Greenland Problem...HELP ME INTROVERSION!

[barbarossa2]

I LOVE this game. But the more I play, the more it gets to me...

GREENLAND.

Not Greenland itself so much. But the way Greenland shows me that the map projection being used is throwing travel speeds way off. In the east-west direction when approaching the poles.

In movement terms, on this map, when ships sail east to west on the equator in the Indian ocean, they should be much slower than when sailing east to west in the arctic. They are not.

A VERY SIMPLE FIX: as the units move north, increase the X component (the east west component) of their travel speed (vector) by a given multiple which is directly dependent on their distance from the equator. I have a feeling it is an exponential relationship. That way, just off the top of the map it takes only seconds to fly half way across the map and it is finally possible to cross the North Pole...it even makes sense in some situations.

In real life, Greenland is about 800 miles "wide" from east to west at most and about 1400 miles "tall" from north to south at most--about half as wide as it is tall. On the projection used by the game, It appears to be 1.5 units wide and 0.6 units tall. Well over twice as wide as it is tall!

As it is, once it gets to the widest part of Greenland on the DEFCON map, all units and missiles are hitting goo and travelling about one third of the speed they do near to the equator. I could do the math on this, but I am not in the mood right now. Any thoughts out there?

Units should not be creeping through the arcitc or antarctic!

Another way to see how this is not really working properly, as an airfield is placed farther and farther north, the range rings that fighters can be deployed to should be getting wider and wider, fatter and fatter... more and more elliptical. Just like Greenland does. But they don't. By the time they get to the latitude of northern Greenland, they should be at least 3 times wider than they are tall. For a graphic which I have put together to show what I mean here, please see:

http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q94/ ... DEFCON.jpg



Of course, the red line at the top and the white line right below it which runs through Greenland and the entire arctic circle is the fighter range for an airfield placed directly at the North Pole where NORAD cleared out Santa's hideaway to make space for some radar installations, then moved him to some low rent housing in Amsterdam.

And for a map of Greenland with less distortion, so you can see what I am referring to, please see...

http://www.maps2anywhere.com/Maps/Greenland-map-2.gif

[daset]

<snip>

[barbarossa2]

How does one stop screen stretchage? I hate it too. I just type regularly and that happens. But not in other forums. Only here.

[NeoThermic]

This is because Defcon uses Equirectangular projection. A different projection would require re-calculation of the unit movements and general headaches of other things.

NeoThermic

[barbarossa2]

The whole reason the ICBMs go in those nice, graceful arcs over the Greenland when you launch them from North Dakota to London is because in the real world on projections like this they travel "faster" from west to east the "higher" they are on the map. So it makes sense for them to "go out of their way" and go higher up. It is the shortest time in the air to go north like that and fly through less "resistance". Just like a plane that flies at a higher altitude because it is more efficient than flying 600 feet off the ground. Some people won't care one way or another for a change like this, but why did we even evolve to playing games on maps of the world at all, with thermonuclear detonations, and carriers, and statistics of populations burnt to a crisp. Why aren't we all still playing checkers? Where people like to have their realism on the scale of 1 to 10 is pretty variable. Some like it more. Some like it less. But if you can make an arguement for keeping track of millions of casualties and a combat difference between fighters versus bombers, then it also makes sense to make things move faster at higher latitudes (at least on this type of projection).

Some people are saying, "there are games that are supposed to be realistic, this is not one of them." Well, this is the only simulation of thermonuclear war out there that is worth ANYTHING. And I say I wouldn't hurt to tweak its realism without making it more complicated for the player.

So I will lobby for it.

But I still love speed DEFCON!

[NeoThermic]

The whole reason the ICBMs go in those nice, graceful arcs over the Greenland when you launch them from North Dakota to London is because in the real world on projections like this they travel "faster" from west to east the "higher" they are on the map.

That is true for any flat projection of a cylinder. I wasn't arguing that, just presenting facts as to why Greenland is larger than it should be.

NeoThermic

[ynbniar]

Slow moving units, particularly subs are a real pain but I suppose what that means is that you need to be very skillful about where you place them and where you tell them to go...if they moved faster it would take away some of the skill wouldn't it? You wouldn't have to worry about where you put them because they could quickly get to where you need them.

Here's a thought....when I'm playing chess it takes forever for my pawns to get from my side over to the other side where they can be promoted...I mean why can a pawn only move one square at a time? In the real world when units move they keep going, they don't have to stop...adding a bit of realism to chess would let me get awhole load of queens on the board much faster...

[shinygerbil]

The problem is, you lobby for realism but neglect to mention the fact that it is not possible to pass over the North Pole as Defcon currently stands, causing fighters and bombers to have to go the long way round. And there are so many other unrealistic features about the game that even if you included ALL of the things that have ever been complained about, you would still never have anything approaching realism, or even very far removed from the game as it currently stands. It would still be Defcon (i.e. all-out global thermonuclear armageddon between six warring superpowers, with all that that entails, reduced to a few dozen vectors and a handful of numbers representing the world), just less enjoyable to play.

To introduce enough realism into Defcon to qualify it as "realistic" is to create a totally different game.

[xander]

Defcon is a game, not a simulation. As I said to you in a previous thread, any change that is made solely to increase realism, and which does not take into account gameplay mechanics, is likely to be a bad one.

xander

[barbarossa2]

Neothermal, agreed. I wasn't really referring to your post, but I understand why you might have thought that.

