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Spaces on globe mapped in 2D

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Desprez
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I'm in the process of building a space themed game.

With that, comes the topic of landing on different planets, and then building and fighting there. So, I'm creating different small maps of planets.

I figured it would be nice to actually have the maps behave like the surface of an actual sphere.
That is, continuous movement around the map, no dead ends or corners. And the idea that no space has a positional advantage with regards to distance.

Simply saying that travel off of one edge of the map wraps you around to the other side doesn't accomplish that. That describes the topology of a torus, not a sphere. Notice that the poles are adjacent, not opposite.
While that might be an acceptable compromise for most purposes, I wanted to do better.

For one thing, you just can't accurately map the whole Earth this way.
Many playing boards have adapted this by allowing movement to the opposite side when traveling east or west, but not allowing wrapping north and south. (How silly it would be to move to the north pole and suddenly be in Antarctica?)

But there are some problems with this. Your options to get to the opposite side of the globe are reduced. No polar routes are possible. Furthermore, as spaces get closer to a pole, they become artificially too far apart.
Historically, this is mitigated by the fact that polar travel was largely infeasable. And so, these problems could safely be ignored in game design.

Once you move into hi-tech or sci-fi settings, the problem becomes increasingly relevant, as your units have the capability to travel the whole globe.

You can't model the polar regions concurrently with equatorial regions using such a system.

To solve this, I'm been mapping board spaces that try to reflect the realities of a sphere.
1) Distance from any particular space to the space on the opposite side of the planet is the same regardless of direction traveled.

2) Each space represents aproximatel equal area of coverage on the surface, even though some spaces will appear stretched in 2D.

3) All spaces should connect by edges, never by a single point. Squares laid out like a chessboard are problematic in this regard.

Below, is an image showing some solutions for different sized planets.

To show possible moves that wrap around the board, a lettered and colored dot appears on the edge of some spaces. The edge of such a space connects to the other edge with the corresponding dot.

In the image, the top row shows layouts for 1, 2, 4, and 6 space worlds. The 6 space world is analogous to a 6 sided die. Admittedly, the 2 and 4 space worlds are a bit awkward.

The middle row shows 2 different ways to map a world with 12 spaces. The black dots labeled A and B show two spaces that are opposite each other.
(These are similar to a d12, the first as if the die was standing on a point, the second as if the die was lying flat. Both choices have utility depending on how you want to depict the polar region.)

The last example is a globe with 32 spaces. Its topology is like the regions of a soccer ball.
Here, I've also illustrated how the distances remain constant.

Traveling from pole to pole is 5 spaces (Green arrow)

Travel from a space on near the equator to its opposite space is 5 spaces away. Equatorial route (Red arrow), and polar route (Blue arrow)

Furthermore, travel east and west when between the equator and poles (point A), describes a shorter path then when along the equator, and is also still 5 spaces away when going to its opposite space (point B).

All the above hold true even if wrapping off the map to the other side.

I also have a working map with 54 spaces. (Also, I have plans for even larger ones, but they are out of scope for my game)
For reference, I have superimposed a map of the Earth to sort of give an idea of how a game board migth be presented - though you'd likely have to tweak the positions of land masses a bit.

Unfortunately, I'm having a problem with getting a good map between 12 and 32 spaces. Something that has a distance to opposite at 4, currently a gap in my planet sizes.

I thought I had a one at 18 spaces, but it turned out that some points had shortest solutions of 3 instead of 4.

This seem to basically be a math problem, but I'm having trouble trying to look this stuff up. As such, my solutions have largely been the result of trial an error so far.

I guess my questions here are if anyone else has tried this, or something similar?
Are there any games that use such a system?
Does anyone have the necessary foundation in topology(?) to even be able to ask the right questions that I can search for a solution?

rellekmr
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Spaces on globe mapped in 2D

why not just use a soccer ball or a die for a model

Desprez
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Spaces on globe mapped in 2D

rellekmr wrote:
why not just use a soccer ball or a die for a model

Well, I addressed some of that in the original post.

The planet with 32 spaces is basicaly a soccer ball.

The 12 space, and 6 space planets are basicaly equivalent to 12 and 6 sided dies, respectively.

d20 does not work for a number of reasons. I think mainly because more than three spaces contribute to any given point.

Again, the problem comes from finding solutions for other numbers of spaces.

