Can I claim water for tax purposes?

My quest to become the ultimate dwarf recently involved expanding my domain to cover the entire six-hex mountain range. In doing so, my borders came to abut those of some new neighbours. The neighbouring rulers are lawful in alignment and friendly in temperament, and I would rather not make enemies of them.

And yet, I recently came into a large amount of treasure, and (perhaps foolishly) already invested it in expanding my stronghold with all the extra bits that I wanted to add during the previous expansion, but didn't because of budget constraints. As a result, I now have a stronghold large and valuable enough to defend a whole hex more than it currently does, and yet there's no land nearby that I'm able to expand into.

Emphasis on the "land." There are a few hexes of ocean nearby. Right on my domain's northern border, in fact. And open water isn't exactly wasteland: It can be fished, and traded across, and harvested of its resources. It can, in other words, support a population, and industries, and trade... Just like a land hex can.

Am I crazy, or should it be possible to claim an ocean hex as part of my domain?

There is no written rule on this, but I personally have toyed with allowing 1 hex of open water adjacent to land to be “habitable” . Coastal fishing cultures have achieved very high pop densities.

Sounds like it would make a good Axioms article.

that's probably the easier way to do it.  However, and I had players asking about this, it seems to me there would be some kind of benefit that allows coastal cities to grow larger (and faster) but no such rule or emergent property exists (that I'm aware of).

I feel like this would be part of an expansion/drilling down of land values.

The reason why coastal civilizations did so well (at least, in my understanding) is the easy availability of food. Theoretically, a land hex could have, say, a forest with an enormous population of very lazy deer, that would be comparable. This could be generalized as ‘Easy Food’ as a resource available in some land hexes and all coastal hexes, which would give some kind of growth/population benefit. (Depending on the level of detail you want, this might be all the specification needed of the resource, or you might want to have a sub-category of what kind of food is easily available.)

For a simple representation with existing rules, you might simply roll 2d3+3 for the land value of a coastal hex, instead of 3d3, to represent that they all have some level of useful resource.

[quote="Alex"] There is no written rule on this, but I personally have toyed with allowing 1 hex of open water adjacent to land to be "habitable" . [/quote]

Ah, that's pretty similar to what I had in mind. Thanks, Alex!

[quote="Jard"] However, and I had players asking about this, it seems to me there would be some kind of benefit that allows coastal cities to grow larger (and faster) but no such rule or emergent property exists (that I'm aware of). [/quote]

Hmm... I guess the game doesn't really model the effects of food resource availability on population growth. Maybe population growth rates should be affected by land revenue value?

This idea of replacing a die with a 3 because the hex is adjacent to water could be the basis of a great system for rational, drilled-down land values.

So, you could similarly rule that a hex with a river likewise gets a +3 in lieu of a d3, or that a hex adjacent to desert gets a 1.

I like some randomness to spur creativity. Too much breaks verisimilitude for me as the judge. This seems like a good way to get after this problem.

the desert gets me thinking: is there a combination of dice and modifiers that can still produce a number between 3 and 9 but which has a bell curve weighted towards 3 instead of towards 6?

Personally, my vision of what it would look like if I were doing it would be three tables per terrain type, each one replacing one of the d3’s that you normally roll.

So you might end up with a Barren (1) Metal-Rich (3) Stable Climate (2) Plains hex, for a total land value of 6.

(Not sure exactly what it would look like, I might want to range them from -1 to +4 instead of 1 to 3 and then cap it between 3 and 9 at the end, just to get more variance and have more options available in table design, but I’d have to play with the probabilities before deciding exactly what it would look like.)

I don’t think you’re going to get the spike of the bell curve at the minimum result without instituting a floor.

[quote="Jard"]

the desert gets me thinking: is there a combination of dice and modifiers that can still produce a number between 3 and 9 but which has a bell curve weighted towards 3 instead of towards 6?

[/quote]

Use 4d3 and drop the highest 1 or 5d3 and drop the highest 2, depends on how much bias toward 3 you want.  Particularly fertile lands might drop lowest instead.

[quote="tire_ak"]

Use 4d3 and drop the highest 1 or 5d3 and drop the highest 2, depends on how much bias toward 3 you want.  Particularly fertile lands might drop lowest instead.

[/quote]

Perfect! thanks for that.

[quote="Aryxymaraki"]

that's probably the easier way to do it.  However, and I had players asking about this, it seems to me there would be some kind of benefit that allows coastal cities to grow larger (and faster) but no such rule or emergent property exists (that I'm aware of).


-Jard

I feel like this would be part of an expansion/drilling down of land values. The reason why coastal civilizations did so well (at least, in my understanding) is the easy availability of food. Theoretically, a land hex could have, say, a forest with an enormous population of very lazy deer, that would be comparable. This could be generalized as 'Easy Food' as a resource available in some land hexes and all coastal hexes, which would give some kind of growth/population benefit. (Depending on the level of detail you want, this might be all the specification needed of the resource, or you might want to have a sub-category of what kind of food is easily available.) For a simple representation with existing rules, you might simply roll 2d3+3 for the land value of a coastal hex, instead of 3d3, to represent that they all have some level of useful resource. [/quote]

 

Trade, also. It's much faster and cheaper to transport goods by water than by land up until the introduction of the steam locomotive (at which point it's still cheaper to go by water, but slower).

 

Honestly, this was one area where I got hung up working on rules for ships, the ocean, and ports, since I didn't have quite enough of a feel for the underlying rules to develop something consistent with them. I'm currently swamped at work, but I do intend to revisit them once the insanity dies down in September.

[quote="tire_ak"]

 

 

the desert gets me thinking: is there a combination of dice and modifiers that can still produce a number between 3 and 9 but which has a bell curve weighted towards 3 instead of towards 6?

 


-Jard

 

Use 4d3 and drop the highest 1 or 5d3 and drop the highest 2, depends on how much bias toward 3 you want.  Particularly fertile lands might drop lowest instead.

[/quote]

Here is what a few of these options look like  :)

[quote="Loswaith"]

Here is what a few of these options look like  :)

[/quote]

Wow! each additional dice will shift the peak of the bell curve exactly one number up/down depending on if it's highest/lowest.  Perfect!

Yup, it indeed works both ways :)