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Discussion thread for Goblinworks Blog: The Window's a Wound, the Road Is a Knife
Goblin Squad Member
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I really like the changes to Raiding. I wonder how many bandits will stick around long enough to make a serious dent in the bank, though. It sounds like those who do really will be interested in PvP :)
I also really like the teaser about Roads. I have a feeling that's going to be a popular feature.
And I'm sure there are more than a few folks who just got excited about the possibilities inherent in Shrines :)
Can we get some idea of how far afield a Settlement might sprawl solely with POIs? For example, I'm sure we'll be able to sponsor POIs in hexes which are adjacent to our Settlement, but will we also be able to sponsor POIs in hexes which are adjacent to other sponsored POIs? What kind of limits (if any) will be in place to stop us from stretching out in a long thin line across many hexes? Am I right in my assumption that sponsored POIs must be adjacent to the Settlement or connected by a chain of other sponsored POIs?
Is there only one POI per hex? 2,000 POI hexes sounds like a lot!
Can you give us any info on "social classes"? That's the only mention of them in the blog and I don't recall seeing the term before in that context.
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Goblin Squad Member
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With approximately 2000 PoI, that means approximately 4000 Outposts for raiding. This I know will be pleasing to many. For me this opens the opportunity to develop a Manor PoI for the eventual upgrade to a monastery when the monk roll becomes available in the future. This blog answers the question of whether training can be done at other places than settlements. I am very excited about this blog. I'm sorry I didn't get the editing of last Saturday's TS Discussion done as it was on PoI.
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Goblin Squad Member
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2000 PoI, YES!!
Happy dance, happy dance!
Inn: A welcoming tavern that provides lodgings, player power regeneration, limited trade goods, some training for social classes, and a space for social interaction.
Now to begin lobbying Pax for my inn...
I like the concept of outposts as a focus for frequent raids. This offers some meaty possibilities betwern robbing merchant caravans, and besieging settlements.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Can someone post a general overview? I wont be able to access the page until midnight (work).
I've copied the whole thing in. It'll be missing some formatting and some picture links, but it should scratch your itch :)
posted by Ryan Dancey, on Wednesday, January 8, 2014
Welcome to 2014! This will be the most exciting time yet in the history of Pathfinder Online. Our breakneck schedule continues to aim for a Q3 start for Early Enrollment. Staying that course requires us to complete the current milestone early this month. We are debating bringing the milestone to a conclusion either this week or next, based on the team's determination of the status of the feature set and how much additional work is required to hit our objectives. In either event, that means that the next blog in two weeks should be full of juicy details on how much progress we made at the end of 2013!
This week, Tork talks some more about Points of Interests (PoIs) and Outposts.
Centers of PvP activity and home to companies of all shades, Outposts and PoIs represent some of the more fluid structures and holdings in Pathfinder Online. We have mentioned them in varying levels of detail in the past, but here I'd like to tie up some loose ends, introduce a few new ideas, and generally give you an insight into how we see these working going forward.
Please note that some of this stuff may contradict or alter some of the older posts on these matters—this reflects changes made elsewhere with knock-on effects, some changes in our own thinking, and feedback we have taken on board from our Crowdforging in the forum.
Social Evolution
The social aspect of the game is a primary design objective. One of our core philosophies is to maximize meaningful human interaction.
We have focused a lot of discussion on the idea of the Settlement—which will be the primary social structure that most characters deeply engage as they play. However, there can only be a small number of Settlements relative to the population, and that means only a small number of players will be able to be meaningfully involved in managing them.
We want to create a hierarchy of social structures so that many people have a chance to try their hand at leadership and management. We expect that the people who eventually run the Settlements in the long term will be folks who have shown a lot of skill in helping to create cohesion, discipline, and good choices. The place to learn how to do that is in the smaller venues we're describing in this blog.
