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
Please be aware that all of the below information is subject to change.
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?
In the meantime, stay safe, have fun and see you in game!
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:
@splinterlands/official-splinterlands-land-presale-announcement
@splinterlands/a-glimpse-into-the-next-splinterlands-expansion
@splinterlands/land-presale-faq
@nateaguila/nates-sneak-peaks-from-the-ama-07302021
@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 
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.