Kingdom Building: Is there a way to change one terrain to another?

[Otalp]

Kingdom Building: Is there a way to change one terrain to another?

Hi,

We are going to try our hand at Kingdom building and none of us have done it for years since the old Kingmaker modules. As DM, I created this "awesome" island covered with jungle hexes for the people to explore.

Now being that I am admittedly rusty with the rules, I didn't even think about not being able to place FARMS in a forest/jungle hex...

So my question is two-fold and I can't find an answer and any help would be appreciated:

1. Is there something in the rules that allows players to convert one terrain type in a hex to another?

2. If not and I need to create a house rule to do so, I would like your input because I always fear unexpected consequences when changing rules. What would your mechanic to do this look like?

Thank you in advance.

[Chemlak]

Good questions.

1. Nope.

2. This needs balancing, but something along these lines:

Quote:

New Edict: Clear Ground.

Instead of creating a new settlement, a single forest or jungle hex within the kingdom may be intentionally cleared. This costs (X) BP for forest, and (Y) BP for jungle, and turns the hex into a plains hex (other hexes may be more suitable for the underlying terrain, at the GM’s discretion).

You don’t want to go overboard on the cost - somewhere between 5 and 20 BP is probably appropriate, but you can justify much higher costs because each hex is 95 square miles and that’s a LOT of work (if you’re not sure, go high, say 25 BP, and allow good arguments by the players to bring the cost down a bit).

You could even create other new edicts for artificial terrain of other types (not sure if anyone would want to turn a mountain hex into a desert, but PCs are weird).

[Dave Justus]

Depending on what you want the feel of the campaign to be like I would probably either just allow farms on jungle terrain (as if you had made your island 'farm friendly from the beginning) or come up with a new improvment type that was similar (or even identical to) the farms, something like:

Plantation
A Plantation helps feed your kingdom.

Terrain: Jungle, Swamp.

Effect: Consumption decreases by 2 BP.

[Otalp]

Thank you for the input and the confirmation.

I think I am leaning toward the same idea that you had Dave, and I will borrow your "Plantation" idea. Thanks guys, I appreciate it!