Planetary landscape is not correct

Planets look completely different from space than they do in the colony management screen

from GalCiv2 Forums
With the exception of Earth, many planets look different from the main map view (from space) than they do in the colony management screen.

The coloring is always correct (e.g. high quality planets appear purplish) from both space and on the colony management screen) but the terrains are often completely different. I've seen this widespread through every game I've played so far, so it shouldn't be difficult to reproduce. If it is, I can send any of my save games.

Here's the easiest way to spot the problem:
1. Search through planets on the main galaxy map and locate a planet with a moderate amount of ocean. (i.e. "Earthlike, 50-70% water, but not the low-class mostly-ocean planets).
2. Go to the colony management screen and compare the terrain/ocean features with what you saw from space.

This might be related to another persistent problem: terrain tiles appear to be labeled randomly. (e.g. I'll click on a tile that looks like mountains or prairie, and the game claims it's an "ocean" tile.) If the colony map doesn't sync up with the map of the planet from space....maybe the map on the colony screen is the wrong map and the one from space is correct?

Arg. Thanks for reading.
4,712 views 3 replies
Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
kk heres what i think.

the planet in space is a sphear, the one u see on the screen is flat, u have to bend the poles or the longer part of the rectagnle so they all fit into one point. this changes the landscape from the way it appears in space dramaticly
Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I was aware before I posted that it would be very easy to mistake the planet from space because of the spherical distortion (think Greenland on a Mercator projection map.) That's why I checked and double-checked the disparities between the space and colony planet maps before posting a bug report. I assure you that there is a problem.

Here is some evidence. Below is a screenshot from Dratha. The planet view in the upper left corner corresponds exactly to what I see on the large galaxy map. However, when you look at the colony map and compare the two, it is clear that no amount of map distortion can account for the differences. For example, the view angle of the planet in the upper left corner is about or slightly less than 180 degrees, and there is a large ocean near the equator that runs the entire length of the view. For the colony map to correspond, there would need to be an ocean that runs east to west for at least 5 or 6 contiguous tiles (as the map is 12 tiles wide). The largest east-to-west ocean on this colony map is barely 4 tiles, and none of the geography in this region corresponds with the planet view in the upper left corner.



This phenomena can be seen on Altaria and countless other planets in this game. Not all, but some. You can download the save game here: Link
Siege of Centauri
Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top
I don't see why this is a problem. All I see when i look at a planet are the usable tiles, but then again I tend to be very practical.