Point and Click ~ Remaining Dev-6 Graphs

Father's Day and I am happily sitting at home working on projects that I love.  I'm not a fan of the day; I don't make my daughter cater to me, which puts her in the position of having to cater to her in-laws instead.  Which is a shame, but ... c'est la vie.

I'm completing the remaining knowledge tables that apply to regions with a 6 Development: animal husbandry, archery, mining and the wheel.  Here's the four of those things, all at once:

Animal Husbandry

Archery

Mining

The Wheel

Agriculture Graph

When I started this process, I thought the layout was going to be nit-picky and arduous, but to tell the truth I'm rather enjoying it.  Most of this research was already done; so most of what I'm doing here is reformatting ... but I am finding that process more relational and comparative than the collection of notes that I have.  True, the notes are more copious, as is the source material for this.  But working on the charts has been fun.

Agriculture comes into existence with development 6; before that, it is technically "gathering," which is covered on the hunting page.  I have four more of these, before going back to my description of Stavanger ... but even then I have ideas for more visual aids on these same lines, that I look forward to working on.

I am experimenting with different backgrounds.  This seems too washed out for me; a more stark design is called for, but I haven't settled on what that would be.

Incidentally, when I do get to development 7 cultures, and that is in the future, I'll be expanding on all these pages and adding still new ones.  It's all very interesting for me; it locks together several juxtaposed pleasures: history, visual design, game play and worldbuilding, as well as raw creativity.

Mysticism Graph

This covers details on development-5 cultures in my game.  For those who might be interested, you can find further information on shamanism and animism on my wiki, as well as wild magic.  I do recommend searching tokens, totems, ancestor shrines (African) and ancestral shrines (Chinese), the manner in which frankincense is cultivated, sacred places, geoglyphs and sacred isles.  All of this makes good adventure fodder, whatever world you might happen to be running.

Hunting Graph

Like the fishing chart, we have the collection of building blocks for the wilderness, in which predatory hunting is the only "knowledge," participated in singly or in groups (such as by wolves or other carnivorous family groups).

Hunting expands technologies and that makes more building blocks at the very bottom level of development ... and that in turn changes when hunting is adjusted by the presence of archery, animal husbandry and agriculture.

I swear.  I'm showing these charts around to my immediate families and players and all I get back is a blank stare and a vague compliment.  I feel like Syndrome.

Fishing Graph

My biggest issue with the development system is keeping the content straight in my head, so that I can tailor changes that enter in with new developments.  Everything in the diagram above is related to just fishing knowledge ... though certain things throughout might be applied to other things, such as bows for hunting or boats for military raiding.  The goal here is only to provide a visual relationship between the actual technical knowledge, what physical things that creates, how that affects culture, what improvements exist, what trade references the improvements derive from and what building blocks are created by the composite of the above.

The table isn't complete, even for the development stages meant.  This includes merely that which I've been able to think of, or which was tagged by something I researched.  There's always room to add something else if the notion of it presents itself.

Just a quick run-down.  References are invented products that are integral to my trade system.  Hexes that serve as physical locations for the presence of these references are called "improvements" ~ which are a special form of building block, which I have been describing at length for many weeks now.  Improvements increase the amount of food, labor or wealth, as well as more esoteric things such as culture, health or happiness, depending on what the reference is.  Most hexes, regardless of possessing an improvement, will have some degree of food, labor or wealth production.  Improvements just improve that.

Building blocks largely derive from technology; but may potentially derive from anything.

Here I'm dividing "knowledge" from "technology" so as to distinguish what is known from what is built with that knowledge.

Finally, cultural aspects derive from the use of technology or knowledge.

Beyond this, I think the table above is self-explanatory.  Please do not hesitate to ask questions about it.

I plan to begin constructing tables like this for every type of knowledge that applies.  So far, apart from fishing, I have introduced hunting, meditation, agriculture, animal husbandry, archery, mining and the wheel.  I then intend to update these as I progress with development stages, while continuing to add more sources of knowledge.  So I have a job ahead of me.

I was originally trying to build the table above in excel; but it was simply getting visually out of hand.  I am hoping this more graphic example is clearer, more flexible and ultimately more readable by people who don't have the benefit of reading my thoughts.