The hierarchy begins with the Outposts that are tied to resource extraction—the heart of the in-game economy. The Outposts are connected to the Points of Interest—more advanced structures with substantial benefits (and risk!). Outposts can become sponsored by Settlements, forming a web that goes to the heart of the social systems of the game.
Points of Interest
PoIs (they may earn a new name before launch!) are semi-permanent structures in the game world. They are constructed in hexes designed for that purpose (which first must be cleared of indigenous monsters, much like settlement hexes). There are upwards of 2,000 PoI hexes on the current game map, appearing in all types of terrain and potentially teeming with all kinds of monsters of all challenge ratings.
Before planting your flag there, you must first clear a PoI hex of its monstrous ne'er-do-wells: this means beating its currently active escalation cycle. A company can then claim the hex by paying Influence to do so. The more a company has contributed to the clearing of a particular hex, the cheaper it will be for them to claim the cleared space. This is designed to discourage companies swooping in at the last minute to claim land others have fought hard to clear.
Once claimed, the company can choose which type of PoI it wishes to build there. Certain factors (such as alignment, factional reputation, terrain type, skills, and others) may affect this choice. The total list of available PoIs is not complete, but a few of them include:
Inn: A welcoming tavern that provides lodgings, player power regeneration, limited trade goods, some training for social classes, and a space for social interaction
Manor: A sturdy country house with a surrounding estate that provides some skill training, some resource gathering potential, and some trade and aristocrat skill related functions
Watchtower: A secure hold that provides perception bonuses and some martial training
Shrine: A place of worship that provides some healing, some curse and affliction removal, and some religious training
Each PoI is run by a single company and can be upgraded by setting aside Influence (along much the same lines as a settlement is upgraded). Owners can choose to invest in functionality, security, or resource generation, to create their own unique, persistent space in-game.
PoIs have a vulnerability window similar to those of settlements (we used to call this the PvP window and will talk more about it in a later blog post). In order to achieve higher level upgrades, a PoI will have to open itself up to a certain amount of danger. Such danger can be mitigated by forming alliances, investing in security upgrades, or providing an invaluable and fair service to the community.
Sponsored Companies and PoIs
A company that owns a PoI can link it to a settlement by becoming sponsored. Doing so creates a strong bond that allows a settlement to build roads to the PoI (improving travel times) and to send settlement guards to bolster a PoI's defenses. What a settlement gets in return is up to the PoI owners themselves, but will most likely include resource trafficking (see Outposts, below), and, of course, a boost in membership as sponsored company members automatically become members of their sponsoring settlement.
Outposts
Outposts are the most fluid and volatile of our structures in Pathfinder Online. Affiliated with PoIs (and, therefore, their sponsoring settlements), they are the game's primary source of trade goods.
An outpost is a semi-permanent node for trade goods. They are the farms, the mines, the lumber mills—the production location for the goods required to build and upkeep PoIs, Settlements, and their populations.
Each PoI hex contains two Outpost locations as well as its central PoI. Outpost locations are generally located on the outskirts of a hex, some distance from the PoI. Outpost locations need to be claimed by a company (with a small Influence cost) that can then select what kind of Outpost it will be. The cost of claiming and building an Outpost increases significantly if that company already has any holdings, so it makes more sense for a PoI-owning company to find other, smaller companies to run their Outposts (essentially subcontracting rather than running everything themselves).
Certain hexes can only support certain Outposts, or at least will support some Outposts better than others. Each hex can provide at least one resource in significant quantities depending on its terrain type. Other resources may also be available there at significantly reduced rates.
Once built, an Outpost produces goods based on the relevant Knowledge skills of its manager. Companies must appoint one of their members to manage each Outpost (which, of course, takes up one of his active crafting/working queues, just like managing a settlement structure). Additional "workers" can be added to an Outpost to boost its production (also preventing them from working on other structures).
