In which we begin designing NTME '22

 NTME is working just fine.  Providing some interesting story hook type material.  Getting the requisite player buy-in.  But it's time for the next steps.

We've HAD the "outer trade areas" simplified to one source.  No more.  All 190 burgs are getting their appropriate trade distances.  So there goes January.  Will make scarcity more accurate (see below.)  Will keep the "wilderness" burgs out of the world network ... until they're brought on-line by the party or by world events.  When that happens they'll be connected for one year, after which they'll disconnect from burgs still in the wilderness.  This will also allow other world events to disrupt the supply chain (!?)  Already have a few things planned.  Increased pirate activity will be my test run case.  Remote avalanche cuts off a trade route?  Earthquake causes bridge collapse?  "Hey, why can't I buy that neat thing I bought here last month?"  Because an earthquake in Colquinal destroyed the bridge over the Chishore river and the major supplier can't ship it out!  Hopefully somebody's trying to get a boat there.  They might make a fortune!

Started differentiating resources in '20 with cereals.  And now I'm going nuts with it.  Have used the climate and biome to set up crop production for every burg.  Differentiated nuts, fruits, veggies and a handful of other things.  Alexis differentiates building stone.  Not ready to take THAT jump (yet.)  But what about wood? I'm thinking pine, spruce, fir, oak, chestnut, maple and walnut.  Might throw in one or two more.  

Next step will be to set up the production of all of those 190 burgs.  I have "rules" for who'll get what and roughly how much but I need to tweak, fine tune, and actually allocate.  So there goes February.  And probably March.

And THEN I'll start playing with the production tables.  The tables from '20 are good and workable and all, but they're a muddled mess, need organizing, cleaning up and rejiggering to reflect the aforementioned differentiation. 

Once that's workable I have a couple pet projects that I think spreadsheets will facilitate.  Using lookup, MAX, and conditional formatting.  Hopefully I'll be able to design my storefronts to reflect the scarcity inherent in the system.  Providers will base offerings on scarcity and provide local flavor.  Meat/spice/veg offerings will vary with local.  So will the beverage selection.  Even the breakfast gruel, porridge, mush or oatmeal will be localized.  And candy.  

I'm looking fwd to ALL of this!

In which we try to figure out (the easy way) what grows where.

What crops grow where? What wildlife is prevalent where? And to a lesser degree, what gemstones are found where? In MOST games the answer to these questions doesn't matter. Hell, the questions are never asked. All taverns have the same ale. Everyone eats the same Soylent. And gems magically appear in treasure troves. Swords are forged from air and imagination. Salt isn't a consideration. Neither is clay. But that's not how I'm trying to roll, as you know if you've ever read any of the worldbuilding or NTME posts on this blog. Resources exist. They COME from someplace. And their value varies from place to place depending on availability and the presence of craftsmen.

Minerals were pretty “easy” to allocate. So was livestock. But then came more specific variations. “Game” was easy. But there's a difference between muskrats and snow leopards. “Fowl” was easy but ducks and turkeys vary. “Cereals,” “Fruits,” and “textiles” were easy but corn, rye, cotton, apples and oranges each have specific requirements. And then there's gemstones, as mentioned in an earlier post.

So I started with the Koppen-Geiger classification. Can also use the USDA “hardiness scale” but no overarching info exists on this either. Already have the temperature profile, rainfall data and elevation information for every city on the planet. The current location of the party is ALL Cfb or Dfb. But what crops grow in which climate. And what wildlife thrives where? For H in Hexes uses the K-G system overlayed with global production data to determine what crops grow best where. They've provided the data for six crops, but replicating their data is well beyond my ability. I've written to request data use. We'll see. I've done hours of online research and this is the closest thing I've found to compare crops to Koppen.

Next up? Wildlife. So beaver and otter need sufficient water. Wolves need sufficient prey. Snow leopards need … snow. But I want some kind of crunchy system to determine what's hunted where, based on climate and maybe dominant flora. And perhaps altitude. ALL of these searches have been overly cluttered with climate change data. Nice that it's out there but not what I'm looking for <G>. And I'm not finding what I'm looking for. I'd love find a chart wherein I can look up an animal (wolf, ermine, deer) and it'll tell me in what habitat it thrives. But no love.

All the above applies to gems as well, but I'm not NEARLY as worried about it. I've plopped the gems into the dwarven areas, the precious stones (and all black stones!) in the Orc homeland. The Celtic area gets all the green stones. Norse culture gets Scandinavian stones. Halflings get ornamental stones. Pearls found in harbor cities with rivers. Coral found in harbor cities without a river. Rare. Distributed.

How much more time to I spend looking for a panacea before I do it one item at a time.