The Central City has definitely re-emerged, though it's much further to the right than it used to be. Maxewell, Granz, Hardric, World-Jumper, and Delta Juliette are all so close together that it's pointless to try and distinguish them. To be honest, if Quincy and Matt weren't so rural, they would be part of it as well.

RemnantShadow, meanwhile, has joined the colonisation of the Eastern Desert - there's five people in there, too! In fact, everyone east of Maxewell, except for Quincy and Hardric, is in a desert or worse (and the only deserts west of Maxewell are Larfen and Tomash). Given the five different forests and marshes floating around in the west, I think we can conclusively say that the ecology/production bar follows the communist/capitalist one...!

hS

If your Ecology score had been 41%, or your Productivism 39% - ie, anything to break the deadlock between the two - you would've been a magenta diagonal band on green.

(You could also get purple by taking your Constructivism score up two points to 40%.)

hS

The PolitiScales site asks 117 questions, in order to plot your political opinions on 8 scales: Constructivist-Essentialist, Communist-Capitalist, Rehabilitative-Punitive Justice, Regulationism-Laissez-faire, Progressive-Conservative, Ecology-Production, Internationalist-Nationalist, and Revolution-Reform. It also provides you a flag and a 'motto' (generated from your results); those sets of three words most people have posted are the 'mottos'. Finally, it can give you extra stickers for things that don't quite show up on the bars - so Kaitlyn got Radical Feminist, Horvat got Monarchist, and most people who aren't me got Pragmatist.

This isn't the first time we've played at political profiling; we've actually done it three times before, 2014-16. But that was done just on two axes: Left/Right and Authoritarian/'Libertarian'. I took to plotting everyone on a graph using their results, and drawing things like maps to turn the graph into a story.

For this year, with its 8 axes, I've had to dramatically expand the scope of the map. I've added height, alignment, land type... well, lots of stuff, as I said. And I've been adding people as they come in.

I think you're still Imgur-deficient? In that case, here are the three maps: 2015, 2016, and the current 2018 one. The 'story' (such as it is) has Plortitics progressing from a medieval world (2015) to a steampunk Age of Brass (2016), to the current magical world. The Eastern Mountains are the traditional home of various evil overlords (because the first people plotted out there were Dark Brother 16 and EvilAIUberOverlord, so, y'know...), hence War-Queen Alleb.

If you would like to guesstimate your position on the 8 axes (as a percentage: so, for instance, '67% Communist'), I can add Twistey as a rumoured hidden city after the weekend; I can even generate what your flag would be if you could fill it out. But no obligation. :) (Oh, for the flag part, please also say whether you strongly support any of the following: anarchists, radical feminists [ie, the abolition of gender, according to the site], or monarchists [ie, every country should have a monarchy]. The other 'stickers' don't count for flags.)

hS

Hieronymus has discovered yet another new river. Seafarer's ship is high and dry (but still shipshape). Delta Juliette is a bastion of Chaos in the domain of Order, though with the slight adjustment of the Order-Chaos scale she's not quite as emphatic about it. CmdrHorvat has caused a landslide to reveal a previously-underground magical forest, which is pretty cool. And Maxewell has revealed the true extent of the eastern desert, and (with Juliette) has neatly boxed the Order fortress of Granz in.

There is a definite tendency for eco-friendly types to lean to the Left - look at all that green on the flags, and all the desert/mountain terrain in the east! Oddly, there's also a trend of emblems mostly appearing on the Left - except for Guardsman Tom, every emblem is west of me, and everyone west of me has an emblem.

(Which makes sense, because apart from Tom's shield, the Monarchist fleur-de-lys, and the very difficult-to-get double-X from being an Essentialist Punisher, the emblems are all strongly Left-biased. Internationalism, Communism, Ecology, Revolution, and Feminism.)

hS, still having fun, but if we have any more centrists they're going to be stacked on top of each other.

...that said, we disagree on some points pretty strongly.It's still a glorious motto, though!

http://politiscales.la-commune.net/en_US/results/?p1=24&p0=31&t0=38&t1=24&s1=5&s0=67&m0=71&b0=55&b1=10&e0=43&e1=29&c0=62&femi=57&c1=10&j0=50&prag=100

Back in 2016, the map featured both the terrifying War-Queen Alleb, and the vast techno-island of Tomash. And today?



War-Queen Alleb rules still in the Eastern Mountains, in her fiery hot domain. Though not affiliated with Chaos, she has a fervent (one might almost say fanatical) hatred for magic, and harvests the anti-Mana thrown from the active volcano above her base.

Meanwhile, in the west, an ancient magical spell has finally been broken by the mages of Huinesoron, revealing an entire mountain that had previously been invisible. Upon its heights sits the great city of Tomash, blending science and magic together to further the cause of Chaos.

All in all, things don't look terribly good for the magic-lovers among the forces of Order. Ah, well - them's the breaks!

hS

(First off: this is the link to Matt's full results, for you nebby types.)



To the Office of Thaumaturgy, Huinesoron,

After a long and arduous trip, we have finally come to a conclusion: the Office of Cartography are terrible at their job. They managed to miss multiple major cities - including Granz, which lies directly between Neshomeh and Hardric! - as well as an entire desert, and the delta around the town of doctorlit. We attach a vastly more complete map of Plortitics, compiled from our own efforts. We have also included a key, since apparently they didn't feel that was worth their time.

Now, moving onto something more interesting: we were able to confirm the presence of vast magical fields on both our own mountain and the mountains of Chaos. The triple city of Scapegrace, palindromordnilap, and Kaitlyn is practically buzzing with mana, more's the pity. We also confirmed weaker magical activity in the desert of Larfen and the forest of Neshomeh, as well as uncovering a previously-unknown magical wellspring in the eastern deserts, around Phobos.

