IWS #190 -- RESULTS!

[Dutch]

1. It's the Age of Exploration and you are an Explorer looking for fame and coin. A royal family has granted you authorization to discover new lands. Under which flag will you sail?

18 Spain
7 England
1 Portugal
1 the Netherlands

**I almost asked for you to name a nation "other than Spain" but figured this would tilt too much in Portugal's favor...or maybe not...either way, the split was good enough for me.**

2. You've worked hard your whole life (and have a rich uncle or two) and gathered enough coin to buy ships for your expedition. How many ships are you going to sail with?

25 Three Ships
1 Ten Ships
1 Five Ships

**This one was too close to call...I figured it would be slanted towards 3 ships but perhaps more Five Ships due to that being the # Magellan used for possibly the greatest maritime adventure of all-time.**

3. Your hero and role model was also an explorer, but it's not Christopher Columbus, which other famed explorer is it?

21 Ferdinand Magellan
2 Ponce de Leon
2 Marco Polo
1 Lewis & Clark
1 Leif Erickson

**I was actually thinking of somebody else here and he didn't get mentioned one time!**

4. You've gathered your crew and do a head-count to make sure everybody is present. How many people does the manifest say are in your crew?

15 - 100 passengers
3 - 50 passengers
3 - 30 passengers
2- 150 passengers
1 - multiple answers

**This one thinned the herd a bit**

5. After embarking on your exploration, you sail into the western hemisphere and "discover" land that's seems to be different than what Christopher Columbus discovered. The land you and your men "discover" is now part of which current sovereign nation?

14 USA
5 Brazil
3 Mexico
2 England
1 multiple answers

**More thinning**

6. The indigenous people are thrilled, saddened, stunned or amazed by this one thing you have brought with you to the "new world". Historians say it was what?

10 Guns
7 Disease
2 Gunpowder
1 multiple answers

**More clumped together than I expected...I thought long and hard about Guns and Gunpowder being the same...but ultimately chose to seperate them...hey, it's my IWS and the rules say I'm right in doing so.

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So without further ado....

28 Courageous explorers from FOFC set off to discover the New Lands, unfortunately, not all were as successful as others. Reports returned to the Old World over the following months and years. Let's recap what we *think* happened to these brave expeditionaries.

************TIER 7****************************
These "exploers" never set sail. They were arrested at the docks, accused of heresy, begged for mercy and humanely set on fire to force the demons from their souls.

Ragone --> 494 points
Crimson Fox --> 2,730 points

************TIER 6****************************
These cats forgot to hire a navigator, got lost at sea, shipwrecked in Africa, were reportedly captured by locals and were never seen again.

MIJB#19 --> 13,376 points
ntndeacon --> 17,160 points

************TIER 5****************************
Set off for the New World, but got cold feet, after all, there are monsters in them thar waters! ...never made it past the Canary Islands...arrested by the Royal Crown for cowardice and all were beheaded.

nilodor --> 54,340
Pyser --> 97,812
claphamsa --> 103,740
Abe Sargent --> 128,128
Raiders Army --> 128,128
Mustang --> 137,280

************TIER 4****************************
After weeks at sea, you are caught by your men hitting the oh-so coveted rationed wine supplies. It's a mutiny!!! You fight them off the best you can but regrettably, in your drunken state...it's not much of a fight. The mutineers cheer as you walk the plank and they cheer some more as you are torn to shreds by ravenous sharks in the warm blue waters of the Caribbean. Damn man, you were almost there!

Julio Riddols --> 163,020
General Mike --> 258,720
Grover --> 597,740
Coffee Warlord --> 960,960

************TIER 3****************************
After a weeks at sea, you land in the New World! But you can't find gold or glory…the Royal Crown eventually investigates and finds all you have done is invented the Cuban Sandwich...which is quite tasty...but you are locked up in the stockade…you call yourself a Conquistador??? Not anymore.

