[SPOILERS] scooter's sunny sunday stroll

[scooter]

Hm ok, here's what confusing me right now. Basically, given the apparent mirroring, it would be logical that each player has their own little "parition" like this. However, from my scouting it's apparent that everyone has their own southern partition rather than my north/south split guess. I think the most accurate way would be to state everyone has their own "column." So, I know the following info:

1) There are 884 land tiles
2) Starting from the apparent "mirror" or division or whatever on my northeast side, I can count west 10 tiles. It could be a couple more - not sure - but I can at least count 10. So let's guess the width of each column is 10, for a total map width of 40. Reasonable number I think.
3) Starting from the furthest south tile I can see to the furthest north is 21 tiles. I can also see enough bleedthrough to know there's at least 1 more on both north and south, so minimum of 23 rows of tiles exist on this map for sure.

So let's round 23 up to 25 for ease of use. It seems highly unlikely to me (got a few reasons for it) that this map is anything shorter than 25 rows. So 25X40 is a fairly conservative stab at map dimensions. However, 25 * 40 => 1,000 tiles exactly. So... something's off here with my theory, and I'm not sure exactly what it is. 116 tiles "do not exist." I'll know more once I head southeast and figure out where/if there's a "mirror" on this next section (I'm pretty sure at this point if I head south I'll run into land a lot like my west side). Mist also mentioned that he's mastered the quick mirroring by editing WBSaves in a text editor for the duels, so it wouldn't shock me if he did something similar here.

But yeah, clearly I've made a mistake somewhere. I asked the peak question because the peaks would solve everything if they didn't count as land - because that would explain why a hundred or so tiles aren't accounted for. Now, water tiles would also explain it, but we've seen no sign of those anywhere. Only place it could be is further north, but that would imply only like 1-2 columns of habitable land up there which would be really bizarre so I'm not betting on that either. Much more likely that it's really good land, otherwise nobody will go north and it'll just be a 5 cities and then kill-fest, which decidedly favors me. Hm. Yeah, not sure what to think here. Hopefully tomorrow's turns will give me enough info to piece the rest of this together. Does all of this make sense or would some screenshots help demonstrate?

[scooter]

Wait. Just realized something. Mist said there would be water on this map. So that's gotta be it. So if the dimensions are 25X40 there's 116 water tiles, which is pretty reasonable since he said there would be water but it wouldn't be a major factor (said GLH would be irrelevant and yeah, sure looks like it). So there's water in fairly significant amounts SOMEWHERE. Gotta figure out where.

[scooter]

Well anyways, that was a fun exercise. I'm not sure that I'm anywhere close, but I'm starting to get a better idea of how this was designed and why Mist said cramped. 884 land tiles may seem fairly generous, but if 100 or so of them are peaks and 150 or so are desert... Not a lot of cities going up. That's a situation that's ripe for some killing. I LOVE my civ choice here - it's coming together perfectly.

Anyways, I want to try to confirm the east-west "mirror" or whatever it is next. The oasis and peaks there REALLY look mirrored of some kind. Eventually I'll want to figure out how far north the land goes, but that's not a super high priority at the moment. We'll see. Alright, enough for the night. It's nice to go back to map-cracking again. 32 I couldn't do much because I sorta had the idea ahead of time since we knew it was similar to 25 and we knew it was mirrored for sure. PB5 I haven't been able to do much because 1) I rarely play turns at this stage and 2) it's completely generated so you can't really get inside the map-makers head since it's all the generator. So this is fun . Not particularly crucial, but fun.

[scooter]

T15 experiences deja vu

It looks like I've confirmed a few suspicions because this looks awfully familiar:



For those doing a quick count, this confirms 10 tiles. This would mean 40 tiles is the width of the map. As I said last night. I suspect the minimum height is 25 tiles. I'm expecting it to be closer to the 30 range. Doesn't it have to be divisible by 4? In that case I'd guess 28 or 32 for the height with an ocean to make up the difference in tiles and maybe a chain of small-ish islands. That's a lot of guesswork, but that's the fun of it. Anyways, Cancun:



Corn finished a turn or so earlier than growth so I swapped to it. It doesn't change growth/warrior time, but I'll take the 1F over the 1H.

The more I think about this map, the more I'm thinking it demands a War Chariot rush. Haven't decided either way, but that option is weighing pretty heavily on my mind. It may depend on the location of horse - I'm expecting that to be south of me which would be a really inconvenient spot. Making me choose between stone and horse makes a great deal of sense, and I'm not sure what I'll do yet in that event.

[Krill]

scooter has a knack for forgetting to road tiles between his early food improvements. Did it in 32, delaying his second city by a turn, did it here to who knows what result.

[scooter]

scooter has a knack for forgetting to road tiles between his early food improvements. Did it in 32, delaying his second city by a turn, did it here to who knows what result.

I actually do the tile roading trick nearly all the time. I just happen to cover worker actions pretty closely in my reporting - moreso than most - so you actually see it when I forget . And I do that intentionally - I'd like people to point out worker mistakes so I don't make them twice.

And actually, I didn't forget that in PBEM32. The thing that delayed the city was that I didn't recognize that I could get it 1T sooner by going AROUND the hill via the desert incense rather than going over the grass hill. Still though, .

Edit: and besides, the bad guys are in the opposite direction, so I'm not expecting this to matter nearly as much.

[Mist]

Doesn't it have to be divisible by 4?

Why? You can make a perfectly valid map with 121 tiles ( 11x11 ). Just because default map scripts use even numbers for dimensions doesn't mean it's a hard requirement

[Serdoa]

Though you seem to get graphical artifacts if it can't be divided by 4. Or more correctly, I got that issue when doing the map for 33 and neither T-hawk nor anyone else could find any other explanation.

[scooter]

Why? You can make a perfectly valid map with 121 tiles ( 11x11 ). Just because default map scripts use even numbers for dimensions doesn't mean it's a hard requirement

I thought I read in the PBEM34-ish (whatever the greens one is) planning thread that you get weird map artifacts if dimensions are not divisible by 4.\

Edit: crossposted with Serdoa - that's the thing I had in mind.

[Kyan]

I love your map musings Scooter. Even moreso as I know The Truth[SIZE="1"]™[/SIZE]