Goods are produced each hour and deposited directly into the Outpost bank. Only company members (and, potentially, other named allies) have access to this bank and will want to transfer goods regularly from the Outpost to a more secure location. This is most likely to be the PoI bank but may also be all the way to an affiliated settlement (if they can get a good supply line running). There is no need to clear the outpost bank every hour, but it will only be able to contain so much material—emptying it at least once every 24-48 hours is prudent. This is not only for maximum production, but also to avoid raiders (see below).
Outposts have very little protection, by default. They do not enjoy the walls and gates of a PoI or settlement and are much more vulnerable. Outposts are designed to be raided.
This has provoked an interesting split in responses from the Goblin Squad, with some keen to make Outposts a more permanent structure and others happy with their fluidity and disposable nature. I think the best way to describe the design goal here is that while PoIs are for those who want to build a base, Outposts are simply footholds in the River Kingdoms. They essentially provide three things: the resources necessary to build and maintain PoIs and settlements, a focus for companies focused on trade goods, and a flash point for group PvP.
This PvP comes in the form of raids!
Raiding
This has taken a pretty serious rewrite, thanks in part to the discussion on the forums. Originally, raiding served two functions: removal of materials and destruction of the Outpost. This was more complicated (and advantageous) than it needed to be, and has been revised as follows:
To raid an Outpost, a player, group, or company must hold onto a specific location within the Outpost for a certain amount of time. They can initiate a raid by first eliminating any guards on site, then accessing the Outpost bank. Accessing the bank is an interruptible action that takes several seconds and, when successful, allows the looting of up to 5% of the current contents of the bank. Once accessed, the bank cannot be accessed again for 5 minutes, but while the raiding state persists the percentage looted each time increases (encouraging raiders to stick around and hold for a period for greater rewards than using hit-and-run tactics)
When an Outpost is raided, the management company and associated PoI owners are notified. Any characters within the area of the Outpost (that aren't allied with the Outpost owners) are marked as Criminal and lose no stacks of Criminal until they leave the area.
The intention is to encourage short-term, regular PvP on the outskirts/frontiers of civilization. Raids are valuable to the raider, threatening to the defender, but resource-light enough for both to keep raids frequent and fun. We wanted to ensure that there were structures in game that positively encourage player versus player combat on both a macro and a micro level. Outpost raiding has implications for the Outpost, its PoI, and any affiliated settlement, making it a valuable tool for everyone from bandits to those embroiled in full-scale war. While an outpost is unlikely to change hands unless its affiliated PoI supports such a change, it can provide valuable resources to a canny raiding party. This should allow them to further their own goals in Golarion by methods which suit their play styles.
There is also always the option to destroy an Outpost, just as you would destroy a PoI or settlement structure. This clears the Outpost position so that it can be claimed again (but this will be challenging if it is counter to the wishes of the local PoI owner or even affiliated settlement owner). This does have a more lasting effect on a settlement's supply lines than simple raids for during warfare, however, so marauding enemies may empty an Outpost through raiding and then raze it down afterwards.
Continuing Development
We are pretty happy with this three-tiered hierarchy of social venues and we have a huge list of ideas for what kinds of structures we can build into this system. We have far more than we'll have time to implement during Early Enrollment, meaning this is one of those systems that will continue to evolve complexity throughout the life of the game.
The designs described in this blog do have a lot of "to be decided" embedded in them, which means they're ripe for your input. The mechanism for establishing management roles and processes for Outposts, Points of Interest, and Settlements is going to need a lot of continuous iteration. There is room here to work on a wide variety of security policies—both those imposed by game mechanics and those imposed by the actions of the characters.
We're looking forward to brainstorming those ideas and systems with you on the forums.
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Goblin Squad Member
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If my Unofficial Map is anywhere close, there are 2304 hexes. If there are 2,000 PoI hexes, that would leave 300 hexes that are wilderness only, water (and as far as we know now unacceptable), or settlements. This means that character/monster conflict content can be had in almost every hex.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Excellent blog as usual, lots to think about. That number for the PoI's certainly staggered me; it's gives the feeling that there'll be a lot of room in this game for smaller groups than some other territory control games, which is something highly desirable in my opinion.
