From what I understand it is the abundance of resources rather than potential monetary gain.

That also the way I understood it. Simply by looking at the currently visible resources the region has to offer is made a basic assumption if this county’s starting conditions should be seen as wealthy or not. But even a currently rich valued county can be in the end a poorhouse just because the citizens are not using the resources or the resources lost their value and on the other hand a currently poor country can be very wealthy if they find a way to use the land.

Basically I see it this way:

rich = easy starting conditions

average = normal starting conditions

poor = difficult starting conditions.

Posted By Schattenwandrer at 07:19 AM - Fri Sep 20 2019

That also the way I understood it. Simply by looking at the currently visible resources the region has to offer is made a basic assumption if this county’s starting conditions should be seen as wealthy or not. But even a currently rich valued county can be in the end a poorhouse just because the citizens are not using the resources or the resources lost their value and on the other hand a currently poor country can be very wealthy if they find a way to use the land.

Basically I see it this way:

rich = easy starting conditions

average = normal starting conditions

poor = difficult starting conditions.

Problem is there isn't a particular rhyme or reason to the wealth statement. You can have a county with a rich city, a rich village and two average hamlets... and it assesses the county as average. I mean my capital is rich... in a poor double county despite almost every settlement being rich or average. By number of population most people live in a rich location....

Posted By Kossuth at 08:38 AM - Fri Sep 20 2019

Problem is there isn't a particular rhyme or reason to the wealth statement. You can have a county with a rich city, a rich village and two average hamlets... and it assesses the county as average. I mean my capital is rich... in a poor double county despite almost every settlement being rich or average. By number of population most people live in a rich location....

Well actually it sounds natural that you build a settlement at the best possible location you can find. E.g. no one is building a settlement in the middle of the desert if all you can do there is shoveling sand from left to right. But if this is the only nearby oasis I would guess this is raising the estimated wealth to at least average while the desert region itself stays poor. ;)

I would say the towns wealth describe the local conditions of a small area and this way the starting conditions at those spots could be a lot easier than in the remaining county.