I was actually terrified at the thought of not having a minimap way way back when we removed it. But I was shocked at how little I missed it.
GC4 scale is so large that the minimap is useless (as weird as that sounds). It's also so easy to change zoom that you can check those things when you want. Traditionally minimap's were created when zooming in and out was either impossible or difficult.
So yes you are right, the "minimap" has been replaced by multiple zoom levels.