@Keign, If you haven't yet you should read the section of the blog You've Got Brawn, I've Got Brains, where they talk about stealth. The short of it is, I don't see the current ideas for stealth meshing with someone sneaking past all the guards to loot the bank unnoticed. I also don't think they'll allow one character to raid alone.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A company that owns a PoI can link it to a settlement by becoming sponsored. Doing so creates a strong bond that allows a settlement to build roads to the PoI (improving travel times) and to send settlement guards to bolster a PoI's defenses. What a settlement gets in return is up to the PoI owners themselves, but will most likely include resource trafficking
*throws arms up into the air in divine supplication* "Oh why did I not think of that???!"
That sounds so "eurika". Like +1 :) etc.
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Goblinworks Game Designer
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Can we get some idea of how far afield a Settlement might sprawl solely with POIs? For example, I'm sure we'll be able to sponsor POIs in hexes which are adjacent to our Settlement, but will we also be able to sponsor POIs in hexes which are adjacent to other sponsored POIs? What kind of limits (if any) will be in place to stop us from stretching out in a long thin line across many hexes? Am I right in my assumption that sponsored POIs must be adjacent to the Settlement or connected by a chain of other sponsored POIs?
Uncertain at this time. In theory, islands and long peninsulas will inherently have a limit in that you have a much harder time projecting power to retain them vs. opponents, even if we don't force you to make your sponsorships mostly contiguous and compact.
Most settlement hexes are surrounded by six PoI hexes that aren't adjacent to another settlement hex, and then there are a smaller number of PoI hexes that aren't adjacent to any settlement hexes. I think on average a settlement can grab ten contiguous PoI hexes before they're taking hexes adjacent to another settlement. So there are basically four stages of PoI sponsoring:
- I sponsor PoIs in hexes adjacent to my settlement. Anyone that wanted to fight me on that faces the fact that I am closer to those hexes than any other settlement.
- I sponsor PoIs in hexes near me but not immediately adjacent to any other settlement. I am on pretty equal footing for establishing rule over these hexes with my neighbors, due to distance.
- I sponsor PoIs in hexes near me but actually adjacent to my neighbors. If my neighbors are not already vassals and/or sufficiently cowed, they may constantly try to take them from me and will have a distance advantage in so doing.
- I sponsor PoIs so far out that another settlement hex can easily cut them off from my home hex. Retaining them will be very hard as they're probably closer to a settlement that isn't my neighbor than to me, and much closer to my neighbors than to me.
Is there only one POI per hex?
Yes.
Can you give us any info on "social classes"?
We just meant that it'll train a (TBD) selection of things useful to the more "social" roles like Aristocrat and Bard, probably including certain skills.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So with two thousand PoI hexes on the map, and two outposts per PoI hex, we are sitting at four thousand outposts. That is a much larger number than I expected, and I have to say I am very pleasantly surprised. I'm glad that the developers clearly understand that one of the best things about sandbox games is building something greater than the individual. In previous games the actual mechanics of that were kept to a small cadre of elite players. Hopefully GW can balance the system such that that isn't quite the case here.
When an Outpost is raided, the management company and associated PoI owners are notified.
Is that an instant notification? Will members of the management company who are on the other side of the game world be automatically informed? Is it worth trying to make a case for that not being what happens? I understand that the system will be balanced for whichever notification method you use, but I honestly think that a growing circle of alert, such that the longer that the outpost is raided the further out the alert goes, would be more interesting.
For the first round of raiding only the local area is notified. For the second round of raiding the entire PoI hex is notified. For the third round of raiding all neighboring hexes are notified, and so on. This would at least encourage companies to keep someone reasonably close to the hex, most of the time, rather than feeling that they can roam semi-freely with the knowledge that they can just depend on an instant notification should they be required.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think on average a settlement can grab ten contiguous PoI hexes before they're taking hexes adjacent to another settlement.
