settlements vs. farms and work sites

[FWCain]

Back in the 1st edition, you could have a settlement, AND farms, AND a work site (mine or quarry only; no saw mills), ALL in the same hex. The reasoning back then, for the settlement being able to share space with the others was, since the hex is so big (12 miles across), there was PLENTY of space to have a settlement as well as some farms and/or a mine or quarry...

Now, with the 2nd edition, with Farms and Work Sites being a source of Commodities, it makes sense from a "game balance" perspective to have those two improvements be mutually exclusive. However, I do not see any such rationale behind lumping settlements into this restriction...

Obviously, I can just "house rule" this away (and have already done so), but I'd like to poll the other gamers out there, as to why settlements might ought to be included in the group of mutually-exclusive improvements. So, any ideas, please?...

(Edit):
Per my understanding of the rules, trying to create Luxury commodities does NOT require being linked to a specific settlement or to a specific building within a settlement. This was the only idea I had for why this restriction was implemented.

Thanks!
Franklin

[Deriven Firelion]

I house ruled it away. It's not that important.

[Halvagor]

1e version was really easy to game mechanically to have zero consumption and by the end of Book 3 to have only a 5% chance of failing any important check.

2e Kingdom rules are trying to be slightly more realistic in depicting a developing land by gatekeeping some buildings and abilities behind the Trained skills or the Level of the kingdom. What this is trying to depict is the fact that cities don't grow overnight, and that towns don't grow immediately from villages. If not for the artificial Level requirements on moving from 1 block of 4 lots to a second block, the PC's capital would probably fill two entire blocks within the first year - and that's a bit unrealistic for growth, to go from an empty site in the wilderness to a developing Town in less than 12 months. So to expand from 1-block village to 2-block (small) town, the rules requires the Party to spend probably 2-3 years of Kingdom-running just to get to a Level 3 kingdom.

The artificiality / game-balance requirement to not hit a second 4-building block until Level 3 is clearly frustrating, but it is more realistic in timelines of how long it can take a village to expand - even one located in as potentially useful a spot as on the site of the Stag Lord's fort - than was the 1e Kingdom rules where by the 20th turn the kingdom might have 15 hexes and multiple settlements.

Rome, after all, wasn't built in a day.

I solved this problem by house-ruling a partial return to the 1e system - the hex holding a Settlement can have one other terrain enhancement (other than roads) - so a Settlement can have any type of Work Site and roads, but not both Farmland (a work-site equivalent) and a Quarry and a Settlement. And that Villages can have up to 2 blocks of buildings, not hitting Town status until the settlement builds up its ninth lot.

[VanceMadrox]

While I agree that in general thematically, Villages growing into Towns and Towns into Cities shouldn't happen overnight, the Party is Special. It's ok for their Kingdom to be a bit of a Boomtown.

If left RAW, the group will wind up being unable to build anything in the Capital for a lot of Kingdom turns. This will be not fun and not being fun seems like is a far worse offense.

If using auto or milestone levelling for the Kingdom the system will still allow growth from a village to a town and to a city anyway.

If you add any way to speed up early kingdom levelling (and you should) you'll still wind up with the capital growing from village to town in only a couple months.