[SPOILERS-PBEM14] scooter's thread - Mansa Musa

[scooter]

Okay, I'm looking at Earth2 now because I have a few minutes... though I'm about to leave. It's kind of what I expected and kind of not. First thing I noticed is that the land tiles is pretty dead on to what we have in this game... Or at least my first generation was, then the next couple were not (varied from 10 tiles to small to 100 tiles too much so at least that fits). At first glance it's just an earth map, but after a couple generations it's actually just a map that spits out terrain thats very roughly shaped like earth. For instance, you can recognize the rough shape of african and the new world and such, but their actual terrain varies pretty wildly. Usually the continents look like a 12 year old hand drew them - in other words, roughly accurate, just not precise.

It's an interesting map. I was going to immediately rule it out at first glance because it is indeed just an earth map script, but it actually fits surprisingly well with what we have in terms of dimension and terrain. I don't know, most of me doesn't think Plako would actually use this script, but the other half thinks it's our best match thus far. I'm going to head out to dinner now and I'll take another look at this later tonight and see if I actually have something here. I think it's a longshot, but at this point I"ll take anything because I'm at a loss as to what fits.

[scooter]

I'm borderline spamming here, but it's ok. I had another thought. It could be that Plako actually took something like a large Pangaea, but modified the WB file to show as Standard... Which would mean large sized map (hence the bigger dimensions) but with maintenance costs that correspond with Standard. This would have the added benefit of partially cloaking the map script.

What it doesn't explain is two things:

1. The oddities in the terrain - especially the unusual amount of lakes/peaks that are non-typical for a normal Pangaea-style continent.
2. Would Plako seriously go through that much effort just to confuse us?

I'm going to take a closer look right now at Earth2, since my glance at it early was really brief. I guess I figure I should be able to tell quite easily if we're on one or not - simply by looking for similarities between the two, since it's one of the more consistent map scripts for obvious reasons. It'll be a little more difficult since we have so little of the map revealed, but since I cannot for the life of me place this map, it's worth a shot.

[scooter]

Oooooh wow. This is gonna be an interesting post. Let me introduce you to a map script called Earth2. I already roughly described it to you, but I'm going to show it to you. I took 1 picture apiece of 3 random generations of Earth2 with as similar settings to our game as I could figure like I was doing with other scripts (I set it on tropical as temperate seemed too dry). Here's an over head picture on each of them, including Europe, northern Africa, and most of Asia:

V1:



V2:



V3:




Here's where things get interesting. Remember the map splice from Serdoa? The most unusual part was the highly abnormal lakes, which are very, very untypical in a standard continents map. Granted, lakes happen, but not with nearly this frequency. Check out the picture for many of the lakes circled to realize just how many there are: (spoilered for size)

Okay. Ready for this? Spoilered for drama:

This is the V3 picture you saw just above, with some mad paint skills applied:

Wowzers huh? The other thing I thought was mildly odd was the peaks - there were peak formations on our map (particularly the ones to the southeast of Serdoa) that are just not super typical on your standard mega continent. It was a minor point compared to the lakes but still odd. These 3 map generations all have the same oddity - they all have some sort of peak/hill clumps in roughly the same spots as my fused map with Serdoa.

Pretty crazy, huh? At this point, I was pretty blown away. It seems like a perfect match. One problem though... If this is indeed some modified Earth2 map..... where are we on the map? I mean, we should be able to place ourselves right? Get ready for this:

Sure you're ready?
[spoiler]

[/spoiler]

This is me right now:

[scooter]

More thoughts as I try to digest.

Everybody fits perfectly into where you'd think they'd be geographically. Of course you'd put the Mongols in Asia, Byzantines in Europe, and Ottomans in the middle east. (Note: Civs do not automatically land near their natural place as far as I could tell, so obviously our starting spots have been adjusted). I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that if I turn my warrior around and head west, I'll find Sandover, so that's what I'm going to do next to confirm this map. Where are the Mayans? Er, hopefully for Gaspar's sake, not in the new world . Probably the most logical place is in southeast Asia, as there's certainly enough land over there for them.


Wow. I'm not sure what I think about this. This is definitely an interesting twist, but I'm not sure what I think about the fact that I more or less know what the map looks like already in 2860BC. I gotta think I'm pretty ahead of the curve on this since I tend to spend more time than most trying to figure out the map, so I've got to try to figure out how to leverage this favorably for myself. I certainly don't plan on telling my neighbors quite yet, since this should take them quite awhile to figure out unless they are either A) familiar with Earth2 or B) insane like I am enjoy spending tons of time testing map scripts.

So to recap:

1. This explains the land tiles, as this is the closest script I could find to getting to our magic number 1187 tiles.
2. This explains the bizarre combo of continent + many lakes
3. This explains the slightly unusual peaks
4. This explains why Serdoa and Lewwyn are where they're at.

Well... That was interesting. Gonna take me awhile to wrap my head around this. I'm so glad I finally figured this out, because I was up into the hours in terms of time spent trying to figure out the script so far. I even downloaded several other of the more popular scripts from CFC to see if any of those fit. So... any thoughts on the recent discoveries?

[pling]

So... any thoughts on the recent discoveries?