I'm no Nightdrifer or DeciusBrutus, but that leads me to conclude that there will be one Settlement Hex for every 6-10 POI Hexes, meaning there will be somewhere between roughly 200 and 350 Settlement Hexes in the current map. That's a lot more than I expected.
All good news.
My only point of concern is if all outpost raids give the criminal flag will all outpost raids move you toward chaotic? Not a problem for me, but I'd like to see this not be the case when part of an official war or feud.
Have to agree with Andius here. Can we get an answer to this?
I think if Criminal flags are activated and make people more chaotic, it'll be nearly impossible for Lawful, or even Neutral (LvC) settlements to compete on a large scale, without being heavily dependent on smaller Choatic companies to raid and steal Outposts.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think on average a settlement can grab ten contiguous PoI hexes before they're taking hexes adjacent to another settlement.I'm no Nightdrifer or DeciusBrutus, but that leads me to conclude that there will be one Settlement Hex for every 6-10 POI Hexes, meaning there will be somewhere between roughly 200 and 350 Settlement Hexes in the current map. That's a lot more than I expected.
Hum. It's getting late here, and I might be wrong, but I am fairly sure that that isn't correct. That would only be true if every hex was lined up end to end, with a settlement every ~11 hexes, no? Because all of the hexes are laid out in a hex grid, each settlement 'controls' a sphere of hexes around it. If there are 2000 PoI hexes, that means that the map is ~44 hexes by 44 hexes (give or take for Wilderness hexes and stuff). Which I think means there should be ~16 settlement hexes?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Another concern with the Criminal flag and potential slide towards Chaotic is the inclusion of non-allied but non-guilty parties.
Are we expecting to need to define alliances with every travelling merchant or here today, gone tomorrow adventurer we feel comfortable hanging out in our lands? I imagine the case would be rare, but I can only imagine how upsetting it might be to be a LN merchant moving through a hex with an outpost when some unknown company happens to start raiding, only to have over-eager defenders rush over the hill to slaughter the otherwise innocent man with a criminal flag.
It is certainly a conundrum though, because the opposite situation might be that not all of the raiders get flagged and either wait to jump in until the time is ripe or try to reputation bait the defenders.
Other than that, this sounds like good stuff!
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I think on average a settlement can grab ten contiguous PoI hexes before they're taking hexes adjacent to another settlement.I'm no Nightdrifer or DeciusBrutus, but that leads me to conclude that there will be one Settlement Hex for every 6-10 POI Hexes, meaning there will be somewhere between roughly 200 and 350 Settlement Hexes in the current map. That's a lot more than I expected.
Known numbers: 2000 POIs, at 1/hex (I'm going to assume that this number has one significant figure)
Every settlement has 6 POI hexes adjacent to it, which are not adjacent to any other settlement hex.
The average settlement has 1-5 hexes close to it, but not adjacent to any settlement.
Assumptions: There are a negligible number of hexes close, but not adjacent to, exactly one settlement or more than three settlements. There are also a negligible number of hexes not close to any settlement.
One extreme: The average settlement has the minimum 6 'natural' PoI hexes and 1 'disputed' hex, which is near a total of 3 settlements. PoI hexes are 19/3 as common as settlement hexes, and 2000 PoI hexes serve 300 settlement hexes.
Other extreme: The average settlement has the maximum of 6 natural plus 5 disputed hexes, and disputed hexes are close to exactly two settlements. PoI hexes are 17/2 times as common as settlement hexes, and 2000 PoI hexes serve 200 settlements.
