> Hi(gh)!
> A truly intriguing alternate history world (though I somewhat miss the
> Persians... is there no expansive Sassanid empire with Yazdegird IV. and
> V. conquering most of the Mediterranean, advancing into the Alps and
> actively propagating Zoroastrianism throughout Europe?), especially when
> it comes to religion...
Well, no. In this alternate world where Alexander the Great lived on, 
Persia became an enduring Greek/Persian kingdom under the Seleucid 
dinasty (remember, Seleucos being one of Alexander's generals, like 
Ptolemaios in Egypt) and an important route for the Indian trade, as an 
alternative to the Silk Route. However, since the conquest of the Turcs, 
the Indian route has dwindled in favour of the Silk Route - which in 
turn will be hampered soon by the Mongols... :-) and that is another story.
Zoroastrians may be present in Gancaloon. I have not discovered them yet...

>
> ...but I have one technical question: did you place the city on a flat
> or on a spherical world? The latter is a concept with which I toy since
> many years, but I think it would be very difficult to switch between
> overall geographic and small-scale geodetic positioning...
The whole area around Gancaloon is flat as it makes no sense to provide 
for the rest of the world in this series of scenes. However, the ocean 
and its bottom *are* (large) spheres!

>
> There is also a whole fictitious world I dreamed up since when I was


> German... I hope that my cartographic skills improve in the future so
> that I would be able to make that world come alive in POV-Ray!
There are two "cost effective" ways to go about this I think. You can 
build the whole planet as an overview scene and for getting the feeling; 
and you can build individual scenes totally independently of the planet 
because you never see them both at the same time. But the planet gives 
you indications of where those scenes are situated. As for latitudes or 
longitudes, SunPos.inc helps you with that, as seen from a flat planet ;-)

>
> Currently, I'm occupied with a POV-Ray representation of the real Solar
> System (containing POVEarth which in turn contains Khyberspace and
> ElectriCologne), thus sidelining the Whatmough project for a while...
Always good to have different projects running abreast I guess.

Thomas

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