Nothing substantial, just "ooh, neat!"

[novice]

This is me right now:

[pling]

Oh, and it's a really neat answer to a request for a "natural" map

[scooter]

Yeah for sure... So what we're more or less on is a terra map that is a little more uniform in design.... Assuming Plako didn't do some editing. I wonder if the new world will be relevant at all. Usually the answer to that is no, as it's best to just kill the guy who's spending his hammers to try to colonize the new world. If it is relevant, I should have a jump on it since I'm closer to it in general.

Got a reply from Lewwyn:

Scooter,

Greetings indeed. You approach from a direction that has of yet been unexplored. Unfortunately, the warrior started in the SE which turns out to be a dead end. As such I haven't gotten much exploring done outside of it. Very sad, hopefully I will be rectifying that shortly. However, as such, you are the first person I have met.

I take it then that you and Serdoa are my neighbors? What are the possibilities that Sandover and Gaspar are North of you two?

I look forward to our many discussions in the future. We shall probably end up chatting more so I will leave it at this for now.

Lewwyn

[scooter]

More Diplo. First, I wrote back to Lewwyn:

Lewwyn,

Yes, Serdoa is my eastern neighbor, though he is a pretty good sized distance away - we're not super close necessarily. I'm fairly confident that neither Sandover or Gaspar are in the north, since as far as I can tell, Serdoa and I are both pretty far north... I see snow on trees not that far north of my capital, which means I'm on the northern end for sure... You have lots of jungle to your west, so more than likely you are near the equator... I'm guessing you probably have Sandover/Gaspar on either sides of you - roughly east or west... but it's too early to tell for sure - this is just based on guesstimating where we all are on the continent given what I know so far. It seems pretty likely we're on some sort of Pangaea-like continent...

Yeah, feel free to hit me up on chat anytime - chat works just as well as email for me, so that works great for me too!

scooter

Normally I like to share my map findings with neighbors just out of a sense of building goodwill, but the knowledge I have is a little too valuable to be handing away at the moment, so I'll just talk pretty generally about the map. I'm pretty confident that I have the script nailed down (however it's highly possible Plako has done some heavy adjusting, so I can't take anything for granted quite yet), so I'm going to go about testing that. My warrior near Lewwyn is going to do an about face and head west and see if he can discover Africa... If Plako is consistent, Sandover should be there in northern Africa, which is actually quite close to me - and would make him my closest neighbor. That should be... interesting. We'll see how that goes.


I'd like to land a religion now, so I'm going to try to put out some feelers to ensure I won't have to race for the religion I want. I'm leaning towards Hinduism, as I'd rather head towards Monotheism than Priesthood, since I'd like to get into Organized religion at some point. I'm not in any rush necessary (and would probably prioritize other things for awhile first), however it's definitnely on my agenda. I have no intentions of Oracle, as 1) Gaspar is industrious and 2) Sandover has good reason to get it as prophet points would be valuable to him... So in all likelihood, I'd have enough competition that I might as well spend my hammers elsewhere. For this reason, I'm leaning towards Polytheism instead of Meditation. Thoughts?

My next decision is Pottery vs religion. Have to think that through as well. Leaning towards religion just to make sure I don't blow it. Also, I only have one worker, so my cities/worker will likely not be building many granaries/cottages in the next few turns, so I think I can afford to wait a touch longer to get Pottery.

Quick exchange with Serdoa:

Serdoa,

I wanted to alert you that I have officially met Lewwyn in-game now. I continued my my path with my warrior (that you see in my previous screenshots) and I eventually happened upon his borders... So his capital kind of forms a triangle with our two capitals, if you follow that. Not much else to report, I just figured I'd let you know that I found someone else.

Are you considering targeting an early religion? I'm considering it myself (though I had other priorities first), but it'd be nice if we didn't cause the other to fail by both trying to claim the same religion without the other knowing.

scooter

scooter,

thanks for letting me know. I am going to explore your west with my scout there and will let you know my findings.

As for religions: I haven't targeted one right now I believe. But if you want one then we could also talk about working together in one religion?

Kind regards,
Serdoa

Serdoa,

Sounds good. My warrior will pick a direction now and basically try to cover as much ground as possible - hopefully meeting Sandover/Gaspar. I will probably head west now, as I'd like to see if I have a direct southern neighbor or not.

I'd like to take one of the early ones, but I didn't want to grab it right away - as I was more interesting in getting my important techs first (Agri/AH/BW). I may simply grab Hinduism starting in a few turns... I'll try to fish for info from Lewwyn to see if I'll have to race him for it or not. Given our distance between each other - getting a missionary to you might not happen super quickly given the long distance, but religion sharing is definitely an option, and as our borders got closer together I'd be happy to supply you with a missionary.

scooter

[dazedroyalty]

Scooter, all I can say is I'm gonna give you a "Tip of my hat!" on figuring out the map script. How do you that information being "leverage"? Obviously, if you're right it means there is no rush to settle west and you should focus instead on moving into "Asia" and the "Middle East."

I was trying to determine if there were any resource trends on the map but since I'm sure Plako wouldn't have allowed the map to be unfairly balanced in that regard, I gave up the analysis.