Radii --> 1,217,216
DanGarion --> 1,793,220
kcchief19 --> 2,608,320
Barkeep49 --> 2,608,320
Butter_of_69 --> 3,423,420
Warhammer --> 3,586,440
PurdueBrade --> 3,651,648
ColtsCrazy --> 3,651,648
Izulde --> 5,379,660

NOTE: Barkeep49 was thankful for his access to island rum...for when he find out that guns ruled the world and gunpowder alone only made for fancy celebrations....he would drink to oblivion nightly as an also-ran that coulda, shoulda, woulda....

************TIER 2****************************
You discover new lands! You establish colonies! But...it's only in the West Indies…no gold to plunder…you're mighty seaborne army turns to breeding pigs, drinking rum with Barkeep49 and chasing women, not too shabby a life, but ultimately, nobody remembers your name. In the end, you're just some 2nd rate Conquistador that's not even mentioned in Wikipedia.

corbes --> 10,570,560
britrock88 --> 18,258,240

************TIER 1****************************
Woah, what have we here? You land in what is now Mexico and find a city of gold, you kill all the locals (accidentally) with your diseases, but claim it was all skill and rule the new world with your mighty cannons and longswords. Wine, women, lands, gold, titles, and power! A courageous explorer and TRUE...Conquistador!

...with a score of 28,691,520 points...

We have a three-way tie for perfection!

1. Albionmoonlight
2. digamma
3. Panerd

These three fine explorers all scored perfectly in IWS #190!

CONGRATULATIONS!

Now for the tie-breaker...
I considered going by who put their IWS answers in first...because afterall, that's how we figure out who was the most famous explorers right? Christopher Columbus was the first guy to discover the New World...oh wait...Leif Erickson did that....

You got me, I have no idea how to determine the true winner.

I will say that the answers came in albionmoonlight, digamma, and then Panerd (at EXACTLY 2PM Eastern Time, btw...which is notable in and of itself).

Thoughts?

[Dutch]

Okay, I think I've got this sorted out.

IWS #190 Winners will be annotated as albionmoonlight, digamma, and panerd.

And albionmoonlight gets the right to host the next IWS (he submitted his entry first) and then digamma and then panerd.

That seems like the fair way to handle this.

[CrimsonFox]

name ships after them. Awwww nobody else said they introduced "porn" into the culture.

[CrimsonFox]

Stupid can't count so I said Lewis and Clark.

[Radii]

Reading comprehension FTW, I managed to answer question #5 wrong. No matter though, I only had the #2 answer for the last question, saying that the indigenous people would be saddened by the smallpox brought to them as a result of my voyage.

[CrimsonFox]

Who wants to go exploring anyway, am i right ragone?

I'd rather stay in my nice boring English bed and drink my tea and eat my scones. You all go out and get scurvy.

[Barkeep49]

GAH. Perfect except for stupid guns/gunpowder.

[Dutch]

Sorry barkeep...I went back and forth on that one but ultimately decided they were two seperate answers.

I posed the following logic questions to help sort it out because I lumped disease and smallpox together.

"Is smallpox a disease?" YES
"Is gunpowder a gun?" NO

I realize the there is intent that could have gone the other way...but I was really trying to scrutinize to break ties.

(FWIW, it was easier to lump disease and smallpox together since it didn't effect the outcome of the IWS).

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by CrimsonFox

name ships after them. Awwww nobody else said they introduced "porn" into the culture.

An early question was "You have saved up your money (and have a rich uncle or two) and were able to buy a famous ship from the Age of Exploration...which one was it?"

But I figured that would push everybody to Google...and I wanted to avoid that as much as possible. I would have chosen "Santa Maria".

[Dutch]

Originally Posted by CrimsonFox

Who wants to go exploring anyway, am i right ragone?

I'd rather stay in my nice boring English bed and drink my tea and eat my scones. You all go out and get scurvy.

lol.

[Barkeep49]

Dutch, I think your ruling is perfectly legitimate especially since someone else answered it. Still would have liked to have won though

[ColtCrazy]

Damn, thought too much like a teacher on the last two. Figured Mexico since the Spanish capital was there and disease since that did far more damage to the Natives than guns did.