Unless there's a formula I can use, it's tricky to find solutions that have all spaces given equal position.
It doesn't work to simply sub-divide solutions I already have.
You'll notice that the spaces around the equator must be either = (2x number of rings vertical)
or you can use less if you can stager them such that an extra moves are needed.
Also, (building from the pole down) you can only increase the number of spaces in a ring by a multiple of the previous ring or you get problems of distance equity.

Finding the exceptions that work, is the dificult part. It's more of a fine art of balance at the moment.

On the bright side, I may have found a satisfactory solution for 26 spaces (with a half-way distance of 4)
It's not perfect, but I think it'll work.
The number of spaces in the rings, top to bottom, look like:
3
6
8
6
3

The tricky part is getting the ring of 6s to line up with the ring of 8.
Not all spaces will connect equally to the mid ring, and this can cause distance problems for some of the spaces.
But through delicate stagering and arrangement, I think I may have found an layout that balances out.

It should be noted that the cleaner arrangement of:
1
4
8
4
1

Does NOT work! All the spaces line up nice and easy, but it turns out that the spaces in the ring of 4 can hit any other space in 3 moves, whereas the other spaces all need 4 moves.

I might try 1,6,8,6,1 as a solution too, but my impression is that there's too much distance between 1 to 6 and too little between 6 to 8 to represent a convincing sphere.

rellekmr
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Spaces on globe mapped in 2D
Desprez
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Spaces on globe mapped in 2D


Unfortunately, I've covered most of those shapes.

I did learn that it's truncated solids that I'm after, as that will describe surface spaces that only connect on edges, not points.

Of those, the Truncated Icosahedron is a soccer ball.
The Truncated Dodecahedron would have the same number of spaces as the previous.
The Truncated Hexahedron doesn't work.
A Truncated Tetrahedron actually works, and forms an arrangement I'd somehow previously missed... but it sadly doesn't add much as it only has 8 spaces. But still, that can add some variation for the smaller worlds.

Even though that link itself didn't provide a solution, it has given me some other options to further research on. So I appreciate you digging that up!

Emphyrio
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Spaces on globe mapped in 2D

The icositetrahedron (http://www.jcrystal.com/steffenweber/POLYHEDRA/p_06.html) would work, except that you're constraining it such that each vertex can participate in at most 3 sides rather than 4. There are various other spherical tilings, but the ones I came across all have the same problem.

1/8/8/8/1 would work (interestingly, this corresponds to constructing a solid each of whose faces is centered on a vertex of an icositetrahedron).

Julius
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Spaces on globe mapped in 2D

Check out these sites:
http://www.progonos.com/furuti/MapProj/Normal/ProjPoly/Foldout/Dodecahedron/dodecahedron.html
http://www.progonos.com/furuti/MapProj/Normal/ProjPoly/Foldout/foldout.html

Pretty interesting. I'm folding one up right now.

Edit:
The truncated dodecahedron is quite nice, too:
http://www.progonos.com/furuti/MapProj/Normal/ProjPoly/Foldout/TIcosahedron/ticosahedron.html

I guess understand the concept of emulating combat on a sphere, but I'm not sure why you would actually want to do it. It seems it would work best in an abstract sense (an abstract game where you have to think in 3d on a 2d board), rather than a siumulationist sense like you are (I assume) trying to create.

I'd suggest you have planets with individual territories. Think of them like little Risk maps - you could have one for each planet. Just have a flat map, with a few territories on it that are adjacent/connected. The territories would be abstract shapes (countries, regions, etc), rather than a fixed area. It's not like war on earth happens at the poles, or anything... and you can't walk troops across the atlantic, either. Terrain makes for natural barriers.

That, and for some reason, the pole territory of your maps is unsettling. Maybe you could have maps consist of two hemispheres of the globe, like so: http://www.beachmaps.com/map/HEMISPHERESSTRIDBECK.jpg

Epigone
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Spaces on globe mapped in 2D

Julius wrote:
I guess understand the concept of emulating combat on a sphere, but I'm not sure why you would actually want to do it. It seems it would work best in an abstract sense (an abstract game where you have to think in 3d on a 2d board), rather than a siumulationist sense like you are (I assume) trying to create.

That, and for some reason, the pole territory of your maps is unsettling.
Combat on a sphere is awesome, that's why. : ) And it's not 3d, its 2d with a different topology. The poles are always hard to wrap your mind around. I use a somewhat different method of representing a spherical map. Here it is, and an example of a 16-space sphere with maximum distance 3 but circumference definitely 7 (no two spaces are exactly "opposite" each other).

