A Bigger Hex into Smaller Hexes

The 2nd-stage process of expressing infrastructure is one that modifies this single hex:

Figure A

Into these 7 hexes:

Figure B

And specifies what those hexes are.  Somehow, that number "10" needs to be distributed into the seven hexes, so as to breath life into our empty hex.

I have discussed this process, but I'm not content yet that I've gotten the message fully across.  Therefore, I'd like to pause before continuing with Wowotu and discuss a part of this process in detail.

Let's assume for a moment that we're looking at the hex before Avalon was founded, before any people settled there.  At that time, the hex would be completely wilderness.  Rather than an infrastructure of "10," the hex would have an infrastructure of "0."

If that were the case, then each of the seven hexes inside the hex above would be a "type-8" hex.  Type-8 means wilderness; no meaningful player-race civilization exists.  This would be a place for monsters.  Feasibly, there might be a kobald village, but we don't account for that except in game play; as far as our map is concerned, a type-8 hex is adventure country.

For civilization to exist, we need an infrastructure of no less than "1."  As can be surmised from the earlier Wowotu post, this would likely be a hex somewhat distant from a city or a town, or perhaps in a hex adjacent to a village.  That "1" infrastructure transforms only one of the seven-hexes in Figure B from a wilderness hex to a civilized hex.  The other six hexes of what was Figure A would still be wilderness.

That new civilized hex, created from our "1" infrastructure, would be a "type-7" hex.  Let's assume for the moment that instead of having a "10" infrastructure as shown, Avalon has but 1.  As the settlement is the most important hex among the seven, our type-7 hex would be 0203, where Avalon is placed.

This single hex in the wilderness, with Avalon, would be what I am calling a "type-7 settlement" hex.  I wrote a post last month about type-6 and type-5 settlement hexes.  Type-7 is even smaller.  Here is my description for a type-7 settlement hex, for a Dev-7 region:

A lot of meat there, but we are still talking about a 6.67-mile diameter hex with about 150-200 people in it, about 5-6 per square mile.  Mostly empty.  And surrounded by six similar hexes that would be even more empty.  Basically, the frontier.

Now, if the Avalon hex in Figure A had a "2" infrastructure, what would that mean?

The most obvious answer would be that there were two hexes that were occupied, both type-7.  One of these would be the Avalon hex, and one of them wouldn't.  The other hex wouldn't necessarily be adjacent to Avalon; it would be located wherever the land was best.  One thing about the other hex, though, it wouldn't be a settlement hex.  It would be a "type-7 rural hex."  What would that look like?

Now, this would also a description of the Avalon settlement-hex, outside the actual village, if the Avalon village were a type-7 hex (it isn't, we're just pretending here).  The table above describing Avalon needs the countryside description as well, as the type-7 settlement obviously does not occupy the entire hex.

I'll stop the reader here, however, and point out that a "2" infrastructure wouldn't necessarily mean two type-7 hexes.  It could mean a single type-6 hex instead.  How does that work?

Let's have a look at this table, which at first glance will seem a trifle confusing:

Figure C

The column on the left indicates the infrastructure number.  I have only included the table up to an infrastructure of 6.  The whole table goes up to a total of 448.  At 448 infrastructure and above, every 20-mile hex (figure A) is made up of seven type-1 hexes.

The Base cost shown under each type on the table above indicates how many infrastructure are needed to make that hex.  If you look at the two rows that list an infrastructure of "2", you will see that one alternative would be 5 wilderness hexes (type-8, no cost) and 2 type-7 hexes (cost 1 each).  A different alternative would be 6 wilderness hexes (still no cost) and a single type-6 hex (cost 2).

A type-5 hex costs 4 infrastructure; a type-4 hex costs 8 infrastructure.  And so on.

Okay, apart from some questions, we can move onto to figuring out the rest of Wowotu's infrastructure and start carving up the larger hexes into little ones.

P.S.,

The table for type-7 rural hexes notes that a mining camp might exist in the hex.  This is where we would potentially place our references for gold or iron (salt and limestone are quarries, not mines).  However, type-7 rural hexes are common.  We would want to randomly distribute the two references among all the type-7 hexes in Wowotu, once we knew where they appeared.