What Do We Know About Plots, Tracts and Regions? - Splinterlands Land Expansion
There is a lot of talk about the land expansion and excitement around it so I decided to create a summarization of what was foreshadowed till now in this miniseries. This is going to be a bottom to the top run through, where we started with items, move to buildings, and now we got to land, tracts and regions.
Topics in todays post will be:
- Introduction of plots, tracts and regions
- Plots
- Tracts and Regions - Cooperation is key
- Frequently Asked Questions around Land
Introduction of plots, tracts and regions
The first lands could be claimed on Praetoria. A total of 150.000 land plots were sold and no more land will be distributed on Praetoria, though there will be unclaimed territories, which can be explored by adventurers.
To have an effective development of the Plots, these are into Tracts. And tracts are organized into Regions. A short overview of this below, but we will dive into this a bit deeper.
| Name | Size in plots | Description | Will be in land expansions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plot | 1 | Smallest land slice. Owned by 1 account. Can't be divided further. | Yes |
| Tract | 100 | A predefined territory out of 100 plots. The government of the tract happens in the Keep or Castle, which is one one of these plots. | No |
| Region | 1000 | A predefined territory out of 10 tracts. Contains 9 Keeps and 1 Castle. The government of the Region happens in the Castle, which is one one of these plots. | No |
Plots on Praetoria have a few special features:
- They have boosted crafting and resource harvesting speeds
- Castles and Keeps will be unique to Praetoria
Plots
Plots are the smallest unit of land. The purpose of owning a plot of land is to build
a building on it, which will cost resources to build, upgrade and maintain. There are distances between plots/tracts/regions. Because of this resources have to be transported, which costs time and resources.
All plots have 3 different properties, which will define what can be done on them and how. These are Type, Category and Rarity.
This description is taken from the splintercard.com website: https://splintercards.com/lands.html
Plot types
The type indicates what sort of plot this is : what types of resources it might have and what types of Splinter magic are best suited to that plot. We don't have currently any knowledge on the possible combinations.
| Badland | Bog | Caldera | Canyon | Desert |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Forest | Hills | Jungle | Lake | Mountain |
| Plains | River | Swamp | Tundra |
Plot categories
There are 3 resource categories for plots with multiple subcategories.
Natural resources - Majority of the plots. Destined also for building support structures and Item and Spell minting buildings.
- Grain
- Wood
- Stone
- Ore
Magical resource (by Splinter) - Rarer then Natural plot. Resources used for Item and Spell minting.
| Magical Resource | Splinter |
|---|---|
| Sparkstone | Fire |
| Bottled Storms | Water |
| Ulana Seeds | Earth |
| Virtulium | Life |
| Reclaimed Souls | Death |
| Heliostone | Dragon |
Occupied land - Rarer then Natural plot. Inhabited by wild monsters. Fight monsters to extract Essences used to mint Item and Spell cards.
Not clear if these lands can be owned and if so then how these will be managed by players.
Plot Rarities
The plot rarity will determine how abundant the natural/magical resources are or how many monsters there are on an Occupied plot.
| Rarity description | Adverb used to identify | Example* |
|---|---|---|
| Common | No prefix name | Hills |
| Rare | Fertile | Fertile Hills |
| Epic | Abundant | Abundant Hills |
| Legendary | Overflowing | Overflowing Hills |
*You can insert any land type instead of Hills
Tracts and Regions - Cooperation is key
There are 150 regions on Praetoria, which are viewed as small states.
What do we know about regions:
- They will provide infrastructure and services to the plots and buildings within the region
- Fee might be charged for these services
- Everyone can contribute to Regions and Tracts
- Everyone will benefit from contributions
- Governance of a Region will be based on the votes of the plot owners. Each plot counts as 1 vote.
10 Tracts form 1 Region. 1 of these Tracts has a Castle and 9 Tracts have a Keep.
Castles govern the whole Region and the Tract the Castle is in.
Keeps govern the Tract they are in.
The higher the levels of the Castle or Keeps, the higher the production may be in the given Region or Tract.
Frequently Asked Questions around Land
Official Sale
Land tokens could be bought during the official land sale. 3 land tokens were sold:
Plots - 1 plot
Tracts - 100 plots forming one Tract
Regions - 1000 plots forming one Region.
Official sale happened in November and December 2020.
What benefits do I get from owning a Tract/Region token
Owning a Tract token guarantees:
- To have all the plots in one Tract
- 1 Keep or Castle
Owning a Region token guarantees:
- To have all the plots in one Region
- 1 Castle and 9 Keeps
The location of all plots will be revealed after land is launched. This means that current owners of 100 plots might have their lands scattered across the 150 regions and it might even happen, that they won't own any keeps or castles, or if they are lucky own multiple ones.
