In the 'populating a World Hex' sequence on page 459, many World Hex types have the instructions that all White Numbered Hexes (WNH) become the overall terrain, and Black Numbered Hexes are "Other".
For example, a Mountain Hex simply says "The White Terrain Hex Is: ... If Shore, Land is Mountains, Ocean is Islands; Black Is ... Other". For World Hexes with no shore line, the entire hex is land, and so all white numbered hexes are Mountain, and all Black Numbered Hexes are "Other". That leaves us with this:
If the hex has no other types associated with it (e.g. city, starport, shore line), this is pretty much it; although on Hi worlds towns are placed. It is the same with Cropland, Rural, and Wasteland. You get the same pattern and no guidance about BNH apart from "Other".
There are some further problems that I am logging as errata that I will skip here.
What I propose is some further randomizing of terrain based on what page 459 says to do with "Clear" terrain, which is randomly add some forest, rough, lake, and marsh hexes in WNH.
I will illustrate each step with a picture.
1. Revert 2D WNH to Clear or Desert Terrain
In this example I am reverting them to Clear terrain because of the context of the hex. If the world is a Desert World, revert them to Desert terrain. Referee fiat applies here as well if the Referee has decided to place large-scale deserts on the World map. I rolled 7 on 2D, and then used D66 to randomly select the seven hexes that are now clear terrain.
2. Make 3D BNH Mountain Terrain
We add 3D to the BNH because we start with 66 BNH that have no mountains, but the WNH are entirely covered with them. In the example, I rolled a 4 on 3D
rant: random numbers failing to illustrate how it would typically turn out), and then used D66 to randomly select four hexes that are now Mountains.
Our World Hex now looks like this - note the WNH and BNH with variations of mountains either subtracted or added:
3. Place 1D Rough in BNH
From now on, if the hex contains a terrain type that is not "clear" when it is rolled on D66, we do not change the hex and we do not re-roll the result; this further randomises the results, gives primacy to the overall hex type, and saves time on re-rolls.
Now we place Rough (represented by a "hills" symbol here) in BNH. I rolled a 4 and placed the four rough hexes in BNH using D66. Our hex now looks like this:
4. Place 1D Wood in BNH
The existing note N1 on p. 459 is to be noted: do not roll for Wood unless Atmosphere 3-A; but otherwise the same process as for Rough, which gives us this:
5. Place 1D Marsh in BNH; if already Wood, this becomes Swamp
The existing note N2 on p. 459 is to be noted: do not roll for Marsh unless Hydrographics 2-A; As it turns out, our Marsh hexes were not already Wood, so we can place them both. Placing Marsh over Wood to make Swamp is the exception to the rule about not placing terrain over other non-clear terrain.
6. Place D3 Lakes in BNH
In this example, we rolled for 1 lake on D3. With both lakes and marsh added, the world hex now looks like this:
I also then added in a political border (in orange):
There is, of course, still detail to add to this hex: local towns, important encounters, and so on. We can then select any one of these "terrain hexes" to further expand our mapping, and we are set up for our players to go off in different directions.
I was toying with randomising the WNH a bit more: the WNH that have been reverted to "clear" terrain might well have some variants, but it would then get complicated, without much pay-off: clear terrain has a lot of variants in woods, marsh, swamp and rough when mapping at the Terrain Hex level.
I would very much like other's thoughts on this, and after any changes, put this up as a PDF (thanks for the idea, Major B).
For example, a Mountain Hex simply says "The White Terrain Hex Is: ... If Shore, Land is Mountains, Ocean is Islands; Black Is ... Other". For World Hexes with no shore line, the entire hex is land, and so all white numbered hexes are Mountain, and all Black Numbered Hexes are "Other". That leaves us with this:
If the hex has no other types associated with it (e.g. city, starport, shore line), this is pretty much it; although on Hi worlds towns are placed. It is the same with Cropland, Rural, and Wasteland. You get the same pattern and no guidance about BNH apart from "Other".
There are some further problems that I am logging as errata that I will skip here.
What I propose is some further randomizing of terrain based on what page 459 says to do with "Clear" terrain, which is randomly add some forest, rough, lake, and marsh hexes in WNH.
I will illustrate each step with a picture.
1. Revert 2D WNH to Clear or Desert Terrain
In this example I am reverting them to Clear terrain because of the context of the hex. If the world is a Desert World, revert them to Desert terrain. Referee fiat applies here as well if the Referee has decided to place large-scale deserts on the World map. I rolled 7 on 2D, and then used D66 to randomly select the seven hexes that are now clear terrain.
2. Make 3D BNH Mountain Terrain
We add 3D to the BNH because we start with 66 BNH that have no mountains, but the WNH are entirely covered with them. In the example, I rolled a 4 on 3D
rant: random numbers failing to illustrate how it would typically turn out), and then used D66 to randomly select four hexes that are now Mountains.Our World Hex now looks like this - note the WNH and BNH with variations of mountains either subtracted or added:
3. Place 1D Rough in BNH
From now on, if the hex contains a terrain type that is not "clear" when it is rolled on D66, we do not change the hex and we do not re-roll the result; this further randomises the results, gives primacy to the overall hex type, and saves time on re-rolls.
Now we place Rough (represented by a "hills" symbol here) in BNH. I rolled a 4 and placed the four rough hexes in BNH using D66. Our hex now looks like this:
4. Place 1D Wood in BNH
The existing note N1 on p. 459 is to be noted: do not roll for Wood unless Atmosphere 3-A; but otherwise the same process as for Rough, which gives us this:
5. Place 1D Marsh in BNH; if already Wood, this becomes Swamp
The existing note N2 on p. 459 is to be noted: do not roll for Marsh unless Hydrographics 2-A; As it turns out, our Marsh hexes were not already Wood, so we can place them both. Placing Marsh over Wood to make Swamp is the exception to the rule about not placing terrain over other non-clear terrain.
6. Place D3 Lakes in BNH
In this example, we rolled for 1 lake on D3. With both lakes and marsh added, the world hex now looks like this:
I also then added in a political border (in orange):
There is, of course, still detail to add to this hex: local towns, important encounters, and so on. We can then select any one of these "terrain hexes" to further expand our mapping, and we are set up for our players to go off in different directions.
I was toying with randomising the WNH a bit more: the WNH that have been reverted to "clear" terrain might well have some variants, but it would then get complicated, without much pay-off: clear terrain has a lot of variants in woods, marsh, swamp and rough when mapping at the Terrain Hex level.
I would very much like other's thoughts on this, and after any changes, put this up as a PDF (thanks for the idea, Major B).