Unfortunately, with good news comes the bad: we have also confirmed the existence of anti-Mana. This magic-absorbing force appears to have sprung from the actions of the ancient Uber Overlord: its strongest source is around the mountain on which his fortress once stood, while a weaker scattering can be found in the desert where he made his final stand.

It is to be hoped that the forces of Chaos do not gain possession of anti-Mana, for they could be a powerful weapon against us. Conversely, if the town of Matt Cipher could be convinced to collect up the material, we could begin to nullify Chaos' arcane advantages...

One final note: while travelling the emptiness of the north coast, we sighted a fleet out to see. The warriors of Guardsman Tom are still prowling around out there, and they owe allegiance to Chaos...

-The First Huinesoronic Thaumaturgical Expedition

~

Comments from the fully tricked-out map:

-Belief in change through revolution is common (though not guaranteed) in the far Left. The 'far' Right, though, aren't generally firm believers in reform - that belief is held by the centre. I think this means that the status quo is Right-leaning, and that the closer you are to that, the less you think massive change is needed.

-Progressives (further south) are more likely to be constructivists, while conservatives are more likely to be essentialists. It's not a hard rule, but there's definitely more little brown houses as you go north.

-Most of the stats, helpfully, aren't strongly correlated with anything. Belief in rehabilitation versus punishment (city size), for instance, doesn't seem to be linked to any of the other seven. Which says that they chose their axes well.

-I need to launch an investigation into what determines your flag and motto. :D This is fun!

hS

From the Help page:

Why are the people how they are? This axis allows you to situate yourself between two opposite poles which answer this question.

The constructivists consider that people build themselves from their environment (notably social) and that the caracteristics that make them who they are, are acquired.

On the contrary, the essentialists consider that an individual is by nature how he/she is and that his/her caracteristics which make this person who she/he is, are innate.

Which I guess is because it was the second-highest score that I got? Or something? I'm really not sure how that stuff is determined, or the colors and designs on the flags, either.

Anyway, I care! I just get tripped up when my mind starts conjuring scenarios like digging wells so people can have access to safe water and that sort of thing. Like, we shouldn't be demolishing the rain forest or the Alaskan wilderness etc., but I think people have a right to a certain quality of life as concerns access to vital resources, and if we properly care for the environment and drastically reduce our population, then everyone's quality of life will improve, so it's all much of a muchness?

This is why I have so much neutral space in my scores...

~Neshomeh really believes overpopulation is one of our most serious problems, but there are no quick and easy solutions to this. Would settle for birth control for everyone yesterday, plzkthx.

Waaaaaaaay off to the east.

(There is some serious irony in the fact that EAIUverOverlord, Dark Brother, and now Dark Lord Aakmal, have all ended up far to the right of the rest of the Board.)

Actually not that far to the east - just on the edge of the Eastern Mountains.



Hey, Office of Cartography, got a map for you. Yeah, turns out the Second Expedition were a bunch of idiots who 'adjusted' the Centre Pole for political reasons - it's actually pretty much where the First put it.

A-ny-ways, we've gone out a bit further, confirmed that there's mountains in the north-west and over in the east. Ran into a string of settlements under the banner of Dark Lord Aakmal out there, but surprisingly: not evil! Well, not Chaos, at any rate.

We also found a forest that both of the other expeditions had missed, which is kinda weird, because it's practically visible from the walls of Huinesoron. (Oh, FYI: we've put the walls in, too, along with the ones around Hardric. If the fastnesses of Chaos get their defences illustrated, so should the fortresses of Order.) There's a town in there, too, bit magical, fairly empty; calls itself Neshomeh.

We've scribbled in the land to the north, but TBH we didn't actually go there. It's probably about right, though.

Laters!

-Third Huinesoronic Mapping Expedition

~

So far, we've managed to avoid any repeated flags, though Larfen, Hardric, and Aakmal are pretty close. It's also interesting that Larfen, palin, and I are the only ones without at least a minor Pragmatism sticker on our results (out of eight results so far). I guess we know who Doesn't Play Well With Others...!

hS

Oh Most Illustrious Office of Cartography, good news! We have confirmed that the shape of the world is much as the First Expedition determined (though we submit for your consideration a slight adjustment to the position of the Centre Pole, to bring it closer to our own dear city). There are some few discrepancies, however, which bear consideration.

Firstly, the Chaotic forces of Scapegrace are not, in fact, led by Scapegrace. Quite understandably, the First Expedition failed to recognise that the metropolis of Scapegrace is twinned with a second, larger, mountaintop fastness known as palindromordnilap, which is even more devoted to the Chaotic cause. Worse, the mountain of palindromordnilap sits at the heart of an enchanted forest, making it even more magical than our own mountain.

Secondly, we understand fully that the terrain between Huinesoron and the southern sea is rough and difficult; it is therefore entirely reasonable that the First Expedition could have missed the vast desert that lies there. The ommission of the city of Larfen J. Stocke, esq. - the largest non-Chaotic city we know of, and our own major trading partner - can be chalked up to general incompetence, by all the gods, what were those clowns doing?! mere error.

For the glory of Huinesoron!

-The Second Huinesoronic Mapping Expedition

;)

hS

That's actually a weirdly fluctuating thing here. I didn't realize it was an issue for years, because it had always left me logged in for long stretches of time, but then one day, one of the oldbies was complaining about it, and I was shocked anyone had difficulty with that. This past year, it started doing the same to me, never leaving me logged in. So maybe the pendulum will swing around for you someday, too?

—doctorlit, logging in so much, he must be a lumberjack








and he's okay, he sleeps all night and he