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]

[Lorehead]

It really just depends on how the UV-mapping is done. The pixel counts might become uneven between locations, which might become an issue unless it's processed out of it somehow, but I can't think of a reason it couldn't be done with, say, Mercator as the source texture. How good it would look like or if it's actually feasible, I can't say, but it's not an impossible task.

If your UV-space texture map is a raster image, you probably want to use an equal-area projection so that no region of the map has lower resolution and looks fuzzy. If you use a vector-graphic map, it can be whatever projection is easier for the artists to work with, but it makes sense to use a projection internally that makes it easier to calculate the U and V coordinates of a ray on the fly.

 

[Amallric]

In what game can you zoom out to see more than half the map at once anyway?

 

[Lorehead]

In what game can you zoom out to see more than half the map at once anyway?

Imperator and CK3 let you see most of the game map, but the map is less than half the globe.

 

[JKComposer]

In what game can you zoom out to see more than half the map at once anyway?

Every game made since 2013? EU4, CK3, HoI4, Victoria 3, Stellaris, and I think Imperator all allow you to zoom out and see the entire map at once.

 

[panda_Express12]

Nah. Making the northern hemisphere bigger is much more important because the reality is that most people are going to be playing nations in that part of the world.

 

[pheonicia]

Right, I guess we are doing this again.

Mandatory Embed #1:

Mandatory Embed #2:

I'm partial to the Robinson because that's the one I saw in school and grew up with, but honestly, imagine how cool using Peirce or Waterman projection map would be in a game.

 

[Deathknight15]

It really just depends on how the UV-mapping is done. The pixel counts might become uneven between locations, which might become an issue unless it's processed out of it somehow, but I can't think of a reason it couldn't be done with, say, Mercator as the source texture. How good it would look like or if it's actually feasible, I can't say, but it's not an impossible task.

Well yes, I did say it is a solvable problem. But a thorny and obnoxious one.

And the projection is not as bad of a problem as texturing, that really sucks to figure out. You can do it of course, but it often has a weird appearance and compromises compared to 2d flat texturing.

 

[Alfred Dreyfus]

Nah. Making the northern hemisphere bigger is much more important because the reality is that most people are going to be playing nations in that part of the world.

You didn't understand. I repeat:

Europe's size (or USA's) won't even change that much. The big change would be the huge fake size of the top edge of the map, which is artificially huge in the current map in comparison to its true and real size.

It's not just about a more accurate size of countries, it's also about not making huge the northern parts of the map in which players interact less.

What's the point in making the North part of Canada, Greenland, North part of Siberia or North part of Scandinavia bigger than it is in real life in comparison to the USA, Europe, central Russia, etc? From a gameplay perspective it is better to use the Equirectangular projection map, even if you are playing Canada or Russia.

 

[Ferrous Will]

I'm partial to the Robinson because that's the one I saw in school and grew up with, but honestly, imagine how cool using Peirce or Waterman projection map would be in a game.

do you enjoy the Beatles?

 

[pheonicia]

do you enjoy the Beatles?

Yes, incidentally.

 

[Velho e Bom Joe]

I don't get this thread request. I'm pretty sure the map shows ALL the Poles. The only landmass not present is Antarctica, and there were no Poles living there, after all.

In fact, now that pops have models, you can actually see all the Poles! How neat is that?

 

[Kainser]

The question you haven't answered is why this projection is better for a computer game like V3. That's all that matters. The merits of various map projections only matter to the extent that they support V3 gameplay. That's it.

Yeah, I really fail to see how this improves Vic 3 in any meaningful way. The suggestion to make it a globe are even more confusing to me. Cool, I can zoom out and see the map as a sphere (which coincidentally would mean not being able to see most of the map!) instead of as a flat paper map. How exactly does this pretty significant change requiring a decent amount of effort make the game any better?

Until absolute province area or distances on the map becomes a gameplay feature so is the map projection used a non-issue. Paradox has been using homebrew map projections for their games recently that moves south America north etc. exactly since it makes for better gameplay than using a super exact projection.

 

[LoyalistRedcoat]

I think a globe would be incredible if it were possible, but other than that i think the current map is fine.

 

[CorneliusBottomly]

I'll just leave this here with no explanation.

 

[Lord Lambert]

I'll just leave this here with no explanation.

I LOVE this!

 

[Deathknight15]

I'll just leave this here with no explanation.

An impressive result to be sure. They are being very smart in sticking to simple colors with a nice relief texture projected onto the sphere underneath. The borders look pretty nice too, I am very curious to the exact method they used. I wonder if they have a public GIT.

 

[aantia]

The Mercator very significantly distorts the areas where most gameplay happens. Even if you’re starting as Brazil and have no ambitions overseas except in equatorial Africa, you’d still notice Argentina.

One argument in favor was that the Mercator was in wide use in this time period, and the game tries to present its interface as a map spread out on some world leader’s table. Zooming close in onto a vintage spinning globe-atlas would be attractive too. People didn’t draw war plans on them, but Paradox long ago abandoned the conceit of moving counters on the map and now displays 3-D animations.

But you're still getting an equal amount of distortion (of a different type), in the same places, aren't you?
Isn't the OP just saying "I prefer distortion in shapes to distortion in sizes"? Which is fair enough, although he claims that this is "more accurate," rather than just his personal preference.

 

[天皇の神風]

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.

Why would a sliced globe be used insted of a actual globe? A 3D globe with slitly flated poles ain't dificult to model.

 

[Lorehead]

But you're still getting an equal amount of distortion (of a different type), in the same places, aren't you?
Isn't the OP just saying "I prefer distortion in shapes to distortion in sizes"? Which is fair enough, although he claims that this is "more accurate," rather than just his personal preference.

You’re right that there is no conformal, equal-area projection of a sphere onto a plane. You could, however, display a globe, or something like a stereographic projection around the center of the viewport, where whatever you’re actually looking at will have minimal distortion. The downside is that the GPU would have to work a little harder. And also, using maps that look like the ones in the period could help make the game immersive.

 

[LoyalistRedcoat]

You’re right that there is no conformal, equal-area projection of a sphere onto a plane. You could, however, display a globe, or something like a stereographic projection around the center of the viewport, where whatever you’re actually looking at will have minimal distortion. The downside is that the GPU would have to work a little harder. And also, using maps that look like the ones in the period could help make the game immersive.

If you seriously increased the system requirements of the game all the way into what is, say, average but not crazy or top of the line, for AAA titles these days, you could do some wild stuff. I'm talking google-earth style globe with overlays, the works.

However, i get the impression Paradox, for better and for worse, want these games to run on toasters if they can.