After the release of land Tract and Region owners can distribute the plots of their Tracts and Regions individually before they get revealed. This way if multiple accounts bought a Tract or Region, then they can split the land without knowing what it hides.
What will happen when land is released?
When the release happened, then the Unexplored Land NFT tokens will show the location of that specific plot which will be viewable on a visual map.
When the plot of land is "explored" the Unexplored Land NFT card will be replaced with and Explored Land NFT card, which contains the type of land, the category of the land, the rarity, and whether or not it contains any special buildings. Each Unrevealed and Explored Land NFT will contain their coordinates in "Region X / Tract Y / Plot Z". These will be filterable in game.
Both explored and unexplored land plot NFTs will be transferrable and tradeable on the markets.
The Splinterlands team offered a 2-4 week period before land release, in which plot owners can request their plots to be near friends or guildmates. The team will do their best to accomodate such requests, but they can't guarantee that this will be manageable in each case.
Special titles for pre-sale buyers
The title "the Explorer" was provided to buyers, who bought 100+ plots from Splinterlands.
The title "the Preatorain" was provided to buyers, who bought 1000+ plots from Splinterlands.
These titles are tradeable and active titles will grant the player special benefits related to the land expansion. Each account may only have one title active at a time.
Splinterlands offers to trade in one "the Praetorian" title for 10 "the Explorer" titles at any time up until the land is released.
It is not be possible to combine 10 "the Explorer" titles into one "the Praetorian" title.
Where can I buy land tokens now?
Currently these lands can be bought 2nd hand on exchanges like Hive-Engine, Tribaldex, Atomic Hub.
Can I rent a land plots?
Yes, the team wants to make it possible to rent out land plots or buildings with the release. There is no clear description on how this will work.
Future expansion
The Wizard's Council provided the 150.000 land plots across Praetoria to the explorers. You might have heard, that the Land of Praetoria was distributed between 3 exploration companies:
- M.G. Exploration Co.
- Tunnelworks Ventures
- Gobson Wagontech
These companies don't have at the moment any announced gameplay value and were only used to name the release dates of the Pre-Sale event.
The Wizard's Council has additional land on the 6 remaining continents as well. Additional land will only be released once the Splinterlands userbase grows enough to justify this.
It is also possible, that no more land will be released as well.
Closing words
With this I finish my deep dive into what we know about land. It was great fun to get lost in the details and think about how the system might work in the end. This is a huge project which might have far reaching impact on the game itself. Let's hope for the best.
I write in the future a few theories how some of the aspects of land might work, or put up a few queries to the community out of curiosity. Would you be up for it?
All my articles on land:
- What do we Know about Items and Spells
- How Could It Work - Items and Spells A Few Thoughts About The Expansion
- What do we Know about Buildings - Splinterlands Land Expansion
- What Do We Know About Plots, Tracts and Regions? - Splinterlands Land Expansion
Resources:
https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@splinterlands/official-splinterlands-land-presale-announcement
https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@splinterlands/a-glimpse-into-the-next-splinterlands-expansion
https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@splinterlands/land-presale-faq
https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@nateaguila/nates-sneak-peaks-from-the-ama-07302021
https://peakd.com/splinterlands/@splinterlands/splintershards-sps-2022-roadmap
Multiple AMA summaries since September 2021 till today provided by BryBro27 aka Brybro - "Mr. Monopoly" on Discord.
https://www.splintercards.com/lands.html
Graphics:
Dividers designed by @nane-qts : https://peakd.com/hive-13323/@nane-qts/free-splinterlands-graphic-resources-20
Pictures taken from Splinterlands posts about land.
Short ad for players who would like to start playing
If you are new to the game, then feel free to reach out to me on the Splinterlands Discord channel https://discord.gg/7TjZ2jg2 , my username is Arkasz there as well.
If you would like to buy a spellbook the game feel free to use my referral link https://splinterlands.com?ref=arkasz and let me know your in game name. I will send you some DEC so you can start renting cards and delegate to you a few cards for starters as well.
Just like your overview of buildings, this is great and extremely helpful!
I am so excited for the release of land, I cannot wait to get my hands on some plots - I hope I can manage to gather enough to get at least 2-3 plots before it is released!
!1UP
Good luck! :)
You have received a 1UP from @mezume!
@monster-curator, @oneup-curator, @neoxag-curator, @pal-curator, @pob-curator, @vyb-curatorAnd they will bring !PIZZA 🍕
Learn more about our delegation service to earn daily rewards. Join the family on Discord.
@tipu curate
Upvoted 👌 (Mana: 62/82) Liquid rewards.
Great summary! Super stoked for Lands!!!
Congratulations @arkasz! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s):
Your next target is to reach 800 comments.
You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPTo support your work, I also upvoted your post!
Check out the last post from @hivebuzz:
Support the HiveBuzz project. Vote for our proposal!
