[Spoilers] Commodore bakes a double entenada.

[darrelljs]

.

Darrell

[Commodore]

So my thought process this turn:

"Good, Gavagai met Pindicator, he's split his EP."
---
"Wow, Gavagai's even closer to Pindicator than I am, good news vis-a-vis War Chariots."
---
"Waitaminute."
---

...
"Crud. That means someone else is even closer north and south."

[RefSteel]

Obviously I can't comment on your thought process for the turn, but I'm loving the consistent and thoughtful reporting! Also:

I'll also note this looks like a heavily massaged script, less hand-built. So that's cool. Are the elevation->trees something you did manually Ref?

I can't believe I somehow missed this when you first posted it! ... Annnnnnnd ... I think the only answer I can safely give is: I'm glad you like the way it looks so far! It was really important to us to give you guys a map that looks as nice as possible given the (many and in some cases rather arbitrary) constraints within which we were working. When I look over the final map, I still see bits and pieces that I'd go back and change if I could - I can be kind of obsessive that way - but I'm still really pleased with the final result, and I hope you guys like it too.

...

From an aesthetic perspective, I mean. As far as neighbor luck, the only thing we (felt we) could do was to avoid influencing it in any way, which is why I didn't even realize you and Pin were neighbors until hours after I posted the final result in the map thread, when I had a chance to look over the map again with everyone's names attached to it finally.

[Mardoc]

It's unfortunate you find so few excuses to post that gif. It cracks me up every time!

[Commodore]

It's unfortunate you find so few excuses to post that gif.  It cracks me up every time!

Let's see if other neighbors warrant it. This one is crazy enough.

I...have no idea, Gavagai.

On the other hand, congrats to Dark Savant for landing Buddhism, and to either Rustern or Donovan Zoi for opting instead for Hinduism and winning it. May the odd be ever in your favor.

[Commodore]

Met the scout of my southern neighbor...

Plako.

Alas did a painful thing, but I think warranted in this nasty area:

In the far distant future, I'm going to need two hammers, not one, in overflow, so that's what this is about. The upshot is I'm going warrior-warrior-settler, to protect the borders and find out what horrifying SuperVet lies to the north too in this place, The Sump of Doom.

[Commodore]

Get out of here, Plako. I'm not winning this game with this set of neighbors, so if your scout screws with my opening I'll happily work to ruin your game, too.

Seriously, that would be annoying.

[Commodore]

Avenging the desecration of Sujeira, the heroes struck out for the remote ruin of the old tower, now claimed by La Paz the relic-hunting alchemist. Bypassing his vile mercenaries, disarming black powder mines, and finally slaying the famous ogre of India, they make their way to the alchemist and at last strike him down.

Now they're hard at work forging a deed for the keep...

[Commodore]

Briefly; scout avoided a bear, is woody 1, and found Plako (nearby, natch). Built a warrior, making a second now as I grow to size three. 12 turns to settler 1, then we go whip-mad.

[Commodore]

I know, it's been a while since I've done the thing where I snap a picture of my game, and then upload the picture, and then link to it, and then talk about it.

So here's the dealio. I massively overestimated the amount of land we'd have at outset; in this crazy-tight dotmap (or something like it) I'm looking at ten cities, eleven max, here on the home continent. I've dotted plako's obvious first expansion spot for reference, we very close here y'all. I see a single 4-5 tile island on the coast between plako and I, so logically there's another one like that north between me and and mackoti. Want 'em both. But that's a dozen optimistically.

...so guys, I think there's a new world out there. Imma beeline Astronomy.