Kingdom building. Multiple farms in one hex

Question

Ok so the kingdom building rules here http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/other-rules/kingdom-building#TOC-Farm- States the following (Emphasis mine)

Terrain improvements are changes to a hex that improve the land for your kingdom's use, such as cultivating fields, digging mines, and clearing forests for lumber. The following list describes common improvements. An improvement marked with an asterisk (*) can share the same hex as other improvements.

After this farms is listed with an *. My question is by the wording provided does it mean other as in only 1 of each improvement is allowed or would another farm count as an 'other improvement'

Answer 1

Note that I have only just glanced over the Kingdom Builder rules, but I see two aspects to this question.

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On the one hand, as was stated by SevenSidedDie earlier, which I will just full quote here for simplicity and completeness:

Farms aren't individual farms in that passage, they're a type of change to the hex. You can only add farms to a hex once—after that, the hex has farms.

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One the other hand, there's this bit of text in the Watchtower entry:

Watchtower*

A Watchtower flies your flag, is a safe place for your patrols, and establishes your power on the frontier. a Watchtower cannot share a hex with a Fort or another Watchtower.

The fact that it is explicitly forbidden to "stack" watchtowers on a single hex, implies that it is not forbidden to have multiple farm improvements (or roads, highways, fisheries, etc.) on the same Hex.

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So as far as I am concerned:

By RAW, you can. The Rules don't mention a limit, even though they explicitly do in a (mostly*) equivalent case.

By RAI, you cannot. The rules not mentioning any kind of limit leaves us with exactly two non-arbitrary** choices: "One", or "None"

However, common sense dictates that there is limit on the number of farms on a single hex, because there is a natural limit to the area, and a less natural limit to the efficiency of your farms (due to technology, magic, amount of slaves you can efficiently throw at it, etc.). Similar logic can be applied to the other starred improvements as well, e.g. once you have turned the whole hex into a parking lot, you can't place any more highways.

*Unlike Farms, Watchtowers grant a one-time bonus as well.

**For any other limit N, you could equally justify N+1.

Answer 2

Farms aren't individual farms in that passage, they're a type of change to the hex. You can only add farms to a hex once—after that, the hex has farms.

Answer 3

The difference between "watchtower" and "farm" is that a watchtower is a single tower, not a series of towers, unlike farms. If farms also needed an exception to allow stacking multiple farms, every terrain improvement would need an exception aswell.

This tower can be used as a defensive structure, and more towers within a certain area will not make the area more easier to defend (by the rules), unless the structure becomes a Fort, which is a direct upgrade for the watchtower improvement.

All those are Hex Improvements, and the only rule about those is that certain improvements cannot be constructed together with another improvement (those marked with an asterisk). Being improvements, and when the question about stacking rises, does it say anywhere that improvements can be built many times and have stacking effects? It does not.

There are only three mutually exclusive improvements, which directly affect the economy of the kingdom (by increasing BP): Sawmill, Quarry and Mine.

Since those are cheap and have restrictions on where they can be built, one would easily stack them with themselves and build an hex full of sawmills, quarries or mines. Remember, it only says that they cannot be built on a hex with another improvement, and build an economic heaven for yourself. If it did allow to stack the same improvement, nothing in the rules would prevent you from building multiple of the same improvement, as long as it isn't on the same hex as another improvement.

So we fall under one of the general rules, if it does not say that it can stack, then it does not stack.

This discussion can be also found on paizo's messageboards. It's also worth reading what Jason Nelson (the system's creator) has to say about kingdom building, as Farms were also supposed to not have an asterisk and be mutually exclusive with other improvements. The idea is that any improvement that affects the economy should be a basic improvement (and only one of those per hex) and you had the option to build extra improvements on top of them.

So you can build any one of the basic improvements bellow in a single hex:

• Farm;
• Sawmill;
• Quarry;
• Mine.

And any number of extra improvements from the list bellow:

• Aqueduct;
• Bridge;
• Cannal;
• Watchtower/Fort;
• Roads/Highway.

But the watchtower says you cannot built it on a hex with another watchtower.

Yes, it does say that, but right after that, it says that a hex with a watchtower that becomes a settlement counts as a watchtower building, and then you cannot build another improvement for a watchtower. Which is what that rule meant, otherwise your troops could benefit twice from the Defense bonus from the watchtowers (building and improvement).