Is the GC universe "flat" or "curved" ?

That would be a fun option to have! No safely cowering in the corner for you peaceniks

Sith

It's flat.

Asmodean

~SDC~

A game in 3 dimensions would be neat, I wonder if it could ever be done.

You would need to be able to rotate images to gain access to 3 dimensions on a monitor.

3D could certainly be done. It's been done in more combat oriented games (Homeworld for example). I think that would be an interesting approach to this genre.

Regarding the original post, I'm not sure how a flat map used to represent a spherical planet would translate into a 3 dimensional galaxy? The planet map (earth for example) is simply a 2d surface map. The LEFT side joins the RIGHT side to create a continuous world (the sphere). How will this work for a 3D galaxy? Seems that we'd only have the perimeter of a galaxy using such a map. Am I missing something?

Yeah, I always thought it would be interesting to play on sphere, or a torus (or maybe even a Klein bottle or projected plane ) by connecting up edges. But that's a refinement. I'd much rather they put their effort into AI that can really kick butt--and it sounds like they have.

I'm sorry to sound like such a party-pooper, but I fail to see what impact "curved space" would have on one galaxy. In the real universe there are *billions* of galaxies. The distances between these billions of galaxies makes the galaxies themselves seem like pin-points in comparison. You would have to traverse imense distances accross all these galaxys before you began to experience any significant effects of the curvature of space (technically space-time). The scope of this game covers one galaxy.

LifeWish,
We aren't actually talking about the "real universe" but about a game where the edges of the play space could be connected to change the strategic situation. Just for fun and variety

Wouldn't a curved map that had both side and top/bottom map edges joined technically be a "donut" shape? *Imagines folding a piece of paper so that top/bottom meet and then bending it so both the sides meet* Still, as funny as the thought of a doughnut shaped universe seems to me, the idea of no edges/corners is very appealing. I don't imagine though if the game is not programmed that way already that changing the AI to work effectively with that style of map would be very easy?

--Soulfire

The RTS game "Magic&Mayhem" was wraparound on top+bottom and left+right, and this gave the game an exciting dynamic feel, since it was much harder to entrench yourself in a corner. I think it's a great idea.

Soulfire,
Quite right, if you connect the top to the bottom and the left to the right (with no twists), you get a doughnut or torus.

If you connect two opposite edges with no twists, you get a cylinder. With a twist, a mobius strip.

If you twist on pair of edges and connect the other pair without a twist, you get a Klein bottle. Twist 'em both and get something called a projected plane.

Here is a web site the has some diagrams:
http://www.math.hmc.edu/faculty/gu/curves_and_surfaces/surfaces/klein.html

And here is a web site that has games played on a torus or Klein bottle (such as chess ):
http://www.northnet.org/weeks/TorusGames/

MOO3 has a 3D-map... It's awful! Stick with 2D. LOL

Not sure how much of a programming change adding a wrap around option would do. A number of games have this option (wrap all borders or only left and right borders). I personally prefer corners on a galatic map. Why? Because they're REAL. Galaxies don't wrap around! It makes the far corner a long long way away.

As for 3D maps, games like ascendancy did this. Looks lovely, but with starlanes linking only certain stars, it could just as easily been 2D.

Paul.

Personally I think a wraparound galaxy would be too unbelievable. A 3D galaxy might be more realistic than a 2D one, but not by much (the milky way, and all the other galaxies we can see enough of are very disk shapped).

As for play, there are times when you really do need to hunker down in a corner if you want any chance of survival. Not in every game, but enough of them that having to watch out for being blindsided at an edge can be very vexing.

~SDC~