Edit: Silly me, that's not right. There are four spaces that can read 6 in one move, 6 in two moves, and the 3 opposite in three moves.

setarcos
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Global Mapping

Global Mapping

Look here for different ways to use polyhedra to map the Earth (or any other globe).

http://www.progonos.com/furuti/MapProj/Normal/ProjPoly/projPoly.html

As far as various Icosahedral projections go, I’ve done those to death. (Which is a pity, because it turns out others did them to death before me.)

Your basic Truncated Icosahedron does give you a map where exactly three spaces meet at each vertex. (One of your requirements, wasn’t it?)

You can download printable maps of the Earth like this off the web. (Sorry, I didn’t have time to find the links. You’ll have to Google around for it.) [Oops! Looks like Julius found them for you while I was writing this.]

This map doesn’t really appeal to me, though. But if you start extrapolating on the idea, so that you have a higher resolution map, then I think you have something...

...that is unless you’re one of those people who have a phobia about hexes. (But I’m sort of the opposite of that; I’m somewhat obsessed with hexes myself. Maybe I should have been a Grognard.)

You can also download Icosahedral maps of the Earth (and other planets, I believe) which could be easily adapted to this kind of layout than the “soccer-ball” map.

Anyway, good luck and have fun!

Julius
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Spaces on globe mapped in 2D

Quote:
I’m somewhat obsessed with hexes myself.

Hear, hear!

Epigone wrote:
Combat on a sphere is awesome, that's why. : ) And it's not 3d, its 2d with a different topology. The poles are always hard to wrap your mind around. I use a somewhat different method of representing a spherical map.

I completely I understand the desire for it... it is really cool. Like I said, an abstract game where you attempt to control the surface of a sphere would be pretty cool. I prefer the two-circle concept (my very last link) the more I think about it. I remember seeing a global chess board where the two circles were rigged so you could rotate the board around, so you could see which edge lined up with what. (pieces started in the center of each circle).

However, for a "global scale" game, I think it's unrealistic for a wargame because the areas are too abstract. If you had a wargame that took place on a microglobe that had 1000s of gridsquares and varying terrain, I'd be all for it. However, the original poster just wants to paint 20 or 50 grid areas on a planet and call it good.

I'm going to stick with my original suggestion of using Risk-like maps for the planets, rather than a grid with equal areas.

Now, if you had a beach-ball sized map with 1" spaces, that was covered with felt, suspended from a cieling, and the minis had velcro on the bottom... that'd rock.

Desprez
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Spaces on globe mapped in 2D

Julius wrote:

The truncated dodecahedron is quite nice, too:

Yes it is. It also hapens to be the soccer ball again. Already covered.

Quote:
It's not like war on earth happens at the poles, or anything... and you can't walk troops across the atlantic, either. Terrain makes for natural barriers.

You're forgetting that this is a sci-fi setting.
Combat most certianly will happen, well, just about anywhere.
1) Some planets/moons will be small enough that there isn't much evnorimnental difference between the pole and equator.
2) You can have units that will be able to withstand harsh envoronments with better technology. And you may need to go there to get certian resources. Or send fighters to strike by flying a polor route because it is a shorter distance.
3) For some planets (like those closer to the sun) the poles may actualy be the better envorinment.
4) You can have ships in orbit, and they will be able to cover, and drop troops quickly to any area of the planet. (So in some cases, oceans might not be all that much of a barrier.)
5) You migh find yourself engaged in a battle that involves units on the surface, in orbit, and on the surface of the near by moon(s)
Especially when you consider units with hi-tech weapon ranges. Or perhaps fighters that have an operational range that includes moons in orbit. Even the possibility of interplanetary ballastic missiles.

Quote:
That, and for some reason, the pole territory of your maps is unsettling. Maybe you could have maps consist of two hemispheres of the globe

It might be unsettling simply because you aren't used to seeing it.

That two hemispheres idea has merit, though. But I wonder if it might be harder to visualize the situation by breaking it up like that, especially if a particular planet doesn't have any obvious divisions. Not all planets will have ocean equivalents.

@Emphyrio,
1-8-8-8-1 doesn't really seem to make sence unless the spaces represent vastly different area sizes. There needs to be a more gradual shift from a ring of 1 space, to a ring with 8. Or if that's the case, the equator ring would have to have more than 8 spaces.

It takes the same number of moves to circle the pole as it does the equator? It doesn't seem to represent a sphere too well.

Epigone wrote:
Combat on a sphere is awesome, that's why. : ) And it's not 3d, its 2d with a different topology.