That's a lot of settlements, a ton of PoIs, and a godly number of outpost locations. While only a few people can be settlement managers at any one time, virtually anyone should be able to aspire to be one. PoIs and outposts should be common enough that there is room for some to be managed poorly and not have a harmful effect on the overall economy.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Hum. It's getting late here, and I might be wrong, but I am fairly sure that that isn't correct. That would only be true if every hex was lined up end to end, with a settlement every ~11 hexes, no? Because all of the hexes are laid out in a hex grid, each settlement 'controls' a sphere of hexes around it. If there are 2000 PoI hexes, that means that the map is ~44 hexes by 44 hexes (give or take for Wilderness hexes and stuff). Which I think means there should be ~16 settlement hexes?I think on average a settlement can grab ten contiguous PoI hexes before they're taking hexes adjacent to another settlement.I'm no Nightdrifer or DeciusBrutus, but that leads me to conclude that there will be one Settlement Hex for every 6-10 POI Hexes, meaning there will be somewhere between roughly 200 and 350 Settlement Hexes in the current map. That's a lot more than I expected.
On the ~44 by ~44 grid, the settlement hexes would have roughly 2-3 hexes between settlement hexes on each major axis; that would make a rough 'grid' of about 11-15 settlements wide by the same number deep, or 100-200 total settlements.
Still lower than my math shows, and I think it's because of errors turning hexes into grids (because hexes are what we will have, and grids are easier to do math on).
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Goblinworks Game Designer
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Numbers are subject to change as we build out the map, but 2000 PoI hexes is slightly rounded up and number of settlement hexes is around 220, such that if every single settlement played nice and tried to distribute them as evenly as possible (hah!), each settlement would sponsor 8-9 PoIs.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Numbers are subject to change as we build out the map, but 2000 PoI hexes is slightly rounded up and number of settlement hexes is around 220, such that if every single settlement played nice and tried to distribute them as evenly as possible (hah!), each settlement would sponsor 8-9 PoIs.
Some things have changed, indeed!
Numbers are subject to change as we build out the map, but 2000 PoI hexes is slightly rounded up and number of settlement hexes is around 220, such that if every single settlement played nice and tried to distribute them as evenly as possible (hah!), each settlement would sponsor 8-9 PoIs.
And how many Monster hexes then?
Edit: Wow. According to my rough estimate, that's ~300 Monster hexes. Does that sound about right? I guess there's going to be more Monster hexes than Settlement hexes it would seem.
@Qallz My rough sketch on a piece of hex pad says about 1 per 3 settlements; about 70-80?
No, cuz I think the map is 50x50 isn't it? Or am I wrong about that? I also didn't factor in NPC hexes, but I'm pretty sure there won't be too many. So maybe 250 Monster hexes?
So maybe the same amount as Settlement hexes? My math could be way off here. I don't have all the facts...
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Goblinworks Game Designer
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All good news.
My only point of concern is if all outpost raids give the criminal flag will all outpost raids move you toward chaotic? Not a problem for me, but I'd like to see this not be the case when part of an official war or feud.
Yeh I totally forgot to include this in the blog - my bad. It was in the previous outline of raids but I forgot to carry it over. If you are at war with a company who own a PoI, Outpost, or Settlement, you can raid their affiliated Outposts without getting the criminal flag.
Yeh I totally forgot to include this in the blog - my bad. It was in the previous outline of raids but I forgot to carry it over. If you are at war with a company who own a PoI, Outpost, or Settlement, you can raid their affiliated Outposts without getting the criminal flag.All good news.
My only point of concern is if all outpost raids give the criminal flag will all outpost raids move you toward chaotic? Not a problem for me, but I'd like to see this not be the case when part of an official war or feud.
Otherwise you'll become more Chaotic?? Also what happens to your Rep? Would it be affected either way?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Yeh I totally forgot to include this in the blog - my bad. It was in the previous outline of raids but I forgot to carry it over. If you are at war with a company who own a PoI, Outpost, or Settlement, you can raid their affiliated Outposts without getting the criminal flag.All good news.
My only point of concern is if all outpost raids give the criminal flag will all outpost raids move you toward chaotic? Not a problem for me, but I'd like to see this not be the case when part of an official war or feud.
