[SPOILERS] - scooter's thread

[scooter]

Thanks Krill! Glad to know that whole mess was worth reading. Though I'm starting to have second thoughts about Toroidal... Here's why:

So I've been feeling like something looked just a little bit off, and I was looking at last turn's save and it finally clicked with me. All the trees are snowy! Look back at some of the pictures I've posted, and you'll see that the island trees are NOT snowy. This means we have to be near the poles, but since it's a vertical strip that makes no sense! Unless... Tilted Axis?? This has some very noteworthy ramifications:

-No Toroidal maintenance, which is a big deal
-Circumnavigation would only be north-south, rather than north-south AND east-west like Krill said when he answered my question.
-My theory about land in the middle of the map with islands on both sides is probably squashed. I've gotta think the odds of there being islands over there is limited now.

I honestly can't think of a way there could be snow trees here other than Tilted Axis, I don't think it's possible any other way. I'm pretty sure in WorldBuilder you don't get to specify what kind of trees are there - they are just auto-displayed depending on where they're at on the map. I might be wrong on that and I'll verify when I get home, but I'm pretty confident in that assertion. I'm going to do some guesswork on number of land tiles in the next post.

[Krill]

To get circum you need to uncover 1 tile from every row, and every column, of the map.

Thanks for the updates. Very interesting reading,especially the possible war dec moves

Addendum: I was talking about a toroidal map.

EDIT: nm, should have read your post entirely and not just the first line.

[scooter]

Alright so I have .94% of all the land tiles under my control. I have 14 land tiles, so time for some math. I don't want to get too crazy here, so I'm just going to say I have 1% exactly, and that'll get me close enough. So if 14 tiles is 1% of all land tiles, then we are looking at 1,400 land tiles. Our strip of land is 8 tiles wide, so let's say it wraps all the way around the world in a north-south manner. If it was the only land in the game, it would have to be 174 tiles high. Yeah that's not the case, not even close, but it helps put it in perspective.

A standard size Tilted Axis map is 64x64 if the source I found is accurate. I don't know how many are on a small exactly, but a safe guess is something like 52x52 or 50x50. Let's go with 52 because I've seen maps 52x52 before so that makes sense. If I'm a bit off who cares, I'll get in the ballpark:

52 * 8 = 416

If we're guessing roughly 1400 tiles (it's more than that), then only 416 of those tiles are accounted for by this strip. That's about 30%. That means if all these assumptions are true, then over 2/3rds of the whole world is still out there! Seems to indicate that there's a whole lot more than just a couple islands off the east coast. Couple possibilities:

1. Those "islands" are actually part of a huge continent. They just have a little "jut" coming out so that we each have our own "entrance" to this big continent
2. Those islands are a connecting chain to a similar strip on the other side
3. Those islands are a connecting chain to a big continent out there
4. Those islands are there, and there might be a couple other small islands, but there's a "terra" world out there that's only reachable by galleons.

I honestly have no idea which one I think sounds the most likely... I guess #1 is probably the least likely, but I wouldn't even be surprised if that's what it is. If I had to guess, I'd say #3 sounds most likely to me, but I guess I'll just have to explore and find out.

Edit: Fixed image - remembered I could still post to Dropbox via web form

[scooter]

Nothing really notable this turn, I guess I can snap some pictures later if that'd be interesting at all. My worker finished, so I sent him to the corn. To avoid a wasted worker turn, I actually farmed the tile 1W for one turn and stopped the order... That tile will probably have a cottage eventually instead of a farm, but that was just in case.

I started up a work boat next, changing tiles from the 3/0/1 corn to the 2/2/0 forested ivory. This gets the work boat out much quicker which means I can work the fish sooner. I think I made the right call here..? I usually ignore micro when I play normal games (a fault of mine) - meaning I rarely juggle tiles, I never micro whip overflow, all that fun stuff - but with the slow pace I tend to pay closer attention. It's helped somewhat in PBEM3, and I'm hoping I can even improve on that in the early game here.

I need to decide if I want a second scouting workboat after this or if I want a Quecha next. Actually I'm leaning towards a work boat and sending it straight south, because if I'm right about the Tilted Axis (I feel very good about that guess), then I need to get a quick start going south, while my Quecha goes north. If 2/3rds of the land is not on this starting strip, then boats will be VERY important, and in turn circumnavigation is critical.

[scooter]

Still not much, Buddhism will land in my capital in two turns I'm hoping. If it hasn't fallen yet then the only way I'll get beaten to it is if someone changes their research mid-stream because I was the first to discover a tech. If I'm going to miss it it HAS to be next turn, because I go first so I'll win all tie-breakers the following turn. A look inside my capital:



I think I played that right using the 2/2/0 tile instead of sticking with the corn. The worker is currently farming the corn... My northern Quecha:



Staying a tile away from the borders as Dazed requested... Interesting terrain feature is I'm seeing ALL corn... It's literally been all corn and fish so far... I'm not sure what that means honestly. Maybe that's Krill's way of getting us off the main strip? I see silver on the island.