Bingo. You get the gold star today.

Actually, most of my trial and error expiriments involved playing with that that kind of layout you describe. After I find a map that works, I then try to represent it in a more traditional fashion, as there is less distortion.

Hmmm... Yes, your 2-6-6-2 map works quite well. I had initially balked at polar regions consisting of 2 spaces. They seemed awkward, and had caused problems on some larger maps. But they seem to work out fine here.
Maybe I'll have to re-examine the options with 2 space polar regions.

Anyway, I'll have to add that to my collection, thanks.

Sometime later I'll post the layout for 3-6-8-6-3 and you can see the potential issues. I'll be nice to see what someone else thinks of the comprimises involved.

Desprez
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Spaces on globe mapped in 2D

Julius wrote:
However, for a "global scale" game, I think it's unrealistic for a wargame because the areas are too abstract.

Well, I would like to have some planets with more spaces, but I'll run into a table space issue. (and playtime too, I imagine)

It's not a global scale wargame. It's an intergalactic wargame.

In fact, I have simplified combat quite a bit because the ground battles aren't the only focus. As such, I think abstracted areas can work out.

Quote:
Now, if you had a beach-ball sized map with 1" spaces, that was covered with felt, suspended from a cieling, and the minis had velcro on the bottom... that'd rock.

Ooh! Now there's a unique selling point!

Ska_baron
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Spaces on globe mapped in 2D

While I was reading this all I could think of were golf ball to base ball sized planets on stand on your board that were magnatized with little metal maries invading =)

setarcos
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Global Mapping Graphics

Rats! My global mapping graphics don't seem to be working. (They came out way to BIG! It was my first attempt to include graphics in my post.)

If you want to see them go here:

http://www.bgdf.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=3830

setarcos
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Global Warfare

Quote:
Now, if you had a beach-ball sized map with 1" spaces, that was covered with felt, suspended from a cieling, and the minis had velcro on the bottom... that'd rock.

Actually, I’ve considered doing something like that with a large globe and magnets. (You can get paint that is magnetic attracting to use on the globe.)

It would work if you wanted to spend a lot for a really cool game to play with your friends. But as for something that could be produced in quantity for a marketable price – forget about it!

evilupine
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Spaces on globe mapped in 2D

I don't think this is what you are looking for, but here goes. While looking at the "conformal hemispheres in squares" shown on this page: http://www.progonos.com/furuti/MapProj/Normal/ProjConf/projConf.html
I noticed that the corner triangles could be rotated so as to connect the disconnected edges. If the entire map was constructed of triangular tiles the shape of the map could be easily changed to simplify movement from any part of the map to any other part of the map. Then again, moving the map around when there are lots of little playing pieces on it might not be the best idea.
That site is very interesting, thanks for posting the link Julius.

MattMiller
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Spaces on globe mapped in 2D

This thread is definitely looking at a cool problem, and I've enjoyed looking at all the various solutions people have drawn or linked to. But I think most of these solutions look too complicated for use in a game. First of all, in the various maps that cut up the globe and unfold it into a mosaic of shapes, it won't always be clear which spaces along the edges are adjacent to which spaces along other edges. Second, even if the adjacencies are made clear, I find that the general impression of "roundness" is lost in most of these constructs.

Of the solutions presented so far, I actually like the ones in Desprez's initial post best, because they look like planets. The only problem I have with them is that the grids look very irregular and unsystematic, which is distracting. And, of course, there's a problem with scaling up to larger planets, because it's not clear how finer grids should be laid out.

I'd like to suggest a different approach. Rather than try to makes something truly accurate, maybe you should go with something that gets the topology basically right, but sacrifices true geometric accuracy for simplicity.

What I'm thinking of would be an elipse, with the major axis (the equator) oriented horizontally. This would then be divided into rows of simple, rectangular boxes. The row along the equator would have many boxes; rows farther from the equator would have fewer and fewer boxes, and the polar rows would have one box each. It is easy to arrange the boxes so that no two touch at a corner. It's also easy to scale this to any size planet -- just add rows and boxes as the planet gets bigger.

Movement on such a board would be highly intuitive. When you move off the left or right of a row, you wrap around to the other side. And the eliptical shape would be highly suggestive of a round planet.

There would be a little funkyness at the edges of a map like this. Moves off the left or right edge of a row would be limited to East-West movement -- no North-South possible. If this is a problem, I think it could be handled with a slight modification, such as simply saying that, when you move off the edge of a row, you can move into a space at the other side of the board that's one row higher or lower.