Shinygerbil, I wanted to write that about not being able to pass over the North Pole too, but thought I would just get flamed for it... but I appreciate your comment.

Xander, I agree. DEFCON is a GREAT game. I would hate to see the fun of SPEED DEFCON get lost in too many mechanics and options which could be accessed duing game play. I don't think I would ever want to make it a simulation. Too much to learn in those. I like it because of its "empire" like simplicity.

There are very few serious changes which should be considered.

1. Make ABMs, silos, and anti air defenses separate units. But don't add things like destroyers, AWACS, and satellites (okay... maybe those last three were cool).
2. ummmm... besides adding things like waypoints, can't think of anything else off the top of my head. Game mechanics are that cool as is.

Seriously, I do not want to lose this game for a TON of extra chrome. Thanks for taking my posts seriously and not flaming me!

Like I said, the change about increasing travel speed towards the poles would be invisible to the players and wouldn't change the mechanics. People voting no are obviously purists and are obviously afraid to see this game turn into a boring simulation with far too much stuff going on in it. And I have no problem with that. To propose changing the rules in chess to make it slightly more "realistic", would unleash a furor. And rightfully so.

[Ace Rimmer]

Neothermal, Xander

Uh oh, both in the same thread.

[barbarossa2]

By the way, if travel speeds increased in an exponential manner as you reached the poles, then one could fly over the poles and that problem (I wish you wouldn't have reminded me of that again) would be taken care of.

In my humble opinion, whenever selecting a travel location, the computer should calculate the shortest route (a curve) and display it as you move your mouse around until you decide on a final destination.

Why bother putting so much effort into adding more terrain features and adding maps, airforces base graphics (as in Wargames mod) etc, when something as simple as curvature of the earth isn't even really taken into account.

The curvature of the Earth has a greater impact on war on this scale than a river or mountain range does.

Anyhow. Hope you all have a nice day.

[xander]

barbarossa2: the topics that you are bringing up are by no means new. They come up about once a month, when someone new joins the forums, and wishes to spread their gospel. The reaction is about the same every single time. It would behoove you to search for similar topics, and either learn from them, or respond to them, rather than get people all worked up again.

Re: 3D globe. It would not only change game mechanics, it would change the aesthetics of the game. It would probably be time consuming to implement. It would change the feel of the game. It would change the simplicity of the game.

Re: Moving faster at the poles. It would change the mechanic of the game. Right now, it takes quite a bit of time for Russian fleets to get to North America in the Arctic Ocean. If you changed that, there would be a lot more battles between Russia and the US near the poles. However, North America cannot place units at the poles, which means they have to navigate the Strait first, or fight Europe for Atlantic access. Russia would walk all over North America.

Re:

With all due respect, if you are against increased speed towards poles, then we might as well ask introversion to make all missiles travel in straight lines, remove all cities (why bother making them different sizes), throw away the map (who needs realistic looking maps), and recreate the game of monopoly.

In the first case, regarding faster speeds near the poles, this is a feature that does not exist, that you are asking to have included. In all of the other cases, those are features that do not exist that you are asking to remain excluded. Do you see the difference?

As I have said over and over again, a design decision that relies solely on realism to make its case is doomed. Curved lines and realistic maps, while they are based in reality, also have severe impact to the game mechanic. They were done that way on purpose, for both aesthetics (the real reason for curved missile arcs), and mechanics. Realism is not a bad thing in a game, it is simply not the only thing.

xander

[barbarossa2]

Xander,

Agreed, realism should not be the only concern.

I see what you are saying. Yes. It would change the ease with which USA and Russia go to war. It would make them more proximate neighbors. Having such a hard time attacking Russia as the US drives me a little nuts. And when I am Russia it is the other way around. The only real threat of global thermonuclear war existed when these superpowers squared off, but because of the map design we can't game it. In my opinion as a life long gamer with over 200 board games varying in complexity from Risk to Advanced Squad Leader (requiring a law degree to play), it would not change the mechanics. It would change the expression of the mechanics.

The question is, should the game take into account the fact that this war is being fought on a spherical Earth or not. Depending on who you are, and what you are used to in life, your level of fascination with maps, whether you are an gaming engineer or a recreational gamer, will all have an impact on where this decision lies.

I am not saying I am "right" in this highly subjective matter. I am simply saying this would be my preference.

Chris

[Xocrates]

You know, if you'd be suggesting that the map of defcon was a sphere, I would say that would be a different game but understand your point.

Wanting 3D calculations while using a 2D map? That is simply insane.

That means, as mentioned, that the closer you are to the poles, the faster you move. This is the heaven of hit and run tactics since you can place some subs or carriers near the poles, move near instantly to the other side of the map, nuke, and be back home safe and sound, readying for a new run.

This would also mean that the tactics employed would become more and more reductionist, since every player would simply place their units as close to the poles as possible and then assault random areas of the hemisphere at will.

You could allow for units near the poles to actually see and fight each other no matter where they are on the map, but that would be incredibly complicated to track since units and shoots could simply teleport randomly near the poles and nor only wouldn't you know who was shooting at you, like you would probably lose track of some of you units.

And then, we also have the distortion of units range (sight, fuel and attack). Since they would also have to be compensated depending of where on the globe they were. So, instead of a fixed circular range, you would have variable range that you needed to constantly keep track off in order to take the most advantage of it.

Summing up:

3D world: An acceptable idea, but a different game.

2D world with projected 3D calculations: An insane and confuse mess, that would not be fun.