[scooter]

Buddhism came in as expected which was good. I held off on revolting, but I think I'll actually go ahead and do that next turn. Research went to Mining with the idea of heading towards Slavery. Fish + wet corn will give me a high food surplus so I'd like to get whipping into play ASAP. I'll take some pictures when the turn gets to me this time around.

[scooter]

So I messed up. I was scouting to the northwest of Dazed's land, when I saw a lion:



Well I wanted to get away from the lion and avoid combat... So I moved to the one square that kept me moving north while putting two squares between myself in the lion, taking a risk by moving onto flat land:



Maybe you'll notice the really stupid thing I did here... I actually didn't until after I played the turn and I saw I had an email from Dazed. As I was replying I found the problem... Here's my correspondence with him:

Scooter,

We haven't communicated in the last few days so I hope everything is going well. I noticed that you completed your farm already which made me quite jealous for the EXP trait!

I managed to get myself into trouble with a lion already! Here's hoping that the RNG gods are favorable to me next turn!

Dazed

Seems like a routine chase-up from him, so as I was writing back I realized what I did:

Dazed,

Yes things are coming along nicely - I founded Buddhism recently as I'm sure you'll notice in-game, so I was glad to not miss out on that! I'm sure at a later date I could arrange for a missionary to come to your lands if you desire that, though that can be discussed later on when it's a more realistic possibility.

Ouch, you didn't lose a warrior did you? I can actually see two warriors of yours so you couldn't have lost one right? Wait a second... As I'm typing this I realized I made a dumb mistake... My northern warrior has been close to your borders, but a lion approached. I moved 1 NE so that I was 2 tiles away from the lion, finished my turn and passed it on. I just realized that action caused my warrior to move next to your borders... It's not on the "corner" of your borders, but it's still in violation of our agreement. I honestly had no intentions of doing that - so I hope you can forgive my dumb mistake. I'll move further away next turn.

Well if my dumb move hasn't badly damaged our relations, I thought I'd start to get your thoughts on something. I've come to realize that land between us is going to be a tricky division, and I believe I'm similarly close to SleepingMoogle to my south. In all likelihood, all of us are spaced like this. The fish site between us on the coast will probably be a contested one I'm guessing... There really isn't room for both of us. What do you think about working out a deal with SleepingMoogle that has each of us settle north or each of us settle south? That way we each get a fish coastal site, and we don't have to fight over sites. It's a really rough idea that's just come to mind, but if it interests you I can bring it up to him as well, and maybe we can work something out.

Thanks,
scooter

Oops. I think Dazed will just shrug this off, should be no biggie... But fingers crossed just in case. I also am curious what he says about the land division thing - I just have a fear of both of them founding in my direction... So I'd like to coordinate it the way I want.

[scooter]

Overhead of my capital, I went ahead and revolted to Buddhism this turn.



I'm not sure what happened with the resources, they all ended up two tiles south of where they should be... A glitch with satellite view maybe? Not sure...

[scooter]

Reply from Dazed:

Scooter,

Congratulations on founding Buddhism! I hope you reach the enlightenment that you seek!

Regarding your mis-move, I understand the mistake. I was actually considering asking for permission to move next to your borders to avoid my lion until I realized that would leave me on flat ground with no escape if it followed me. I would appreciate it, however, if you moved immediately away on your next turn. My warrior is still safe, but unless I want to retreat I will have to move next to the lion. Fortunately, I will be on a forest tile and on Monarch difficulty there should still be a small bonus against animals. We'll see what happens next turn.

I just met SleepingMoogle in the game today. I have sent off my initial greeting but haven't heard back from him yet. I would be glad to begin a discussion with you both about settling. Like you said, the ideas at this point are still rough but they can only be refined through working things out. So let's explore the best options! It'll help as we get an even better idea of the map, too. I'm curious if the whole map is one long island in the middle or if there will be any bends. I haven't met anyone else yet.

"After these messages, we'll be right back..."

Dazed

Seems like a somewhat non-committal message, which makes me think he's not jumping for joy over the idea. See the problem is this idea doesn't work unless we get all five players to get on board. I just don't know if that's going to happen, as Dazed and Moogle have both scouted towards me, meaning we reach the other two much slower. Besides, even if he IS somewhat interested, I don't think I can get him to agree to all of us settling north, and I don't think I can get Moogle to agree to all of us settling south.

I'm not really sure how to deal with this... I may have to explore another alternative - and the only real alternative is I cut a deal with one of the two to both settle in opposite directions... Let's say I make that deal with Dazed - he settles north and I settle south. We still won't know how to divide the land between us! Or at least that coastal location that I want and I'm sure he does too. I need to think about this and then send out a message today figuring out what to do.

Krill - you are sick and twisted for setting it up like this.

[Krill]

Thanks for the compliment