Just my 2 cents.

-- Matt

P.S. I drew a picture of what I'm thinking about, but I don't have a way to show it here. Would anybody be willing to give me a hand with that?

Julius
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Spaces on globe mapped in 2D

Matt,
I was about to make a post about how much I loved the globe-on-a-triangle from evilupine's link, but then I read your comment. You are absolutely right: The playing surface has to be suggestive of a spherical planet.

I still think you can use orbit with abstract territories. Think about Risk with orbit (I'm sorry, it's the only game of global domination I can think of right now) - wait, didn't they do that already? Risk 2020? Where you could go to the moon?

Hold on: There's another problem with orbit - Despite what you saw in Aliens 2, where they 'dropped' the lander like a bomb out of the space ship... Orbits are just fast, circular tracks aorund a planet - not an arbitrary space above something. There's nothing in orbit that just hovers above one spot on the globe.

I would say add some "orbit lines" around your planet, that represent paths an 'orbiting' ship could take, like so: http://monitor.admin.musc.edu/~cfs/GPS/GPS-orbits.png

Orbits + Territories = My solution.

Desprez
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Spaces on globe mapped in 2D

Julius wrote:
Orbits are just fast, circular tracks aorund a planet - not an arbitrary space above something. There's nothing in orbit that just hovers above one spot on the globe.

Geosyncronous orbit.
A high orbit where the speed of your circular track happens to match the speed of the planet's rotation. The object in orbit seems to stay in one place.

Anyway, the game scale is in months. So any ship that's in orbit would have plenty of time to change it's orbit such that it can hit any area of the globe.

What I got out of the hexes on triangles was a way to formalize the subdividing of the shape. (Which will then be used to make a more planet shaped game board) Not to actualy be used as an unfolded game board.

Desprez
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Spaces on globe mapped in 2D

Setting aside the arguments for scrapping the idea altogether for the moment, here is a possible solution for a 26 space globe with the distance to opposite space at 4.

The layout is 3-6-8-6-3.
As I mentioned earlier, the mismatch between 6 and 8 space rings causes some imbalance. But this solution tries to mitigate them somwhat.

The shortcoming is that while no space can cheat and get to its opposite in 3 moves, not all polar routes are available to all opposite space pairs.

Since the poles are 3 spaces each, there is no space completely lined up with the polare axis. Rather, the 3 spaces immediately surrounding it make up the pole.
So, any polar route must shy to one side or the other of the axis. Therefore in an ideal scenario, there should be 4 polar routes of the minimum distance between any two opposite spaces.

This is not the case on this map.
However, the spaces are arranged such that most spaces have 2 minimum distance polar routes. There are 2 space pairs (4 spaces) that only have 1 minimum distance polar route.

I think this is that best that can be done on this arrangement. Shifting any of the spaces to give more routes to a given pair, only seems to make other spaces even more unbalanced.

If I have to choose, I think I'd rather have some routes take an extra move, than having some routes take one less move (when compared to the equtor routes, and all routes along equator ring are 4 moves to the opposite space.)


Solid Colored Lines = 4 move route
Dashed Colored Lines = 5 move route

1) All spaces in the 2nd and 4th rings have two min distance polar routes apeice. Points A shown with example routes.

2)4 space pairs in the 3rd ring have 2 min dist polar routes. Points C show with example. Points B have similar routes between them.

3)The other 4 space pairs of the equatorial ring only have 1 min dist polar route between them. Points D shown with example. Points E have similar routes.

So is this too much imbalance?
Or is this just worring too much?

larienna
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Spaces on globe mapped in 2D

Sorry, but there is a pretty much simple solution still the distances might not be accurate.

You take a square( not rectangle) map, you allow people to warp from the top to the bottom of the map and from the left to the right side of the map like in any video game.

Now some people will argue that this creates a donut world. True. But if you put the south pole in the middle of the map and the north pole in the 4 corner of the map, you have a map that connects accurately.

It is a bit hard to visualise since for example, north is not the top of the map, but the whole map border. Think like if you are viewing earth from the bottom.

Of course the distance might not be accurate, but the connection works.

It might also be possible to rearrange the hex or square to make sure the distances works correctly.

Epigone
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Spaces on globe mapped in 2D

Larienna wrote:
But if you put the south pole in the middle of the map and the north pole in the 4 corner of the map, you have a map that connects accurately.

It is a bit hard to visualise since for example, north is not the top of the map, but the whole map border. Think like if you are viewing earth from the bottom.

