Hunt location

the hunt will have a set of boundaries, determined by the wizards. the wizards should try to choose areas of campus which are not under construction at the time. as well as fighting boundaries, the wizards need to choose locations for hunt central (doubles as hunter regen), monster regen, and the oracle/black knight area.

after you've selected boundaries (or even before), you should ``reserve'' the space (probably simply `outdoors'), by e-mailing space@cc. this will let the college know we're holding the hunt, as well as getting it in the space master schedule and the weekly news.

to the best of my recollection, the sets of boundaries we've used since i've been at swat are:

1996:

hunt central sharples patio, monster regen at entrance to train station tunnel, oracle in bell tower. all fighting takes place north of train station, east of sharples, south of path from parrish to old tarble (except for hunters going to the oracle), west of 320.

1997:

(actually spring 1998, but i'll call this the 1997 hunt in all comments because it's more convenient) hunt central parrish north patio, monster regen at rose garden, oracle dupont porch. all fighting takes place north of parrish, east of path from parrish to martin to dupont, south of dupont, west of kohlberg.

1998:

hunt central sharples patio, monster regen at entrance to sharples tunnel, oracle in bell tower. all fighting takes place north of the sharples tunnel, (east of drive behind sharples?), south of path from parrish to old tarble (except for hunters going to the oracle), west of mertz.

1999:

hunt central under the kohlberg arch, monster regen at dupont (monsters just had to touch the building somewhere), oracle on the back steps of trotter. all fighting takes place north of parrish, east of path from parrish to martin to dupont, south of dupont, west of pearson, rose garden (south of hicks?).

commentary on these as a monster: we alternate back and forth between south and north campus, partly because of construction, partly because neither is entirely satisfactory. i'm not sure about the boundaries of the 1996 and 1998 hunts, but the upshot was basically that most fighting in 1996 took place in mertz marsh, and most fighting in 1998 took place between sharples and the tunnel, west of magill walk.

i've liked north campus better than south campus the years we've done it there. it's a more interesting terrain for fighting: south campus is divided into four big quadrants, and there isn't really any place to hide within those quadrants. plus, the belltower is the only good oracle place on south campus, and most fighting always takes place below the sharples -- old tarble path, so the oracle is cut off from other monsters.

basically, i think it's better for the wizards and squires if there are some monsters in any area where there can be hunters.¹¹ basically, this is because monsters are there to help the hunt run smoothly, so they can report catastrophes in places where the wizards and squires aren't. note: i've only ever participated in the hunt as a monster, so if you've been a wizard and you think this is completely wrong, feel free to remove it.

the next big construction project is the science buildings, which may put north campus out of commission. i preferred the west-centered south campus model to the south-centered one, but i think they both worked pretty similarly. also, north campus is big, so even if dupont can't be used, it may still be possible to put together a playing field including the trotter quad and lawn behind the rose garden.