Old Lusitania
Before I say which of the prospective locations I’m settling on, there was more to my search than just looking at the four locations I documented. Before that, I carefully examined all of the savannas currently revealed on the chicken pie craft map. Back when the server first kicked off I had explored some of those and chose what will soon be Old Lusitania.
Then, after getting distracted by the witch farm and then returning to Old Lusitania, I decided it was time to move. The main concerns I have with Old Lusitania is that it is a bit too small, a bit too close to other players (I don’t want to crowd them or be crowded later in the game), and lacked some structure that I feel will help (i.e. just a single plateau, not much else going on). That said, there are some good things about it. I found a skeleton spawner and an abandoned mineshaft in my initial mining there. Until Old Lusitania is claimed by another player I may return occasionally to stock up on bonemeal.
Before checking out the four prospective locations, I checked out new savannas that had been revealed by player exploration on the map, and did some exploring of my own. Besides the four I documented, there were two or three others that I looked at and took screenshots of, but ultimately decided it wasn’t worth writing up my thoughts about them. They were the wrong shape, size, or bordered biomes I didn’t want to deal with, or didn’t have good borders at all.
New Lusitania
All that said, I’ve settled on prospective location 1 as the site for New Lusitania. After choosing the sites to consider, but before exploring each one, I didn’t think site 1 was going to be the winner. It is close to Old Lusitania, and so I’d flown over it once or twice. Because of that familiarity, I assumed I knew what it would be like. And because I had no idea what the other locations were really like, my optimistic brain assumed they’d be awesome. And each one certainly had it’s strengths, but also weaknesses.
On exploring site 1 though, I took a closer look at the village, the lake, and the borders. All of those really stood out, as did the cool ravine on the north side. In the process of exploring all the sites, I was also reminded in my work life that I prefer taking existing systems and structures and improving them. Because of that, the village at site 1 became really important, as it will likely become the core of New Lusitania as I expand on it, remodel it, and use it as a foundation for all that will come later.