One thing I've never seen anyone talk about is how the land is going to affect the game for those who are not lucky/rich enough to get a plot. A game mechanic that automatically excludes a substantial portion of your playerbase seems a little risky.
Hi @cherute, thanks for your reply, valid question. I might write a post about what we know, and what could happen.
The Splinterlands team mentioned multiple times on AMAs that land is for everyone, even for those who don't own any.
The core of the land expansion impacts the fighting system with the introduction of Items and Spells. This will bring a new phase into the game, where you can see the battleground and select Items and Spells, which will impact the outcome of the game. Items and Spells can be crafter only in the Land expansion, the Splinterlands team won't sell items and spells in pack or in their store.
I went a bit deeper into how items and spells might work in my previous posts:
What do we Know about Items and Spells and
How Could It Work - Items and Spells A Few Thoughts About The Expansion
PvE on Lands - Nate Aguila mentioned in recent AMAs, that they would like each player to be able to have adventures across the lands, most probably in PvE fights. This was not specified yet. But as Shards/Essences are needed to craft items, which can only be earned by fighting it is very likely that sooner or later this PvE aspect of the game will come. It might happen that these will be added after land is released in a later patch of land. It could also be, that shards can be earned in ranked battles or tournaments.
Here I would add also, that as every player can earn shards/essences needed for crafting and these are tradeable items. So every player can have an additional income by trading these shards.
There are a lot of opportunities (though this is only a speculation) for minigames on land. I might get into that in a post.
Renting of buildings and plots - As all land can be rented out, each player has an option to try out, what it is like to own a land. Just like currently anyone can play a Byzantine Kitty through the renting system.
I hope I could at least partially answer your post.
If you think Land still excludes player base, then can you please elaborate why?
PS: Take a slice of !PIZZA for the great, though provoking reply :)
Thanks for the reply, @arkasz.
Since there is much that is still speculation, it is hard to say how much of the crafting gameplay a non-landholder will be able to participate in. There has to be something that is specific to lands though, or there would be no point in owning them.
In particular though I would like to speak to your last point as I do not think your example is a valid comparison. Byzantine Kitty is a specific card, so the valid comparison would be to a specific type of legendary land. Think instead if they said that from now on there would be no more Summoner cards minted. Everyone who didn't already have the summoners they need (including all new players) would have to rent them. You could still say that anyone could take part in all parts of the game just by renting their summoners, but would it be as much fun for those who had to rent as it was for those who were holding all the good cards? Would anyone who wanted to play be able to find summoners to rent that they could afford?
This is in fact a general concern that I have about land in blockchain games. The focus seems to be more on making sure the land value goes up rapidly rather than making the associated gameplay available to the widest number of players.
Yes, a lot of this is speculation and I point it out quite often in my articles
I think of land in Splinterlands as separate game then the card game Splinterlands. You can't play the card game without summoners, but you can play it without land. Items and Spells could have been introduced with packs as well, and from a general point of view the cards making a change in the game will be available on the market.
You mentioned, that there will be no more land, but this is speculation as well. It was mentioned in the posts, that there are 6 other continents, which means at least 6 additional land sales might happen in the future in case the need arises - by community/players.
Your last point is valid. Not everyone will get the same experience from this addition to the game by design and to be honest I can't argue for or against this decision.
I do hope that land will bring a lot of new opportunities and additional game modes for all players, and the requested "arcade games" by the team will be integrated into it in a meaningful way.
PIZZA Holders sent $PIZZA tips in this post's comments:
arkasz tipped cherute (x1)
@solymi(1/5) tipped @arkasz (x1)
You can now send $PIZZA tips in Discord via tip.cc!
https://twitter.com/bitinvest_news/status/1490712594319036419?s=20&t=uoI33EY10ZzJp_divwzSrg
https://twitter.com/bitinvest_news/status/1490712594319036419
The rewards earned on this comment will go directly to the person sharing the post on Twitter as long as they are registered with @poshtoken. Sign up at https://hiveposh.com.
Just like your overview of buildings, this is great and extremely helpful!
Excellent roundup of all there is to know (atm) about land. Will feature/share this on my daily Splinterlands Digest and on Twitter. Take my upvote!
Another interesting and informative ost on lands.
I can't wait to see what I get. I suppose that a lot of resources will be needed to maintain your land and this is where players not owning land will come in. Sharing a piece of land income with those who contribute to its success might be a way. I doubt I will have enough cards to maintain a hole tract on my own.
!PIZZA
!invest_vote
Thanks solymi aka Splinternews!
@solymi denkt du hast ein Vote durch @investinthefutur verdient!
@solymi thinks you have earned a vote of @investinthefutur !
Thanks for sharing! - @libertycrypto27
Excellent overview of the land and plot of Splinterlands
Thanks for this great overview and summary!