Well played to the winners. This one was fun!

[Izulde]

Passengers is what tripped me up.

[DanGarion]

I should have just said 100 instead of 40 on each ship. That question was too open ended for stupid to figure out. Would have tied to win if I had just rounded it to the even number like I had thought.

[Dutch]

Yup, if someone else had put 120...I would have thrown you into that category since you had previously picked 3 ships. But decided to just leave it at the literal to be safe.

[CrimsonFox]

Originally Posted by DanGarion

I should have just said 100 instead of 40 on each ship. That question was too open ended for stupid to figure out. Would have tied to win if I had just rounded it to the even number like I had thought.

why 40? is that significant? Stupid doesn't know ships.

[DanGarion]

Originally Posted by CrimsonFox

why 40? is that significant? Stupid doesn't know ships.

Who was the crew on Christopher Columbus ships

[CrimsonFox]

ah. I went round number. (50) just not round enough. I didn't think a ship could hold 100 people :P Too much thinking again.

[CrimsonFox]

What was up with question 5 btw? I was interpreting that as you saying "other than North America" or other than US kinda thing. Basically "not counting places Columbus went"

Those kinds of things confuse me especially when it seems when questions say "other than", it makes people choose them anyway (which kind of takes the fun out of these).

[Grover]

Originally Posted by CrimsonFox

What was up with question 5 btw? I was interpreting that as you saying "other than North America" or other than US kinda thing. Basically "not counting places Columbus went"

Those kinds of things confuse me especially when it seems when questions say "other than", it makes people choose them anyway (which kind of takes the fun out of these).

Agreed. That's why I said Brazil.

[Dutch]

Yeah, I wasn't very impressed with that question either. In hindsight, I would leave that part of the question out and just go with, "After embarking on your exploration, you sail into the western hemisphere and "discover" land that's now part of which current sovereign nation?"

[Dutch]

Actually, now that I think about it, it would have been much better to ask that question. I always thought that it was easy to look up where Christopher Columbus first made landfall, know what country that is part of today and then all IWS entrants would pick that.

But as I find out, we aren't really sure where he first made landfall...which leaves the question completely open for debate. Dammit all!!!

[Ragone]

Damnit.. shouldn't we be playing golf scoring? i wasted the field

[CrimsonFox]

Originally Posted by Dutch

************TIER 3****************************
After a weeks at sea, you land in the New World! But you can't find gold or glory…the Royal Crown eventually investigates and finds all you have done is invented the Cuban Sandwich...which is quite tasty...but you are locked up in the stockade…you call yourself a Conquistador??? Not anymore.

Radii --> 1,217,216
DanGarion --> 1,793,220
kcchief19 --> 2,608,320
Barkeep49 --> 2,608,320
Butter_of_69 --> 3,423,420
Warhammer --> 3,586,440
PurdueBrade --> 3,651,648
ColtsCrazy --> 3,651,648
Izulde --> 5,379,660

Thoughts?

They can't ALL have invented the Cuban sandwich.
(I hear one of them just used presented Taco Bell hot sauce on toast).

[britrock88]

Originally Posted by Barkeep49

GAH. Perfect except for stupid guns/gunpowder.

Likewise, except I went down the disease route.

Originally Posted by Dutch

I posed the following logic questions to help sort it out because I lumped disease and smallpox together.

"Is smallpox a disease?" YES
"Is gunpowder a gun?" NO

More specifically, I think my answer might have been "disease/smallpox," so thanks for your kindness there.

[Raiders Army]

Originally Posted by Grover

Agreed. That's why I said Brazil.

Agreed.

[MIJB#19]

Hah! Old school rankings for me.

[Mustang]

Why I'll never win..

I'm smart enough to go with the nice round number - 100.

But got too cute with the nationality and what you brought along. I said Dutch just because of Dutch and said computers for the item. Hey.. stupid doesn't go with items that make sense.

[Pyser]

i think i answered "guns or gunpowder". not sure how i was counted, but the usa trick at the end did me in. somehow i thought we couldn't choose america.