Brainlet here, can someone explain why the Mercator projection is so popular? The shear size distortion has always bothered me. It makes Greenland look bigger than South America.
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As VICTORIA 3 (and Paradox games in general) doesn't show the poles it should use a Equirectangular projection map [Petition to the dev team]
- Thread starter Alfred Dreyfus
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I think it's popular with european nationialists because it makes their countries seem bigger and more important
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It was invented for use in sailing, and for that purpose it is the best map available pre-gps, because any straight line on a Mercator projection map is a line of constant true bearing that enables a navigator to plot a straight-line course. It stayed in use because it was the most widely available map and was the one used in schools. It is popular to call the map racist, or Mercator racist, because it makes the equator areas smaller compared to North and South, but this is just... insane and shows a profound ignorance. It certainly is not used for this reason
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Mercator is popular because it's the only real projection in our minds. I don't know for rest of the world, but in my country, world maps used at schools were, and still are Mercator. I just can't stand to look at anything different. I know Europe is smaller then it is shown on that projection, and really, I don't care will it be shown the right or the wrong way, I just want it to look good.
Also, Paradox's maps were never full Mercator, it was their own variation ( mostly Mercator ), but with some things changed.
Also, Paradox's maps were never full Mercator, it was their own variation ( mostly Mercator ), but with some things changed.
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Unless they can straight up make a globe-map they should just use ordinary maps that everyone is familiar with. One of the things that could maybe be implemented is to give every province a hidden modifier depending on which part of the map they are on that gives them bonuses to movement speed the further away they are from the equator.
"Just make it a globe" and equivalent suggestions really underestimate how many technical and game design issues a globe introduces.
I know from this from experience unfortunately. Of course they are solvable but the benefit of having a perfect map (no projection, so perfect) is actually not as large as you think. And the technical and design challenges are very intimidating for such a small improvement.
You get about 95% of the benefit by just tweaking your projection to the game you are making. Unless the poles are REALLY important, which they are not really in Victoria.
Don't take this to mean I don't love globes and perfect maps, I really do, that is why it is painful to admit it is probably not worth it.
I know from this from experience unfortunately. Of course they are solvable but the benefit of having a perfect map (no projection, so perfect) is actually not as large as you think. And the technical and design challenges are very intimidating for such a small improvement.
You get about 95% of the benefit by just tweaking your projection to the game you are making. Unless the poles are REALLY important, which they are not really in Victoria.
Don't take this to mean I don't love globes and perfect maps, I really do, that is why it is painful to admit it is probably not worth it.
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I think it would be useful if you told about this in more detail. The globe is such a common suggestion for every game, I think a lot of people are curious to know the downsides of it. Obviously it requires reworking the engine on quite a deep level, but putting that aside (let's say you're coding a new engine from scratch for the sake of argument), what are some downsides?
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Option to flip the map so the south is at the top or we riot.
Also: the Americas on the right of the map.
Also: the Americas on the right of the map.
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Devs, can we get WASD-only map scrolling too please? I think Lambert really wants it.
It actually is. That's what map gores are. Or did you think the pieces glued onto the sides of a globe were somehow not flat pieces of printed material?
And this is why it should never be a globe. A map like this would be hell for modders and would require effectively an entire rework of how province adjacencies are calculated.
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Right, I guess we are doing this again.
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Not necessarily. I can't say how good it would look, but there's nothing in the technical side that would force them to use a sliced texture like that one. They could just have a Mercator map behind the scenes and UV-map it in a way that corrects the projection.It actually is. That's what map gores are. Or did you think the pieces glued onto the sides of a globe were somehow not flat pieces of printed material?
And this is why it should never be a globe. A map like this would be hell for modders and would require effectively an entire rework of how province adjacencies are calculated.
I can't definitely say whether or not it would look weird, but I can't think of a reason why it would be impossible.
Right, I guess we are doing this again.
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Oh yeah, I'd absolutely vote (or die on the hill fighting) for Gall-Peters. It's the unsatisfactory compromise that no-one wants. Good stuff.
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Yes, globes aren't made out of flat pieces of materiel. They're made out of curved pieces of materiel. That's why globes are round, and why map projections are a thing at all.
Why would using a globe require a rework of province adjacencies? I don't see why there'd be any reason to change the data structure used to represent the map (presumably a graph of some sort) just because you move from using a projection to a globe.
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Devs, can we get WASD-only map scrolling too please? I think Lambert really wants it.
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I was pleasantly surprised by the projection. It's not perfect (Imperator type projection feels like it would be ideal), but America isn't awkwardly shifted north like in Vic2 and the projection does not look like the terrible HOI4 & EUIV map where the southern portion of the map looks like a deflated balloon.
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...wut
How... how do you think physical globes in real life are made?
Because right now province adjacencies are calculated from a png map of provinces with raster adjacency. Globe mapping would most easily require either predefined province adjacencies or a switch to vector mapping of provinces, both of which are undesirable for at the very least modding and ease of use purposes.
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