Great, thanks for the answer.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A quick clarification, again because it is late and perhaps because I'm a bit dumb at the moment; Is a settlement hex a hex within which a settlement can be build? Or is a settlement hex ones of the hexes that are automatically controlled by a settlement (the 6 PoI around a settlement, for example)?
It's just that that 220 number seems really high to me, for the map area that we have seen. Maybe it's just because the perspective of the fly-over was weird.
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It's just that that 220 number seems really high to me, for the map area that we have seen. Maybe it's just because the perspective of the fly-over was weird.
They broke each hex on that map into 7 hexes.
Edit: See Harad's Unofficial map above. Pretty good.
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Goblinworks Game Designer
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Sounds to me that it'll make sense for some large guilds to break into many smaller Chartered Companies to reduce the overhead on POI management. Out of game, they'll still be the large organization and have all the resources to defend their POIs.
Indeedy. That was one of the goals with this feudal system we have created. We have very little control over off-line relationships obviously, and such relationships can play havoc with any in-game systems designed to promote volatility within an organisation. With the Outpost/PoI/Settlement triumvirate in place we can grant mechanical control to more individuals - so if/when they fall out with their pals offline they potentially have enough mechanical autonomy to do something about it in game.
Basically, it always makes sense mechanically to spread the responsibilities of managing a settlement/PoI, but that also opens up the potential for betrayal and power-broking. Being the most successful settlement also puts you at some politicking risk.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Do you expect a CC to be able to hold onto a POI without settlement sponsorship? Can a settlement just declare war on the POI company and take it away and give it to a sponsored company . The politics of POI ownership would seem to be dominated by settlement leaders who can easily push aside any independent CC.
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Goblinworks Executive Founder
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Numbers are subject to change as we build out the map, but 2000 PoI hexes is slightly rounded up and number of settlement hexes is around 220, such that if every single settlement played nice and tried to distribute them as evenly as possible (hah!), each settlement would sponsor 8-9 PoIs.
That's 6 'natural' hexes, and an average ahare of 2-3 contested hexes; it makes sense for the typical centrally located settlement to have 6 hexes disputed by only one other settlement and 6 hexes disputed by two other settlements, but that would give too regular an arrangement of settlements and more hexes per settlement than described.
Making a few more assumptions and moving test hex grids around, the only regular arrangement I can see that meets the constraints is each settlement having two PoI hexes between it and it's six close neighbors, and there being six 'disputed' hexes nearby, each of which has equally strong claims from three settlements. Anything beyond the nearby disputed hexes would be part of the 'natural' territory of one of your neighbors.
An occasional break due to road, map edge, monster hex, or other special hex would bring the average up slightly and break the regular structure (since settlements would be adjusted slightly across the entire map to prevent the edge cases from being significantly better or worse).
PoI-holding companies in disputable hexes might have significant input into which settlement annexes them, if they can bring enough muscle to the field. I suspect that the power dynamic might be more even between companies and settlements than I had thought, especially if a company which owns a PoI can declare independence and then fealty to a different settlement.
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Now some might call me suspicious here however we have gone from statements like there will be initially 15 settlement hexes and settlements will be 500 to 1000 people
to there will be 220 settlement hexes and 2000 poi hexes.
Call me mr Cynical if you like but you aren't trying to dilute settlement populations because your engine won't handle populations in the 100's let alone warfare between armies in there 100's are you?
A simple yes or no will suffice
@Steelwing
I suspect the 15 settlements number is, or was a rough minimum to support the 9362ish people that will be in EE but I am doing rough math and guessing a little.
Yes I know what the kickstarter number is and I know they expect that number to be bigger by OE. I estimated maybe 15000 based on Eve graphs in one of the threads around here.
The question still remains why the shift from 15 to 200+ when those numbers and estimates on their side havent changed. I don't think my assumption is unreasonable and all they have to do is respond that it is not the reason.