text:
British Agricultural Revolution

The British Agricultural Revolution, or Second Agricultural Revolution, was an unprecedented increase in agricultural production in Britain arising from increases in labor and land productivity between the mid-17th and late 19th centuries. Agricultural output grew faster than the population over the hundred-year period ending in 1770, and thereafter productivity remained among the highest in the world. This increase in the food supply contributed to the rapid growth of population in England and Wales, from 5.5 million in 1700 to over 9 million by 1801, though domestic production gave way increasingly to food imports in the 19th century as the population more than tripled to over 35 million.

Using 1700 as a base year (=100), agricultural output per agricultural worker in Britain steadily increased from about 50 in 1500, to around 65 in 1550, to 90 in 1600, to over 100 by 1650, to over 150 by 1750, rapidly increasing to over 250 by 1850. The rise in productivity accelerated the decline of the agricultural share of the labour force, adding to the urban workforce on which industrialization depended: the Agricultural Revolution has therefore been cited as a cause of the Industrial Revolution.

However, historians continue to dispute when exactly such a "revolution" took place and of what it consisted. Rather than a single event, G. E. Mingay states that there were a "profusion of agricultural revolutions, one for two centuries before 1650, another emphasising the century after 1650, a third for the period 1750–1780, and a fourth for the middle decades of the nineteenth century". This has led more recent historians to argue that any general statements about "the Agricultural Revolution" are difficult to sustain.

One important change in farming methods was the move in crop rotation to turnips and clover in place of fallow under the Norfolk four-course system. Turnips can be grown in winter and are deep-rooted, allowing them to gather minerals unavailable to shallow-rooted crops. Clover fixes nitrogen from the atmosphere into a form of fertiliser. This permitted the intensive arable cultivation of light soils on enclosed farms and provided fodder to support increased livestock numbers whose manure added further to soil fertility.

Term
Called “British”, the term implies that the revolution began in Britain, not that it existed solely in Britain. Other countries in Europe (including France, Prussia (Germany),    and Russia  ), East Asia  and North America   followed suit in the next two centuries. The Second Agricultural Revolution was much like the Neolithic Revolution in that it occurred in many regions across the world in a short span of time.

The British origins of the revolution is the view shared by the British historians. The Dutch historians disagree. In the Netherlands between 1500 and 1650, the agricultural output per laborer rose by 80% leading to over 60% decline in manpower engaged in agriculture by 1650. From 1500 to 1750, the Dutch were faster than Britain in reducing the agricultural sector of population. The Netherlands were called "school room," or "home" of the modern agricultural revolution. Notably, one of the innovations in the British Revolution was the “Dutch” light plow. English landowners and their agents who returned from exile in the Netherlands in the 17th century introduced Dutch methods and techniques.

The term "revolution" refers to increase in yields per land and labour. Innovations in agricultural technology and methods took place gradually rather than an abrupt sweeping alteration.

Major developments and innovations
The British Agricultural Revolution was the result of the complex interaction of social, economic and farming technological changes. Major developments and innovations include:

 * Norfolk four-course crop rotation: fodder crops, particularly turnips and clover, replaced leaving the land fallow.
 * The Dutch acquired the Chinese heavy, mould-board iron plough so that it could be pulled with fewer oxen or horses.
 * Enclosure: the removal of common rights to establish exclusive ownership of land
 * Development of a national market free of tariffs, tolls and customs barriers
 * Transportation infrastructures, such as improved roads, canals, and later, railways
 * Land conversion, land drains and reclamation
 * Increase in farm size
 * Selective breeding

One hypothesis suggests climatic amelioration as the trigger of the revolution. This explanation also associates with the Neolithic Revolution.

Crop rotation
One of the most important innovations of the British Agricultural Revolution was the development of the Norfolk four-course rotation, which greatly increased crop and livestock yields by improving soil fertility and reducing fallow.

Crop rotation is the practice of growing a series of dissimilar types of crops in the same area in sequential seasons to help restore plant nutrients and mitigate the build-up of pathogens and pests that often occurs when one plant species is continuously cropped. Rotation can also improve soil structure and fertility by alternating deep-rooted and shallow-rooted plants. Turnip roots, for example, can recover nutrients from deep under the soil. The Norfolk four-course system, as it is now known, rotates crops so that different crops are planted with the result that different kinds and quantities of nutrients are taken from the soil as the plants grow. An important feature of the Norfolk four-field system was that it used labour at times when demand was not at peak levels.

