Beginning the Land Journey: First Steps - A Tutorial for Players Interested in Owning a Piece of Praetoria

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I recently received a message from a fellow Filipino and community member and we had a quick discussion regarding other opportunities in Splinterlands. She goes by the name @demon19, an avid Splinterlands gamer. She gets most of her earnings from Ranked Play and I feel honored that she came to me to ask me for my thoughts or recommendation on where to park her earnings. More about her in this article.

Without hesitation, I told her that aside from participating in the SPS, DEC, and Hive Liquidity Pools, she can also get started with Land to get exposure to other parts of the game. The ROI on land is very low at the moment but I believe that the real value is in the land plot itself.

I believe we are still in the early game and that we are currently in the accumulation phase. Accumulation of assets, that is.

She then asked me a very important question.

Well, I have no idea how this works. How do you start working your land?

_Source

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In this article, I will walk you through the steps I would take if I were to invest in Land for the first time. I will also discuss how to get started: from buying a land plot, to clearing the plot and building a worksite, to harvesting natural resources (no Research nor SPS for now), and then next steps.

I write this article in hopes of inspiring not only the new players who do not have any background in the game whatsoever, but also the veteran gamers who have yet to explore the potential of the Land division of Splinterlands.

For general reference, you can find the link to the Land Whitepaper HERE.

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Preface

For purposes of this tutorial, I will use realized earnings from harvesting resources from my land holdings. This is done by swapping each of the resources into DEC via the Liquidity Pools.

Following the trend from last week, below are my daily earnings from land:

• 3/30 = 3653 DEC
• 3/31 = 3497 DEC
• 4/1 = Forgot to claim
• 4/2 = 6963 DEC
• 4/3 = 3193 DEC
• 4/4 = 3126 DEC
• 4/5 = 3163 DEC
• TOTAL = 23,595 DEC
  
  

I can buy a plot of land! In a couple of days, I estimate I can afford another one.

The total for this week was way lower than what I acquired last time but still...

Being able to purchase scarce assets by selling basically unlimited resources. Can't beat that.

I also added more liquidity to the pool by depositing excess grain and some spare DEC I have.

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Buying Your First Land Plot

The current lowest price for a common land plot today is $14, way down from the amount when I first bought them many moons ago.

I also remember seeing land plots selling for around $9 last year. It was a good time to buy then, and I think it still is a good time to buy right now.

Let's take a look at this plot I just purchased using the DEC I accumulated this week!

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I usually look for plots that have a Building-in-a-Box package with it. We don’t have a use for it at the moment but I bet it will give us a head start on a future update. I also check if a plot has already been cleared, meaning there's already a worksite built on it.

Later, we will find out if buying a plot with a worksite makes any difference vs undeveloped plots.

The plot I just purchased is still undeveloped. Perfect opportunity to begin with the first step.

Let's get to building!

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Getting Started: Clear the Site!

The following will be required to get our Land Journey started.

To find this checklist, we must follow the steps below.

On the top left portion of the Splinterlands homepage, hover over Play and click on Land. This will bring us over to the Map of Praetoria.

Click on Production on the top right area, just right below our DEC and SPS.

Find the region where our plot is in and click on the arrow to the right.

Now we can find the land plot. Click again on the arrow to the right.

Isn't it beautiful? Click on Manage. Either button will work.

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We will need a Power Core to activate the plot. This costs 5000 DEC. We can purchase a core here:

We will then be asked to buy a Power Core if we don't have any available.

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Toggle on Add Power Core. This will then allow us to select a worker we plan to assign to the worksite.

Just for our purposes, we will stake Max COMMON Gold Foil Worker on our newly purchased Natural Common plot. Save changes shortly then hit confirm.

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We can build three different worksites on a Canyon: Quarry (Stone), Shard Mine (SPS), or Research Hut (Research tokens). We want to build a Quarry here.

We also need to stake DEC. Keep in mind that a max monster card regardless of rarity or foil type would require 10k DEC each.

Per the whitepaper:

The amount of DEC that is necessary to be staked in order to power the worker cards will be 10,000 (10k) per max-level card. Cards that are below max level will require less staked DEC to power in proportion to their BCX as compared to the max BCX for that type of card.

If we were to use a level 8 COMMON GF card instead, (20 BCX out of 38 BCX max) we would only need 5.2k DEC to stake it. (20 BCX / 38 BCX x 10K DEC = 5,263 DEC)

Another thing to note is that staking DEC for workers is region-based, meaning if we have an active plot in another region, the DEC needed for that plot to fully function need to be staked in that specific region.

As soon as we have gathered enough DEC, click on Stake DEC to region and confirm.

We are now ready to build our worksite. Had we purchased a land plot that already had a worksite built on it, we get to skip this step.

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Clearing the plot will take almost 29 days. This is because we need a total of 1,500,000 of Production Points to clear the site and our staked worker can only contribute 2,200 PP per hour.

Now we see the added value of obtaining/purchasing plots that already have worksites. It saves us time and resources.