Of course the distance might not be accurate, but the connection works.

It might also be possible to rearrange the hex or square to make sure the distances works correctly.
Yep, this is equivalent to my circular diagrams of a globe. The reason we don't like it is that some of the distances make no sense at all. For example, how long should it take to travel a small circle around a pole? Well, around the south pole, it will take 8 movement, but around the north pole, you'll have to traverse the entire perimeter (say, for a 5x5 map, 16 movement, twice the distance of the other pole).

To travel from the south pole to the north pole horizontally or vertically would be twice as fast as travelling diagonally. That seems silly.

Desprez
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Spaces on globe mapped in 2D

I think he means put the pole in the corner(s), because the corners are inherently connected to each other, not around the whole permiter.

I'm not sure that the distances are off so much as they are at unexpected vectors. I think that solution suffers from the problem of being hard for the player to visualize.

It won't much look like a planet, or any conventional map.

Something to test/think about, though

MattMiller
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Spaces on globe mapped in 2D

Quote:
But if you put the south pole in the middle of the map and the north pole in the 4 corner of the map, you have a map that connects accurately.

I don't think so. The board still has the topology of a donut. You can't change that by relabeling it.

'Course, I argued earlier that I don't think precision is that important here. However, I do think topology is important. It's really the whole point of the exercise, and it's something I think players will perceive as they play the game. The other thing that's important is making the boards look like planets.

Where I doubt precision is necessary is in making sure all the distances are accurate (which amounts to ensuring that every space covers an equal area). As long as

    1. you can wrap around from east to west,
    2. you can't wrap around from north to south,
    3. spaces get bigger at the poles, and
    4. the board looks kinda' roundish
the impression of a round planet will be created.

-- Matt

[/]
Epigone
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Spaces on globe mapped in 2D

MattMiller wrote:
I don't think so. The board still has the topology of a donut. You can't change that by relabeling it.

Oh, you're right. I thought any edge space could go to any edge space in two moves. I guess I took "topology of a sphere" as given and then reinterpreted what was said to make that work. : )

Desprez
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Spaces on globe mapped in 2D

The more I think about it, a size 24 with rings of 4-8-8-4 just seems to work better than size 26 at 3-6-8-6-3.

The four-space corner (which I initially wanted to avoid) at the poles doesn't seem to bad. It only occurs twice, and far away from each other. Plus it'll be somewhat hidden from the player.

While a straight grid of squares can be problamatic for movement, I think in this case it is so limited as to be no big deal.

So, I've got a breakdown like this so far:

Class    Size Opposite Rings<br />
----------------------------<br />
Itty-bitty: 1  (1)  1<br />
            2  (1)  1-1<br />
            4  (2)  2-2</p>
<p>Tiny:       6  (2)  1-4-1 OR 3-3<br />
            8  (2)  2-4-2</p>
<p>Small:     12  (3)  3-6-6-3 OR 1-5-5-1<br />
           16  (3)  2-6-6-2</p>
<p>Medium:    24  (4)  4-8-8-4<br />
           32  (5)  1-5-10-10-5-1</p>
<p>Large:     54  (6)  3-6-12-12-12-6-3<br />

This looks like a pretty good spread to me. Note that 6 and 12 have two different variations on how to disply the planet.

If I decide that distance equality is not as important, I can add another Small at 18 (4) 1-4-8-4-1
And another Medium at 40 (5) 2-6-12-12-6-2 which has an equator that is just a wee bit large.

I might look around and see if I can find another solution between 32 and 54

I also might add a "Huge" class, but at this point they would have to be a bonus or optional planets as table-space is limited.

Odonata
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Quote:
I might look around and see if I can find another solution between 32 and 54

I also might add a "Huge" class, but at this point they would have to be a bonus or optional planets as table-space is limited.

You could definitely do that. If it's a drag and/or you'd rather concentrate your energy elsewhere, there is a clear-cut astronomical explanation for having that huge break in planet sizes.

Tiny planets or moons are typically formed from expressed material due to a collision or break-off from an oddly-shaped planet. For example, Pluto and our moon are both thought to be ancient "squirts" of reformed material after a collision.

Small to midrange planets are your typical Earth/Mars/Venus type planets with cores and crusts.

Then there is a distinct break in magnitude, followed by the "gas Giants" like Saturn and Jupiter. They have fundamentally different compositions. So there is a logical precedent for having tiny-small-medium {BREAK} huge planets.

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