Planting cover crops such as turnips and clover was not permitted under the common field system because they interfered with access to the fields. Besides, other people's livestock could graze the turnips. During the Middle Ages, the open-field system had initially used a two-field crop rotation system where one field was left fallow or turned into pasture for a time to try to recover some of its plant nutrients. Later they employed a three-year, three field crop rotation routine, with a different crop in each of two fields, e.g. oats, rye, wheat, and barley with the second field growing a legume like peas or beans, and the third field fallow. Normally from 10% to 30% of the arable land in a three crop rotation system is fallow. Each field was rotated into a different crop nearly every year. Over the following two centuries, the regular planting of legumes in the fields that were previously fallow slowly restored the fertility of some croplands. The planting of legumes helped to increase plant growth in the empty field because of the ability of the bacteria on legume roots to fix nitrogen from the air into the soil in a form that plants could use. Other crops that were occasionally grown were flax and members of the mustard family.

Convertible husbandry was the alternation of a field between pasture and grain. Because nitrogen builds up slowly over time in pasture, ploughing up pasture and planting grains resulted in high yields for a few years. A big disadvantage of convertible husbandry was the hard work in breaking up pastures and difficulty in establishing them. The significance of convertible husbandry is that it introduced pasture into the rotation.

The farmers in Flanders (in parts of France and current day Belgium) discovered a still more effective four-field crop rotation system, using turnips and clover (a legume) as forage crops to replace the three-year crop rotation fallow year. The four-field rotation system allowed farmers to restore soil fertility and restore some of the plant nutrients removed with the crops. Turnips first show up in the probate records in England as early as 1638 but were not widely used till about 1750. Fallow land was about 20% of the arable area in England in 1700 before turnips and clover were extensively grown in the 1830s. Guano and nitrates from South America were introduced in the mid-19th century, and fallow steadily declined to reach only about 4% in 1900. Ideally, wheat, barley, turnips and clover would be planted in that order in each field in successive years. The turnips helped keep the weeds down and were an excellent forage crop—ruminant animals could eat the tops and roots through a large part of the summer and winters. There was no need to let the soil lie fallow as clover would add nitrates (nitrogen-containing salts) back to the soil. The clover made excellent pasture and hay fields as well as green manure when it was ploughed under after one or two years. The addition of clover and turnips allowed more animals to be kept through the winter, which in turn produced more milk, cheese, meat and manure, which maintained soil fertility.

The mix of crops also changed: the area under wheat rose by 1870 to 3.5 million acres (1.4m ha), barley to 2.25m acres (0.9m ha) and oats less dramatically to 2.75m acres (1.1m ha), while rye dwindled to 60,000 acre, less than a tenth of its late medieval peak. Grain yields benefited from new and better seed alongside improved rotation and fertility: wheat yields increased by a quarter in the 18th century and nearly half in the 19th, averaging 30 bushels per acre (2,080 kg/ha) by the 1890s.

Dutch and Rotherham swing (wheel-less) plough
The Dutch acquired the iron-tipped, curved mouldboard, adjustable depth plough which was invented in Chinese Han dynasty from the Chinese in the early 17th century. It had the advantage of being able to be pulled by one or two oxen compared to the six or eight needed by the heavy wheeled northern European plough. The Dutch plough was brought to Britain by Dutch contractors who were hired to drain East Anglian fens and Somerset moors. The plough was extremely successful on wet, boggy soil, but was soon used on ordinary land as well.

British improvements included Joseph Foljambe's cast iron plough (patented 1730), which combined an earlier Dutch design with several innovations. Its fittings and coulter were made of iron, and the mouldboard and share were covered with an iron plate, making it easier to pull and more controllable than previous ploughs. By the 1760s Foljambe was making large numbers of these ploughs in a factory outside of Rotherham, using standard patterns with interchangeable parts. The plough was easy for a blacksmith to make, but by the end of the 18th century it was being made in rural foundries. By 1770 it was the cheapest and best plough available. It spread to Scotland, America, and France.

New crops
The Columbian exchange brought many new foodstuffs from the Americas to Eurasia, most of which took decades or centuries to catch on. Arguably the most important of these was the potato. Potatoes yielded about three times the calories per acre of wheat or barley, mainly because it took only taking 3–4 months to mature versus 10 months for wheat. On top of this, potatoes had higher nutritive value than wheat, could be grown in even fallow and nutrient-poor soil, did not require any special tools, and were considered fairly appetizing. According to Langer, a single acre of potatoes could feed a family of five or six, plus a cow, for the better part of a year, an unprecedented level of production. By 1715 the potato was widespread in the Low Countries, the Rhineland, southwestern Germany, and eastern France, but took longer to spread elsewhere.

