Domain-level: Improving/Damaging Hex Value

General ACKS Forums General Discussion
1

So, my game with my younger siblings is starting to reach domain-level interaction (not that any of them ar higher than 5th level right now, but they cleared the monsters out of an old elven village and decided to use it as a base of operations and started importing caretakers and peasants).

And it occurred to me, upon rolling the value of the hex, that to explain the slightly low-ish roll on the 3d3 (5) was that the treants that they found in the hex and made peace with are not real amenable to much logging or strip-mining going on. Therefore, the hex is functioning at a lower value.

After describing it this way, I remembered that there's another hex not too far away that I specifically designated as having a rich ore vein and I sort of combined the thoughts into one big, dangerous mega-thought and wanted to run it by my fellow ACKS experts to see if it sounded reasonable.

In the case of the first hex, if the PCs decided to go full-on mercenary and murder their Treant allies, I would feel somewhat compelled to add a point or two of value to their hex because of the way I chose to describe why they "only" got a 5.

But in the case of the nearby ore vein hex, I think it would be equally reasonable to add a point or two to the 3d3 roll to highlight the extra value I intended the hex to have.

And here's where the questions gets a little tricky:

1) How much should a benefit or restriction modify the 3d3 roll? How much does a 1-point or 3-point boost to a single hex throw off the math?

2) Should I allow boosts to take the value of a hex over 9? This would make ultra-valuable hexes along a border a very good justification for rival domains to wage war and steal land. But, again, I'm concerned about it "breaking the math" in a way I'm not yet foreseeing.

Any thoughts?

 

2

First, I love the idea that a hex's revenue value can be adversely affected by the continued presence of certain monsters that "live in peace" with the settlers but expect their own ecology to be respected and valued as more than a resource.  Translating that notion into game mechanics can be used to explain every war ever fought between Elves and Men through emergent gameplay.

In answer to your two questions, I don't think fiddling with the land values of certain domains has an adverse effect on the game.  In fact, I think it's necessary to some extent, as you wouldn't expect every type of terrain to represent an equal value possibility of land value along the range.  A hex in a sandy desert is almost certainly less valuable than arable land between two rivers.  Given the fact that a land's value is not actually rolled until the hex is secured in play, you've already decided on the geography of an area before you roll its value.  That means that a land's value is in no way tied to its geography or features, unless the Judge is willing to put his thumb on the scale when needed.

Rather than assigning bonuses to the roll when I want a certain area to tend toward higher or lower values, I just determine a set value for one or two of the dice, then roll the remaining dice to provide a variance.  So if I want a certain area to have a slightly higher tendency toward good land values, I'll roll 2d3+3 instead of 3d3.  Now my land values range between 5gp-9gp.  If I want an area to be especially rich, I roll 1d3+6.

I find that it doesn't throw the math off too much as long as you use it sparingly, and it keeps the ranges within the same band as the standard method.  I think land values above 9gp would be disruptive, however, especially if a flat bonus to a 3d3 roll made them at all common.

3

While part of me still likes the idea of a flat boost to make a single hex significantly more valuable, I REALLY like your version for maintaining the 9gp cap and still skewing it towards high value. I think I may use that idea for now simply to offset any potential consequences of going too crazy with hex values.

 

4

It also means that low value hex's can still have the chance of having an unexpected boon hidden beneath seemingly terrible terrain. 

5

I agree with Twilight Jack; I do the same thing for my game.

If you look at the 3d3 roll as a combination of animal (1d3), vegetable (1d3), and mineral (1d3) revenue, you can set the value of some of the dice according to the fiction of your game. Obstinant treants could be responsible for a vegetable value of 1, or a rich vein of ore could set the mineral value in that hex a 3.  The other dice would still be rolled. In this scenario, the treant hex could have a value from 3-7, and the ore hex could have from 5-9.

Presumably the treants could be dealt with, and the ore vein could be completely mined out. These values could change depending on what your players do.

6

[quote="tire_ak"]

If you look at the 3d3 roll as a combination of animal (1d3), vegetable (1d3), and mineral (1d3) revenue, you can set the value of some of the dice according to the fiction of your game.

[/quote]

0_0 I never thought of it like that and this is, in my opinion, INGENIOUS. From now on, I'm rolling different-colored dice so I know what each one means.

Now I just need to come up with a table (or at least a list) of random resources for each type so that I can get really nitty-gritty about exactly what each die result means!

7

[quote="tire_ak"]

If you look at the 3d3 roll as a combination of animal (1d3), vegetable (1d3), and mineral (1d3) revenue...

[/quote]

Iiiiiiiii......am the very model of a fabled domain seneschal
with revenues in vegetable, animal, and mineral
I know the shades of dragons, and field units ahistorical
From armed white apes to cataphract on mounts fantastical

I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters thaumaturgical,
I understand spell levels, both the casted and the ritual
About enchanted items I'm teeming with a lot o' news....
With many solid facts about which a fighting man can choose!

I'm very comfortable in dungeons and other places wonderous;
I know the crossbreed roots of beings quite anomalous:
So with revenue vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a fabled domain seneschal.

 

 

8

Koewn, you are the best ever. Also, I can't claim of having thought the division up; in the core rulebook land revenue is described as: 

  • wheat, barley, and other grains; 
  • cheese, milk, meat, bee honey, and other animal products;
  • and clay, stone, coal, and metals.
9

I think you're the only one who actually interpreted the three things as being three things though. Sometimes slapping the enter button twice is a great innovation. 

