Maximum # of Terrain Features

So, am I reading it wrong because, as I see it, with Arable I have as compulsories 1 BUA or 2 Plough, then as optionals I can choose up to 3 Woods?
Hilly has 1-2 DH as compulsories with up to 3 Woods as optional. Littoral, 1 compulsory Waterway, up to 3 optional Woods.
This makes them both potentially as wooded as Forest, right?

Regards,

j

Hi again;

Only tropical and forest can have three woods, and that is only if you decide to take two woods as your compulsory and then you can take one extra wood for one of your two to three optional pieces. The maximum is thus three woods.

For arable, you are correct in that you can take one BUA OR two plough as your compulsory.

Then, for your two or three optional pieces you can choose from the following:

river
difficult hill
gentle hill
extra plough
enclosures
road
waterway
scrub
boggy

so if you decided to pick say three optional pieces instead of two, you could have only three different types of terrain piece but not say two rivers and a road.

Hope this makes sense.

No, you certainly are not being dim, not even close.

Questions are always good to ask, and I often find that some of the experienced DBA 3.0 gamers (I am not one of them), are still asking questions about the rules, so you are in good company.

I have to say I agree with Martin on this one.

Players can choose 1 or 2 compulsory features.
The Arable compulsory features are either a BUA or 2 Plough...
 If Arable can choose 2 Plough as their first compulsory choice,
 could they then choose 2 more Plough as their 2nd compulsory choice?
That would give Arable 4 compulsory Plough...plus three more optional features for a total of 7!

Ah, but you are only allowed a maximum of 3 of any one type of terrain.
Still, you could end up with:-
        1 BUA (1st compulsory choice)
        2 Plough (2nd compulsory choice)
        3 others (optional, for a total of 6 terrain pieces)

After all, Hilly regions can’t pick:-
        2 Hills (1st compulsory choice)
        1 Hill (2nd compulsory choice)
        3 others (optional, which can't be more Hills, as the maximum has already been reached)
...can they?!

Come to think of it, Dry regions would be even worse:-
        2 Rocky (1st compulsory choice)
        2 Scrub (2nd compulsory choice)
        3 others (optional)
...those wide open deserts could have more terrain in them than a Tropical Forest!
                                                          


Some Helpful Downloads can be found here: fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Reference_sheets_and_epitomes
And here is the latest Jan 2019 FAQ: fanaticus-dba.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ_2019_1st_Quarter

You can take both. This explains the extra plough verbage.

Cities, castles and villages are most often surrounded by fields.


Joe Collins

I may have misinterpreted Joe’s post but when he says you can take both I think he is referring to the BUA and the extra plough rather than the BUA AND 2 plough and extra plough. In fact the only way that “Cities, castles and villages are most often surrounded by fields” is by doing this.

However, the text I want to discuss is the “free hill” that the rules say you can get with a city or fort and the potential that has breach 3 of any feature rule. Sit back and enjoy the ride!

Para 6.6 “A city or fort can be combined as one feature with a larger hill that is also permitted.” The words “combined as one feature” means this is one terrain feature as does the fact that Arable will place a compulsory BUA before any hill, so the combo must be a single feature. Also the hill can only be used if allowed - so BUA on Tropical can’t include a hill as Tropical doesn’t allow hills but can be used in Arable, Forest and Steppe can.

So 3 gray areas: does the term “larger hill” include difficult hills? I don’t see why not - Hills are Hills! also BUAs are permitted in Hilly where the only hills allowed are difficult hills. So this must allow both sorts of hills if permitted.

Second gray area is what “larger hills” means in terms of size. The term “larger” does not appear limited by anything other than the 9BW rectangle. So anything up to maximum size is allowed. Nothing limits the hill to the size of the BUA.

Third gray area is position as we now have a piece of combo terrain where all of the city part must be 6BW from 2 battlefield edges but the “larger hill” part applies the rules of hill placement where a lesser part may extend into an adjacent quarter if gentle hills.

Para 7.1 confirms that difficult hills are OK. “A city or fort on a hill includes the hill in its tactical factors so occupiers do not count as being uphill nor do sssaulters count BG.” This implies that the hill could be BG - so Difficult hills must be OK. Also only units assaulting the fort ignore the BG. The BG does apply for movement and other attack defence scenarios on that hill. So imagine a fort or city flanked by friendly units (not defenders as not in the fort) then they would count as uphill with the defenders in BG if in combat.

So now the kicker is that this BUA & Hill combo counts as a BUA for placement but works in effectively as a larger hill. So if you are in Hilly terain there is nothing stopping you choosing 2 Difficult Hills, and an Extra Difficult Hill AND a BUA hill combo which counts as a BUA. Effectively 4 Difficult Hills but within the 3 of each type limit because the 4th is a BUA combo and not a hill.

Now let’s get into some really gray areas. If the BUA hill combo counts as a BUA then does there need to be a gap of st least 1 BW between the hill part and the Table edge? Well if the city part can be placed table edge then so can the hill.

Also when is the larger hill selected? Does the defending player choose a BUA place it and then select the larger hill it is combined with? If so you can tailor make the hill to fill available space provided the smaller BUA part isn’t blocked. So you’d probably have to declare the combo from the outset but this would be an umpires ruling. As would the need for 1BW separation between the combo area rather than the BUA element.