The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, established in 1660, almost immediately championed the potato, stressing its value as a substitute for wheat (particularly since famine periods for wheat overlapped with bump periods for potatoes). The 1740 famines buttressed their case. The mid 18th century was marked by rapid adoption of the potato by various European countries, especially in central Europe, as various wheat famines demonstrated its value. The potato was grown in Ireland, a property of the English crown and common source of food exports, since the early 17th century and quickly spread so that by the 18th century it had been firmly established as a staple food. It spread to England shortly after it took hold in Ireland, first being widely cultivated in Lancashire and around London, and by the mid-18th century it was esteemed and common. By the late 18th century, Sir Frederick Eden wrote that the potato had become "a constant standing dish, at every meal, breakfast excepted, at the tables of the Rich, as well as the Poor."

While not as vital as the potato, maize also contributed to the boost of Western European agricultural productivity. Maize also had far higher per-acre productivity than wheat (about two and a half times), grew at widely differing altitudes and in a variety of soils (though warmer climates were preferred), and unlike wheat it could be harvested in successive years from the same plot of land. It was often grown alongside potatoes, as maize plants required wide spacing. Maize was cultivated in Spain since 1525 and Italy since 1530, contributing to their growing populations in the early modern era as it became a dietary staple in the 17th century (in Italy it was often made into polenta). It spread from northern Italy into Germany and beyond, becoming an important staple in the Habsburg monarchy (especially Hungary and Austria) by the late 17th century. Its spread started in southern France in 1565, and by the start of the 18th century it was the main food source of central and southern French peasants (it was more popular as animal fodder in the north).

Enclosure

In Europe, agriculture was feudal from the Middle Ages. In the feudal open-field system, peasant farmers were assigned individual narrow strips of land in large fields which were used for growing crops. For the right to work this land they would pay a percentage of the yield to the aristocracy or the Catholic Church, who owned the land. A separate section of land in the same area would be "held in common" as grazing pasture. Periodically the grazing land would be rotated with the crop land to allow the land to recover.

As early as the 12th century, some fields in England tilled under the open-field system were enclosed into individually owned fields. The Black Death from 1348 onward accelerated the break-up of the feudal system in England. Many farms were bought by yeomen who enclosed their property and improved their use of the land. More secure control of the land allowed the owners to make innovations that improved their yields. Other husbandmen rented property they "share cropped" with the land owners. Many of these enclosures were accomplished by acts of Parliament in the 16th and 17th centuries.

The process of enclosing property accelerated in the 15th and 16th centuries. The more productive enclosed farms meant that fewer farmers were needed to work the same land, leaving many villagers without land and grazing rights. Many of them moved to the cities in search of work in the emerging factories of the Industrial Revolution. Others settled in the English colonies. English Poor Laws were enacted to help these newly poor.

Some practices of enclosure were denounced by the Church, and legislation was drawn up against it; but the large, enclosed fields were needed for the gains in agricultural productivity from the 16th to 18th centuries. This controversy led to a series of government acts, culminating in the General Enclosure Act of 1801 which sanctioned large-scale land reform. The process of enclosure was largely complete by the end of the 18th century.

Development of a national market
Regional markets were widespread by 1500 with about 800 locations in Britain. The most important development between the 16th century and the mid-19th century was private marketing. By the 19th century, marketing was nationwide, and the vast majority of agricultural production was for market rather than for the farmer and his family. The 16th-century market radius was about 10 miles, which could support a town of 10,000. The next stage of development was trading between markets, requiring merchants, credit and forward sales, knowledge of markets and pricing and of supply and demand in different markets. Eventually, the market evolved into a national one driven by London and other growing cities. By 1700, there was a national market for wheat.

Legislation regulating middlemen required registration, addressed weights and measures, fixing of prices and collection of tolls by the government. Market regulations were eased in 1663 when people were allowed some self-regulation to hold inventory, but it was forbidden to withhold commodities from the market in an effort to increase prices. In the late 18th century, the idea of self-regulation was gaining acceptance. The lack of internal tariffs, customs barriers and feudal tolls made Britain "the largest coherent market in Europe".

