Maximum # of Terrain Features

Joe,

While I sympathise with you that you are explaining what may have happened during development. Please understand that this is frustrating. You say - “Phil wasn't particularly careful with the language here. He wasn't as well in several other parts of the rules.” You say “Phil was dismissive of the questions.” You say “ I am sorry that we couldn't get Phil to further clarify this. But we couldn't.” Bob says “I put my faith in Phil Barker's model of ancient warfare as he expresses it in the rules he writes.“ We have already established that the play testing left rather large holes in places. And primusplius says “Phil's own insistence that the "the players need to use common sense". That was code-speak for "you guys go sort it out, and come to a consensus.”

The bottom line is that without recourse to some sort of mechanism that can sort out these questions (which doesn’t exist) we can only go on the rules as they are written and translate them into plain English. In short “us guys need to sort it out.” Hence I can only support pawsbill’s comment of “Claptrap!“ when it comes to things like BUA and 3 plough or decorative hills under cities or forts when this is not what the words, as written say in English in the rules.

If we are to hang on Phil’s every neuance in his written word when it comes to one rule then how come we ignore him wholesale in other areas? This makes no sense. My suggestion would be to either create an FAQ or clarification mechanism, preferably with Phil’s input, to keep the rules live and relevant OR update then to 3.1 addressing all the pints on this forum OR if all else fails create a voting site on this forum to create the consensus Phil desired. In the meantime I’ll go with umpires like pawsbill who seems to speak both English and Common Sense combined.

Here’s a thought. 

Yes, it does look odd having a city or hamlet with no ploughed fields to feed them (unless these are off-table).
And if extra Plough means you must have a Plough to start with, then how about the following:-

If terrain is:-     Compulsory features are:-     Optional features are-
ARABLE              2 Plough or 1 BUA+1 Plough       blah, blah, blah...

...in other words, Arable compulsory features come in sets of two.
So you could have either:-
　　 2 Plough (that’s a maximum of two compulsory features), or
　　 a BUA with a Plough (also a maximum of two compulsory features).

This seems to fit all the necessary requirements...
...no more than two compulsory features, and a Plough is always present, allowing optional ‘extra’ Plough.

Cities and Hamlets will always have at least one Plough to accompany them (possibly more), Forts would have at least one Plough to supplement the garrison, and even an Edifice would always have some Plough to feed the priests.

What does the DBA community think?



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

So if I understand your line of argument; in using the word “or” what Phil actually meant was that this was “logical connective joining two or more predicates that yields the logical value "true" when at least one of the predicates is true.” Which for all intents and purposes means “and” and which also makes 3=2.

Whilst I don’t disagree with you that this might be the case, especially when other people can argue that Phil actually intended 3-4 lines of text in the rules to actually mean the word “decorative” but rather than using thst single word (I.e. decorative hill) deliberately chose a different word (I.e. larger hill.)

However, there are a couple of other thoughts about this problem:

First, when Phil uses the word “or” he meant “or” as used in English which is a word “used to connect words, phrases, or clauses representing alternatives. The key bit here is “alternatives.”

Second, perhaps these were late, possibly unplay-tested, potentially poorly considered parts of the rules that were not drafted with sufficient attention to how they may be interpreted later. (That is not a criticism - it is a big book with lots of detail.). And that Phil never thought that no one would be stupid enough to think he was infallible and that we would come up with a way of achieving consensus through something that looks like an “errata” document where umpires and participants in this great game, possibly including Phil and his disciples, could agree and interpret the rules for the good of the community.

Couple of points - (and I agree with pawsBill on the interpretation)

1) a BUA surrounded by fields, some say....however, the area terrain rules mean one CANNOT place the plough adjacent to the BUA, so the logic is adrift.

2) If you desperately want fields with your BUA, model a hamlet with patches of ploughed/planted ground integral with it. Big picture, again.

I feel it’s a leftover from previous versions. Phil liked BUAs, others resisted (inc a total ban by some groups in North America, eg). The newly introduced plough looks a lot like an attempt to provide an alternative to BUAs, like ‘road’ used to be, to keep dissenters quiet.

I think we should remember that the requirement to have a 1 BW gap between area terrain pieces in DBA is a completely artificial game constraint that has no bearing whatsoever on the real world. Indeed, I personally know of many hills and ploughed fields/enclosures that are right next to and even touching woods.
But I do understand the reasons for this obviously unrealistic rule...
...it’s to stop the creation of long lines of unbroken hindering terrain.

As for having plough right next to and touching a castle or city wall...
...wouldn’t the ditch or moat in front of the walls prevent this?
So having a gap between the BUA and Plough (which are two completely separate area terrain pieces, not one single 'combined' piece) seems entirely plausible, and necessary for game purposes.



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

Yes but most people take what's wrote in the rule book  as the rule , not what Phil may or may not have meant .