Core Benefits

The next element I should clear up is how the type-7 hex in this post gets rated with 1 food and 1 hammer.  Opening with a caveat, this is a system with several versions that I've posted on the Tao of D&D, because I keep tweaking and adjusting it.  Please always know that a concept isn't the final word until it appears on the wiki ... and is then edited and changed on the wiki.  As long as I'm still talking about something on the blog, I'm still in "design mode."  The blog is the workshop; the wiki is the storefront.

Let's call food, hammers and coins "benefits."  6-mile hexes are assigned a symbol for each for a number of reasons: 1) the natural vegetation; 2) the hex type; 3) the presence of a significant river; 4) the established presence of a settlement, prior to mapping the 6-mile hex from its 20-mile hex predecessor; and 5) the presence of a trade reference, as part of my trade tables.  I'll need to explain these things before we can continue.

This image on the right describes a simple set of vegetations from which we can derive benefits.  The regions themselves, whether or not exploited, represent both a food source and a source for minerals and other raw materials; the assignment of hammers and food for these vegetations takes this into account.

Tundra, at the top, adds 1 hammer symbol per 6-mile hex (indicating the collection of minerals and other raw materials).  Boreal and Temperate forests add 1 hammer and 1 food.  Tropical forests are considered impractical sources for locating raw materials without clear cutting or development, so they only add 1 food.

Grassland provides the best possible benefit, granting 2 food symbols (as discussed in the previous post), as plentiful forage can be found in both plant life and large game.  There is not enough of the former in a Chaparral environment, reducing the benefit to 1 food.  Deserts provide no vegetation benefits.


Continued on the blog, the Higher Path, available through my Patreon. Please support me with a $3 donation and gain the complete series of estate posts related to the post above, as these have all been written.