Transportation infrastructures
High wagon transportation costs made it uneconomical to ship commodities very far outside the market radius by road, generally limiting shipment to less than 20 or 30 miles to market or to a navigable waterway. Water transport was, and in some cases still is, much more efficient than land transport. In the early 19th century it cost as much to transport a ton of freight 32 miles by wagon over an unimproved road as it did to ship it 3,000 miles across the Atlantic. A horse could pull at most one ton of freight on a macadam road, which was multi-layer stone covered and crowned, with side drainage. But a single horse could pull a barge weighing over 30 tons.

Commerce was aided by the expansion of roads and inland waterways. Road transport capacity grew from threefold to fourfold from 1500 to 1700. Railroads would eventually reduce the cost of land transport by over 95%.

Land conversion, drainage and reclamation
Another way to get more land was to convert some pasture land into arable land and recover fen land and some pastures. It is estimated that the amount of arable land in Britain grew by 10–30% through these land conversions.

The British Agricultural Revolution was aided by land maintenance advancements in Flanders and the Netherlands. With large and dense populations in Flanders and Holland, farmers there were forced to take maximum advantage of every bit of usable land; the country had become a pioneer in canal building, soil restoration and maintenance, soil drainage, and land reclamation technology. Dutch experts like Cornelius Vermuyden brought some of this technology to Britain.

Water-meadows were utilised in the late 16th to the 20th centuries and allowed earlier pasturing of livestock after they were wintered on hay. This increased livestock yields, giving more hides, meat, milk, and manure as well as better hay crops.

Rise in domestic farmers
With the development of regional markets and eventually a national market, aided by improved transportation infrastructures, farmers were no longer dependent on their local market and were less subject to having to sell at low prices into an oversupplied local market and not being able to sell their surpluses to distant localities that were experiencing shortages. They also became less subject to price fixing regulations. Farming became a business rather than solely a means of subsistence.

Selective breeding of livestock
In England, Robert Bakewell and Thomas Coke introduced selective breeding as a scientific practice, mating together two animals with particularly desirable characteristics and also using inbreeding or the mating of close relatives, such as father and daughter, or brother and sister, to stabilise certain qualities in order to reduce genetic diversity in desirable animal programmes from the mid-18th century. Arguably, Bakewell's most important breeding programme was with sheep. Using native stock, he was able to quickly select for large, yet fine-boned sheep, with long, lustrous wool. The Lincoln Longwool was improved by Bakewell, and in turn the Lincoln was used to develop the subsequent breed, named the Dishley Leicester. It was hornless and had a square, meaty body with straight top lines.

Bakewell was also the first to breed cattle to be used primarily for beef. Previously, cattle were first and foremost kept for pulling ploughs as oxen or for dairy uses, with beef from surplus males as an additional bonus, but he crossed long-horned heifers and a Westmoreland bull to eventually create the Dishley Longhorn. As more farmers followed his lead, farm animals increased dramatically in size and quality. The average weight of a bull sold for slaughter at Smithfield was reported around 1700 as 370 lb, though this is considered a low estimate: by 1786, weights of 840 lb were reported, though other contemporary indicators suggest an increase of around a quarter over the intervening century. In 1300, the average milk cow produced 100 gallons of milk annually. By 1800, this figure rose to 566 gallons.

19th century
Besides the organic fertilisers in manure, new fertilisers were slowly discovered. Massive sodium nitrate (NaNO3) deposits found in the Atacama Desert, Chile, were brought under British financiers like John Thomas North and imports were started. Chile was happy to allow the exports of these sodium nitrates by allowing the British to use their capital to develop the mining and imposing a hefty export tax to enrich their treasury. Massive deposits of sea bird guano (11–16% nitrogen, 8–12% phosphate, and 2–3% potassium), were found and started to be imported after about 1830. Significant imports of potash obtained from the ashes of trees burned in opening new agricultural lands were imported.

By-products of the British meat industry like bones from the knackers' yards were ground up or crushed and sold as fertiliser. By about 1840 about 30,000 tons of bones were being processed (worth about £150,000). An unusual alternative to bones was found to be the millions of tons of fossils called coprolites found in South East England. When these were dissolved in sulphuric acid they yielded a high phosphate mixture (called "super phosphate") that plants could absorb readily and increased crop yields. Mining coprolite and processing it for fertiliser soon developed into a major industry—the first commercial fertiliser.