You can speed up this process by assigning more workers or by consuming Time Crystals. 150 Time Crystals in today's prices is about $9.75.

Per the whitepaper:

While initially it was planned for Time Crystals to speed up construction projects by a fixed amount of time, we later realized that this didn't make sense due to the fact that construction time varies considerably based on the production output of the worker cards on the plot. Therefore, instead of speeding the projects by a fixed amount of time, each Time Crystal token will instead reduce the amount of Production Points necessary for a construction project to be completed by 10,000.

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I will use my spare Time Crystals to speed up the process.

Had we taken the long route, our workers would need some Grain to be fed with before the worksite is fully constructed. More on getting our initial stockpile of Grain later.

Congratulations! We now have a Quarry built on our Canyon!

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Harvesting Resources

As shown, our worksite can produce 4.4 Stone per hour. When we are ready to claim the collected resources, we will need Grain to proceed with the harvest.

Below is a sample calculation of what we are producing. We would need 20 Grain per Hour before we can harvest the Stone. This is 1% of the Base Production Points our worksite has.

Mind the element of your workers as this affects the Boosted Production Points of your Plot.

Also, there is a 10% tax whenever you harvest. Can't escape it.

BASE PP	BOOSTED PP	GRAIN REQ'D/HR	HARVEST/HR	NET HARVEST AFTER TAX
2000	2200	20 Grain	4.4 Stone	3.96 Stone

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To get our initial Grain supply, we can use the Trade Hub and purchase some Grain with DEC. This can also be done to purchase other resources, if desired. We just need to make sure we select the correct region we want the resources sent to.

Once we have done our first harvest, we will received Stone which we can either stockpile, swap for DEC, or Swap for more Grain. Depends on what we need.

Rinse and repeat.

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The Case for Self-Sustenance

Whether you own a single land plot or you own multiple, I understand why a lot of land holders strive to become self-sustainable with their holdings.

People don’t want to rely on external sources to feed their workers. It’s like having your own home garden and consuming only what you can grow.

Being self-sustaining or self-sufficient means having enough Grain produced for your land workers to consume.

Since the Land 1.75 update, only 4 types of terrains can have Grain Farms: River, Lake, Bog, Plains. This is why some players are considering these Grain-producing plots more valuable than others.

Below is a sample, comparable plot to the one we have just built. This one has a Grain Farm and produces Grain instead. For our purposes, let’s assume that this is in the same region as our Quarry. (Direct region to region transfer of resources incur a 12.5% fee)

BASE PP	BOOSTED PP	GRAIN REQ'D/HR	HARVEST/HR	NET HARVEST AFTER TAX
2000	2200	20 Grain	44 Grain	39.60 Grain

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Essentially, the worker would just consume a portion of the Grain it harvests in order to sustain itself. From the 39.6 Grain it nets, we still need to deduct the food consumed per hour.

This gives us an overall net of 19.60 Grain per hour. Not quite enough to feed the lone worker in our Quarry.

We can consider increasing the total PP on our Grain plot either by adding more workers (while being mindful of the additional food cost) or by adding totems or titles to the Grain plot.

We can also swap some Stone directly for Grain to cover the deficit.

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Is being self-sustainable mandatory?

Not necessarily, but it does have its benefits of not needing to perform additional steps just to acquire more grain.

It's like having a feeding system amongst your plots in autopilot.

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Final Thoughts

There you have it. These are the steps I would take if I were just getting started with Land.

The resources you get from Land might not seem much at the moment but over time, it can grow into something bigger.

There is also potential and value in the land plot itself. There will be future utility for land and the resources it can produce.

I believe it's better to start now and be involved early on while the land plots are still affordable. It's better than try to catch up later when everything has gotten more expensive.

Be patient. We are still in the early game. Our time will come.

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General Advice especially for my fellow Filipinos: Think of Virtual Land Like a Coconut Farm

Imagine if you could buy a small coconut farm that can yield you free coconuts for a long, long time.

No need to replant the trees. You just collect the coconuts on a regular basis and sell them for income. Over time, these coconuts could help pay for your bills, food, shelter, or even other dreams you have.

In the digital world nowadays, there’s something very similar. Splinterlands is a game where regular people like you and me can own virtual land plots.

These aren’t just for fun or for collection considering each land plot can produce resources, just like a real life farm.

The best part? You can sell these digital resources for real money.

This is the power of passive income in the digital age. Similar to investing in land in the province, investing in virtual land can also become a smart long-term move. That is if you choose wisely, understand the system, and treat it like a real business.

So before spending your hard-earned money on the latest gadget or trend, ask yourself this:

What if the money you have now could buy you something that works for you day and night like a coconut tree? A tree that never stops giving you coconuts you can sell for money?

Invest in assets that put money in your pocket, y'all.

_Source

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I hope you guys enjoyed this article and if you have questions, comments, or feedback for me, please let me know! Let's all learn and grow together and set each other up for success! Vonak! Together We Thrive, Kapamilya!

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_{Interested in Splinterlands? Feel free to use my Referral Code and I can help you get started. You can also find me on X or message me on Discord.}

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