but more to the point, it might be awesome to have a spherical map but compared to cylindrical maps, wouldn't that be more demanding on people's computers?

REGIONS & BIOMES



The world is divided into regions.



Each region has its own biome, determined through temperature and humidity parameters. Mountains, cliffs, lakes and oceans are used as natural frontiers between regions. Terrain types, forests and terrain variations (anomalies) are used to create variety inside a biome in terms of visual aspect and gameplay properties. Height is an important factor concerning armies’ field of view. Then, the map is divided into hexagonal tiles, each having its own height, terrain type, and can contain forests, rivers, city districts, villages, region buildings, anomalies, resources, armies and/or other secrets yet to be unveiled…





PLAYER STARTING POSITION



Faction starting regions are placed so they won’t be adjacent to each other when the game starts, on the maps having the recommended maximum number of players. Starting regions are balanced compared to each other, regarding their resource contents. Each faction can start in any biome. They have to combine the advantages of their biome with the traits of their faction to progress. Each biome has its pros and cons, varying for each Faction.





WORLD GENERATION



When starting a new game, the player has access to some generation options:

• Map size
• Horizontal loop
• Hemispheres
• Climate
• Ruggedness
• Continents type
• Regions size
  
  

CITIES



Cities are built upon multiple tiles, collecting FIDS (Food , Industry , Dust , Science :science from the exploitation area and each City tile. Each new Barony (City extension) produces additional Dust and Science but also removes some Food from the corresponding tile.



Choosing wisely how to expand your city is determinant economically, but also to defend invasions.



Every City tiles (City hall, City extensions and City centres) produce Prestige to be used on an Empire-scale: making new plans to improve some parts of your Empire, deal with Minor Factions, etc.

There can be only 1 City per region. If you build a new City in an unclaimed region, then the whole region is yours! At least, until someone finds that region so beautiful that he wants to take it by force...).











RESOURCES



Once you built a city in a new region, you can exploit its natural resources. There are all kinds of resources scattered across the map.



Strategic resources can be gathered by placing a corresponding building on their tile. They are scattered all around the globe, so everyone can have access to resources. Unlike in Endless Space, here you collect a defined amount of resources each turn, so you’ll need to be sure that those Titanium shields are worth the cost, because you won’t be able to build another Watchtower because of that. Strategic resources are required for pretty much everything you want to build or forge.



Luxuries are local resources: if you find a luxury, you are bound to find more in the regions around. It's impossible for a player to obtain all luxuries… as long as other empires are still alive. Luxuries can become quite powerful elements when you have enough of them for your entire kingdom. Some resources are rarer than others. This means there will be wars for strategic resource access, as well as for the luxuries whose bonuses you need the most. Oh, maybe you’d like to exchange those resources instead of more bloodshed. That’s fine and all. Then, suddenly, the Dark season.





ANOMALIES



Some terrains have “anomalies” or terrain variations. These are rarer than classic terrain types, and can be found only in specific combinations of terrain types and biomes. Most anomalies are not natural, and are remains from the strange past of the Planet. They can become quite useful if exploited by your City. And your people like strange things too.





THE DARK SEASON



The Dark Season slows down the world’s evolution: Food becomes rare, Cities need more people working in the fields than building new Temples, refining Dust or making new Alchemy experiences. Roads fade, each army movement has to be pondered; bad decisions have greater consequences than usual.



Each season’s duration is hard to predict, as it changes each time. The game starts at an Era withstanding longer Dark seasons than usual, and they seem to be harsher each time. No wonder there are rumours about an inevitable doom; who knows if the next Dark season won’t last forever?





VIP FEEDBACK



Our VIPs had a few questions about:

• Negative anomalies: there will be no negative anomalies; there are many other reasons to avoid some of the tiles when building/extending your city. Like with other elements in the game, you will be able to improve your FIDS gain from anomalies. Few anomalies are tied to only 1 biome. The way you'll handle anomalies will depend on which FIDS you have and which ones you need.
• Factions bound to biomes: all factions have been created to work in all biomes. What will be important is where you'll settle your first City. In 1 turn you'll be able to scout a bit and place your city where it suits your needs.
• Destroying crops during a siege: you will be able to prevent the enemy from harvesting Food (and other FIDS) from tiles outside their city while they are under siege. An unprepared city might slowly starve. An while you can't destroy exploitation fields, you'll be able to Destroy region buildings (watchtowers, resource extraction buildings).
• Cities built too close to each other: there can be only 1 city per region, and a city can't exploit another region's tiles. Two cities close to each other should be easier to defend against siege but less likely to protect their region's buildings.
  
  

Thank you for reading! Let us hear your impressions now.

well they already are looking for some playtesters and i don't think they'd use their resources to change the game this way. the technology exists for them to do so but they do not wish to, so we have regular cylindrical maps.

Yes, a much better direction.

well to be honest no matter how you look at it, it would be a leap in the other direction

Possibly, but the game is only in a pre-Alpha stage. I'm not familiar enough with the technology at issue to feel qualified to opine on it. That said, Pandora developed entirely on a square tile model for years and then abruptly converted to a hex model shortly before beta, so it really all depends on how easy (read: costly) it would be to plot EL's regions onto a spherical map.

still seems quite complicated to use in a game thats already well into development, though in a new game i could see your point about it being better.

It certainly doesn't look like a 3D sphere, though that may be result of deliberate flattening to allow for better interaction at a close zoom level. The best evidence for inferring that it isn't a spherical world is that the Devs haven't referred to it as such. A spherical world would be pretty innovative in this genre of gaming, so I'd have expected them to have touted the feature.



The method for rendering a tiled spherical world clearly exists in a few different forms, with various minor drawbacks (scaling being the most common):



http://www.garagegames.com/community/blogs/view/12578



http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=356334



http://sourceforge.net/projects/hexmapsphere/#



I've also seen it actually implemented in an upcoming space 4X called Predestination:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZfduENDILI#t=52



The question of the compatibility of existing technology to render the world in this way is a different matter.



Even if none of the methods depicted above are perfect, they'd be a MASSIVE improvement over cylindrical worlds.

wouldn't a 3D sphere be hard to implement? also from all of the images they have shown us, the world doesn't look like a 3D sphere