WfS - Closing Up Tech-5

If you are new to this series of posts (WsS stands for "a world from scratch"), see the first in the series and work forward chronologically.

Now, a few housekeeping chores.  First, let me post an image from the Civ IV universe, dictating the base production of hammers, food and coins:

I've been reading the productive parts of the desert as "plains-flatland," but others may not concur with that.  No matter.  I don't expect anyone else to run things as I do.  The main thing is that the above template will work for most climates and features.  These are the 'base-line' productions, to which more production is added with type-6 hexes and better.  Speaking of which, I'll post this second guideline, which I've been describing with the previous posts:

Thus, if the flat land plain starts with 1 hammer and 1 food, then the type-7 hex will show that; the type-6 hex will then add a food and the type-5 hex both a food and a hammer.

The above should make something else abundantly clear.  If we consider a flatland/river hex, running across from desert, that is supposed to indicate a floodplain, with three food and one hammer.  Remembering that three food is seven times the amount of one food on the chart, this means that a type-7 hex in a floodplain is massively more productive; a type-6 hex on a floodplain would have five times the production of the type-6 hex we posited in the desert.

Therefore, when we talk about a richer, higher tech level country rushing next door to seize the goods, we're not talking about travelling to a poor country like Jawanda.  We're talking about the next hex over, where the amount of food produced is vastly more abundant.  A single hex could produce more food than all of Jawanda put together.  But this will become more evident as we move forward.

I've added a series of products that a tech-5 area ought to produce.  It should be noted that all techs above tech-5 would also have the technology to fish, hunt for furs and so on, but it might be interesting if we concentrate these references on tech-5 cultures and say that higher techs, though they may produce some of these things, will prefer to concentrate their hammers on other, more worthy products.  It is really up to us.

I think that covers tech-5 for the moment, except for one addendum.

I haven't yet talked about the great monoliths that a tech-5 culture might produce: Stonehenge in Britain, Altamira in Spain, the collected heads of the Olmecs or Easter Island (from which we stole one) and so on.  I'm not sure how to determine when one of these should exist, or even where.  I'm still thinking on this.  Surely, they would have to be insanely rare, perhaps one or two truly immense ones per continent.

Take note that monoliths, both great and small, can exist in high tech cultures; they're just not as celebrated ~ or perhaps they are celebrated, but by a select group of fanatics.

Whatever the case, we say good-bye to tech-5.  When I take up this series again, we'll begin on a tech-6 culture, across the water and about 100 miles to the north.  I'm just doing the work to get ready for that; I have Friday and Saturday off, so I'll be working during those days while watching over the online campaigns.