10

[quote="tire_ak"]

Koewn, you are the best ever. Also, I can't claim of having thought the division up; in the core rulebook land revenue is described as: 

  • wheat, barley, and other grains; 
  • cheese, milk, meat, bee honey, and other animal products;
  • and clay, stone, coal, and metals.

[/quote]

Hmmm... I want to expand on those.

Vegetable Resources: good lumber, extensive fruit/vegetable/nut sources, fungus farms (making food, fungal "leather," or a toxin), healing herbs, spices, textile sources, special/mystical rare woods (i.e. ironwood), plant-based drugs

Animal Resources: skins/furs/shells, whale oil, valuable pets/mounts, monster parts, silk, venoms/poisons

Mineral: gemstones, mystical crystals, rare or special metals (i.e. mithril)

A further wandering of my mind makes me wonder if almost every hex with forests is highly viable for lumber. Same with mountains and quarrying. But then we get into plundering and strip-mining and potentially destroying/changing hexes as a result of industries... Which could be a fascinating extension of domain value discussions.

I also like the idea that rolling a "1" for one of these three resource-types could mean that there's either "only a little or of low value" or that there's none worth mentioning and then adding that "1" to another resource's value instead.

Of course, then my mind starts thinking of "domain-level" vagaries, like "resource plays out" or "new resource discovered" or "plague!" or "merchant embargo". I know that the old BECMI Companion set had some "annual events" but they weren't really detailed. I'm definitely thinking something more in line with OA's yearly and monthly events tables.

11

Oh man, I would love to roll dice like "Increase in domain revenue because of.. animals. Specifically.... Welp. Time to tell my player that his domain is now 50% more profitable because a huge swarm of bees moved in and he has the honey money now"

12

One thing I had been thinking of was to create charts for different terrain types with a count-up table so that as you "use up" the value of the hex, the die type gets smaller. Vegetable resources would be 1 gp, animal 2 gp, and mineral 3 gp. For example, a mountain hex would start with a d20. Vegetable resources would take up slots 1-4, animal 5-12, and mineral 13-20, so as long as you had at least 3 gp, you'd roll 1d20; at 2 gp, you'd roll 1d12, and if you only had 1 gp you'd roll 1d4. A forest might be vegetable 1-6, animal 7-10, and mineral 11-12, while grasslands would be vegetable 1-4, animal 5-10, and mineral 11-12. You could end up with some really wonky results (a mountain with 9 vegetable resources), but they'd be appropriately rare thanks to the weighting of the die rolls.

13

Welp, you folks certainly took an idea and ran with it.  I don't know that I'd want to get quite that granular with the details when the entire spread consists of only 9 possible states, but I applaud the notions at play.

14

[quote="koewn"]

 

 

If you look at the 3d3 roll as a combination of animal (1d3), vegetable (1d3), and mineral (1d3) revenue...

 


-tire_ak

 

Iiiiiiiii......am the very model of a fabled domain seneschal
with revenues in vegetable, animal, and mineral
I know the shades of dragons, and field units ahistorical
From armed white apes to cataphract on mounts fantastical

I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters thaumaturgical,
I understand spell levels, both the casted and the ritual
About enchanted items I'm teeming with a lot o' news....
With many solid facts about which a fighting man can choose!

I'm very comfortable in dungeons and other places wonderous;
I know the crossbreed roots of beings quite anomalous:
So with revenue vegetable, animal, and mineral,
I am the very model of a fabled domain seneschal.

 

 

[/quote]

Koewn, you should know that a proper parody/tribute of Gilbert and Sullivan automatically wins any thread to which it is successfully applied.

ALL
He's an Autarch deity

TWILIGHT JACK
He's an Autarch deity!
For Alex has affirmed it
And his domain game confirms it
That he's an Autarch deity!

ALL
That he's an Autarch deity!

TWILIGHT JACK
For he might have played Moldvay/Cook,
Or OSRIC, or the Little Brown Books,
Or Swords & Wizardry!

ALL
Or Swords & Wizardry!

TWILIGHT JACK
But despite the Lamentations
Of she-heirs to conflagrations
He remains a deity
Koewn remains an Autarch deity!

ALL
But despite the Lamentations
Of she-heirs to conflagrations
He remains a deity
Koewn remains an Autarch deity!

15

"A Forest Journey: The Story of Wood and Civilization" actually has a number of case studies about how long it takes deforestation to empty classical hillsides, cause erosion, and silt up trading ports. I haven't reread it in years but IIRC it's decades to centuries even after you get a fairly large settlement.

16

I hadn't read that one, but I did read "Dirt: The Erosion of Civilization" and that book discusses the same topic. The demand modifier adjustments for agriculture were based on that book...

17

Added to wishlist!

18

I'm not sure for true classical societies, but I was at Catoctin Furnace last weekend. It's an iron furnace dating back to the American Revolution, and it required an acre a day of forest to fuel a single furnace (albeit a large one). A six mile hex is just about 20,000 acres, so every 55 years would completely denude a six mile hex (or about 4 years for a one mile hex). You'd get some regrowth over time, but it takes over a century for forest to recover fully.