I am not fond of 3D maps. The simplicity of 2D maps lends itself better to planning out my actions and watching what other empires are doing.

I felt the same way. Although, on one hand, it keeps a 'cluttered' map down, and is probably simpler to do, I also would hope for a more layered look. It would help the galaxy feel more alive, as many other threads help suggest.



I hate using examples of other games, but Spore's galaxy map was its best feature. It felt really broad and varied. The galaxy map here feels very static, and even though I usually play as huge, 8-armed spiral maps, it doesn't feel like I'm really traversing anything.







That ^ would be ideal for when we zoom out. And the stars get more dense as we approach the galactic bulge/core. They have varied layers, and we can spin/rotate the galaxy.



And, when we zoom out of the galaxy in ES, it's a little murky. It has a vague, starry background. I would love clear blackness punctuated by different galaxies and galaxy types.



I think if we could toggle between an aesthetic 3D view/movement and a more strategic 2D environment, this would be a perfect balance. But there are inherent problems in a 4X game with a 3D map.

It's all cool thinking about how fun the game would be if it were 3D, then if it's 3D you think about how much more fun and accessible the game would be if it were flat.

Considering the fact that we're headed for a Beta where the AI has been designed to pathfind and strategize on a 2D map, I'd like to see a challenging AI on this current design before making something more complicated for the AI to handle.



And yes, I know other 4X space games have used 3D maps. But it's a question of how they're designing the AI, from scratch. I want to see it working well on this style of map first. Save a full 3D map for ES2, if we get there.

I know that 3d can become a headache and I would probably agree that ES will stay 2d i just think it could feel a lot less flat if the wormholes jumped further than a starlane, and you had a travel range to deal with.

3-D starmaps are cool inside your head. But they lose coolness as soon as they appear on a flat 2-D monitor. Then they become a management nightmare, trying to figure out which star is farther away or above or below, let alone actually selecting them.



In MOO3, I wound up using the Flatten Galaxy mod thing to eliminate the z axis, and it was so much easier to understand. Short distances were short. Long distances were long. Great, really like that.

Zenicetus wrote:
Considering the fact that we're headed for a Beta where the AI has been designed to pathfind and strategize on a 2D map, I'd like to see a challenging AI on this current design before making something more complicated for the AI to handle.



And yes, I know other 4X space games have used 3D maps. But it's a question of how they're designing the AI, from scratch. I want to see it working well on this style of map first. Save a full 3D map for ES2, if we get there.

I'm a math major the pathfinding algorithm is the same graph theory problem no matter if the map is 2d or 3d. Not to say its easy to do a smart pathfinding algorithm even in 2d! just look at civ5, but the math behind it doesn't get any harder because the map is in 3d.



What does make the AI in Endless Space an interesting thing to think about is warp travel removes the starlane constraint, which means the AI can send the ships to any star system. So now instead of a 2-6 possible paths per star(node) it has as many as there are stars. When we just had starlanes its probably just doing a greedy algorithm to choose paths. Who knows how its handling warp travel?



Part of the reason for the really annoying wormhole path glitch is probably that the pathfinding is greedy and wormholes get a zero(or really low) weight even though it takes more turns of travel time to use the wormhole than just the starlane, but the algorithm just did an edge weight calculation, instead of using travel time in turns.

I know games in the 4x genre uses flat maps because its simple and easy to do, but I loved how Ascendancy's 3d star map worked. It changes how you think about the whole attack and defence of your empire. Personally I would prefer a 3d star map to the non-star-lane travel option currently in the game. However its not the only way to fix the flat feeling of the map in ES I know MOO2 was flat but it felt less flat than ES because of how wormholes and the tech level travel distance restrictions worked.



Is it just me who feels a little disappointed that my 4x game map is still flat!



What does everyone else think? If nothing else I'd like to be able to at least rotate/spin the map.

Astra wrote:
I felt the same way. Although, on one hand, it keeps a 'cluttered' map down, and is probably simpler to do, I also would hope for a more layered look. It would help the galaxy feel more alive, as many other threads help suggest.



I hate using examples of other games, but Spore's galaxy map was its best feature. It felt really broad and varied. The galaxy map here feels very static, and even though I usually play as huge, 8-armed spiral maps, it doesn't feel like I'm really traversing anything.







That ^ would be ideal for when we zoom out. And the stars get more dense as we approach the galactic bulge/core. They have varied layers, and we can spin/rotate the galaxy.



And, when we zoom out of the galaxy in ES, it's a little murky. It has a vague, starry background. I would love clear blackness punctuated by different galaxies and galaxy types.



I think if we could toggle between an aesthetic 3D view/movement and a more strategic 2D environment, this would be a perfect balance. But there are inherent problems in a 4X game with a 3D map.

i liked their planetary trade feature which was directional arrows and small npc ships moving in and out of those systems. would be nice to get some sort of indicator where trade is taking place in ES.



Also a 3d toggle would be nice but the map as it is its pretty well done.

Actually I take back what I just said pathfinding is likely goal orriented in ES so even with warp travel it just finds any path from A to B and does a path optimization algorithm. This is significantly less work than evaluating all possible paths.

Mechanos wrote:
i liked their planetary trade feature which was directional arrows and small npc ships moving in and out of those systems. would be nice to get some sort of indicator where trade is taking place in ES.



Also a 3d toggle would be nice but the map as it is its pretty well done.

Exactly. It helped make things feel more dynamic and alive.



I realize it'd just be icing on the cake with no real value necessarily (and I shouldn't really expect any changes like that at this point in the game) -- but it'd be a nice idea!

Galaxy dynamics and trade feel like they are missing from the game still to me. Hopefully they add better trade before release. And it would be sweet if major events like black holes, super nova, wondering stars, showed up on the map!

planetcore wrote:
Galaxy dynamics and trade feel like they are missing from the game still to me. Hopefully they add better trade before release. And it would be sweet if major events like black holes, super nova, wondering stars, showed up on the map!

I can't stress this enough.

Trade does need an upgrade pretty badly. I spent 3 hours in a match before I realized I had 3 trade routes open with another faction.

I know in the actual space stars are not one the same plane as far as vertical but for purposes of a game I prefer 2d.