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[Sheb]

Name a gal Slagathor von Bergfreude. Gave her a shotgun and 100-200 ammos, she'll do the rest.

Also be a teacher. You should have:
4 oxen:80$
6 sets of clothing (one/person+one spare):60$
1 spare wagon (1 tongue, 2 axles, 4 wheels):70$ (I'm assuming wheels and axles break more often than tongue)
500 pounds of food:100$
500 bullets:50$

Use the remaining 40 bucks to get drunk to forget that you're going to die from dissentry.

[Sensei]

Sorry for the slight delay in screenshots.

You know, it turns out I had no idea that this Oregon Trail (the one I played in elementary school) was the fourth one in the series. This was released in 1992 and we still played it on those worthless Apple monitor/computer combo things. Anyway, the other ones were released in 1971, 74, and 85. Go figure. Probably the reason I thought this was the first one is because it's called The Oregon Trail and all the ones after it are called Oregon Trail II, Oregon Trail 3rd Edition and so on in numbered order, whereas the ones before the 1992 version were... also called The Oregon Trail. Apparently there's releases all the way up to this year (some of them being horrible travesties but that's another story).

Anyway, we're getting on the trail! First four people to name characters have them named, and for epic mode, we/I are (a) teacher(s).


Here's our starting loadout: We've got 10 oxen and 10 sets of clothes, which is where most of our money is going. We also got two of each replacement part, some food and 100 bullets (which will turn into tons of food with liberal application of skillz). $20 left over for ferries and bartering.

With only 50 pounds of food, we'll probably get to hunting a short way out of town.

We start off in April. Since I turned soundblaster on, I get out of town immediately to escape the music!
The first thing we do is hunt.


It goes great! I also start another hunting session right after that, which also earns 200 pounds of food for one bullet. Now we have plenty of food, at 405 pounds.

Before I can even get a trail screenshot, we hit the Kansas River.



Onward to the territories! Shall we caulk the wagon, ford the river or take a ferry? Currently we have 390 pounds of food (enough for almost a month), everyone is in good health and the rations are filling.

[Heron TSG]

Let's caulk this thing up!

[LordSlowpoke]

FORD THE RIVER

It had to be done, you know.

[Taricus]

Just take the ferry...

[Supercharazad]

Caulk it and pray that we don't get leaks ?

[Heron TSG]

When in doubt, caulk it up. When things are looking down, caulk it up. When an ox dies, caulk it up. (No zombie oxen for you!)

[tehstefan]

I remember playing the hell out of the oregon trail two.

That game was awesome.

[USEC_OFFICER]

You know, it turns out I had no idea that this Oregon Trail (the one I played in elementary school) was the fourth one in the series. This was released in 1992 and we still played it on those worthless Apple monitor/computer combo things. Anyway, the other ones were released in 1971, 74, and 85. Go figure. Probably the reason I thought this was the first one is because it's called The Oregon Trail and all the ones after it are called Oregon Trail II, Oregon Trail 3rd Edition and so on in numbered order, whereas the ones before the 1992 version were... also called The Oregon Trail. Apparently there's releases all the way up to this year (some of them being horrible travesties but that's another story).

Don't worry, I played this very same version of the game when I was young and I didn't even know that it was a sequel either (I think I still have it on CD). I wasn't that good at the game, but I'll be glad to watch (and suggest things).

Anyways, let's attempt to caulk our wagon and cross the river. Attempting to ford it never seemed to work whenever I tried it, and hiring a ferry is too expensive for this river (if I remember correctly).

[Basque]

Never ford any river over 2 or 3 feet deep. Fording means walking the wagon through the river after all, and our people (and our oxen) are not 7 feet tall. I forget how many rivers we have to cross, but the entire reason to bring spare cash is to afford ferries and such. Since we have the money we should take the Ferry.

Whatever you do don't ford it.

It's awesome that you set out with 10 oxen, that improves out chances of survival greatly. You are also doing a very good job with hunting so far, you rock man!  It's good that you're so accurate too, with only 100 bullets to start we can only shoot 100 animals, so we had better make sure every single one of them counts. If you don't mind me asking, do you know how much food is eaten with 5 people on filling rations a day?

Otherwise, looking good so far!

Edit: USEC_Officer might be right. Again I forget how many rivers we have to cross. The important things to look at are depth (and I think width too) for Fording and Width for caulking, the larger either of them are the more likely it will fail. I know 7 feet is too deep for Fording, I don't know if 645 ft to wide for caulking. If you know how many rivers there are to cross Sensei, use your best judgment.

[Heron TSG]

Huh. The only one I ever played was on a floppy disc, no idea what version now. I assumed it was the first by the title.

[Sensei]

The 1992 Oregon Trail I'm playing only runs through DOS and was certainly released on floppies, but I can't say if it might have been re-released on discs with a windows friendly EXE (well, I'm sure it ran on windows up to 3.1 but that was really only an extension of DOS).

Regarding food: For those who are wondering, filling rations are 3 pounds/day of food. Since all five of us are still alive, that's 15 pounds a day. I think we're getting somewhere between 20-30 miles a day. Presumably the lower amounts of rations give 2 and 1 pounds per person each day.

So, the votes so far seem to say caulk it, and I'm a little loath to pay across the first river anyway. So we're caulking it!

We make it across with no issues, and are back on the trail in no time.

It's only 83 miles to the next river. Just to see the game I tried hunting, and it's a good thing we got a couple buffalo east of the Kansas because here there's only squirrels and rabbits (I didn't bother shooting any).


The next river is narrow, so we caulk it across again easily.


Uh oh! Jackie Boy has caught cholera!


We still have a lot of food. Should we slow down or rest to help Jackie get better? Should we try to get to the next fort and rest there? It's about three days away, I think. Or, should we continue our pace regardless?

[Bdthemag]

Jackie can deal with it, just keep going towards the fort at a normal pace.

[Heron TSG]

That depends. Is Jackie Boy helpful in any way, or just a liability?

[Basque]

Alright awesome! You're doing good Sensei. Congratulations on everyone who said to caulk, it was the right thing to do. However, at some point there are rivers it's best to Ferry or trade the Injuns for a way across, I remember that from years back.

It's really good we have that food for now. Things like Squirrels only give 2 food so they're not worth wasting the bullets on, especially since we have so few.

Rest is the only method in the game to cure diseases, and our main goal should be to keep everyone alive. I don't know whether it's better to rest in a town or on the spot. If there's no difference we should rest on the spot. If being outside a town can cause other bad events or if it's somehow preferable to get to town I think we should change the pace to Steady and head to the town. If it's 3 days away at Strenuous then the change in pace should only make about a 1 day difference.

Of course I haven't played this in years, so I'm only trying to remember the mechanics from way back when. The only problem with resting to much is food (and the ever approaching winter). Sensei, you said the hunting was only squirrels and rabbits between the rivers, since we passed the river are we back in good hunting territory?

If we have the food to spare we should definitely rest, but we need to make sure we have enough food to get to wherever we can hunt big game again.