a decent amount of distant and a rough sea. Where as you could commandeer a merchant fleet at other landbridges, you would need an actual fleet and a lot of planning to cross the Channel.

Thankfully, the M2TW AI is not afraid of making naval invasions.

I have played M2tw in many campaigns, and the AI seldom make naval invasions, more than RTW but few indeed.

And what about the landbridge in Gibraltar? This pass wasn't a problem for any army in History.

The English channel with a landbridge could do a better campaign. Playing the Casse is now too easy. You have now no trouble to unify the Islands and then make your landing in the Continent.

[Mithridates VI Eupator]

I guess that the AI will not allow you to do this quite as undisturbed in EB2.
The M2TW campaign-AI does, actually, use naval landings from time to time.
Sure, an island will be somewhat more protected from invasion than a "regular" province, but that does, in my opinion, only add realism to the game. After all, launching a naval invasion is not the kind of thing you can do whenever you feel like it. It takes careful planning and preparation.