Higher yield per acre crops were planted as potatoes went from about 300,000 acres in 1800 to about 400,000 acres in 1850 with a further increase to about 500,000 in 1900. Labour productivity slowly increased at about 0.6% per year. With more capital invested, more organic and inorganic fertilisers, and better crop yields increased the food grown at about 0.5% per year—not enough to keep up with population growth.

Great Britain contained about 10.8 million people in 1801, 20.7 million in 1851 and 37.1 million by 1901. This corresponds to an annual population growth rate of 1.3% in 1801-1851 and 1.2% in 1851–1901, twice the rate of agricultural output growth. In addition to land for cultivation there was also a demand for pasture land to support more livestock. The growth of arable acreage slowed from the 1830s and went into reverse from the 1870s in the face of cheaper grain imports, and wheat acreage nearly halved from 1870 to 1900.

The recovery of food imports after the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) and the resumption of American trade following the War of 1812 (1812–1815) led to the enactment in 1815 of the Corn Laws (protective tariffs) to protect cereal grain producers in Britain against foreign competition. These laws were removed in 1846 after the onset of the Great Irish Famine in which a potato blight ruined most of the Irish potato crop and brought famine to the Irish people from 1846 to 1850. Though the blight also struck Scotland, Wales, England, and much of continental Europe, its effect there was far less severe since potatoes constituted a much smaller percentage of the diet than in Ireland. Hundreds of thousands died in the famine, and millions more emigrated to England, Wales, Scotland, Canada, Australia, Europe, and the United States, reducing the population from about 8.5 million in 1845 to 4.3 million by 1921.

Between 1873 and 1879 British agriculture suffered from wet summers that damaged grain crops. Cattle farmers were hit by foot-and-mouth disease, and sheep farmers by liver rot. The poor harvests, however, masked a greater threat to British agriculture: growing imports of foodstuffs from abroad. The development of the steam ship and the development of extensive railway networks in Britain and in the United States allowed U.S. farmers with much larger and more productive farms to export hard grain to Britain at a price that undercut the British farmers. At the same time, large amounts of cheap corned beef started to arrive from Argentina, and the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and the development of refrigerator ships (reefers) in about 1880 opened the British market to cheap meat and wool from Australia, New Zealand, and Argentina.

The Long Depression was a worldwide economic recession that began in 1873 and ended around 1896. It hit the agricultural sector hard and was the most severe in Europe and the United States, which had been experiencing strong economic growth fuelled by the Second Industrial Revolution in the decade following the American Civil War. By 1900, half the meat eaten in Britain came from abroad, and tropical fruits such as bananas were also being imported on the refrigerator ships.

Seed planting
Before the introduction of the seed drill, the common practice was to plant seeds by broadcasting (evenly throwing) them across the ground by hand on the prepared soil and then lightly harrowing the soil to cover the seed. Seeds left on top of the ground were eaten by birds, insects, and mice. There was no control over spacing, and seeds were planted too close together and too far apart. Alternatively, seeds could be laboriously planted one by one using a hoe and/or a shovel. Cutting down on wasted seed was important because the yield of seeds harvested to seeds planted at that time was around four or five.

The seed drill was introduced from China to Italy in the mid-16th century where it was patented by the Venetian Senate. Jethro Tull invented an improved seed drill in 1701. It was a mechanical seeder which distributed seeds evenly across a plot of land and at the correct depth. Tull's seed drill was expensive and fragile and therefore did not have much of an impact. The technology to manufacture affordable and reliable machinery, including agricultural machinery, improved dramatically in the last half of the 19th century.

Significance
The Agricultural Revolution was part of a long process of improvement, but sound advice on farming began to appear in England in the mid-17th century, from writers such as Samuel Hartlib, Walter Blith and others, and the overall agricultural productivity of Britain started to grow significantly only in the 18th century. It is estimated that total agricultural output grew 2.7-fold between 1700 and 1870 and output per worker at a similar rate. Despite its name, the Agricultural Revolution in Britain did not result in overall productivity per hectare of agricultural area as high as in China, where intensive cultivation (including multiple annual cropping in many areas) had been practiced for many centuries.

The Agricultural Revolution in Britain proved to be a major turning point in history, allowing the population to far exceed earlier peaks and sustain the country's rise to industrial pre-eminence. Towards the end of the 19th century, the substantial gains in British agricultural productivity were rapidly offset by competition from cheaper imports, made possible by the exploitation of new lands and advances in transportation, refrigeration, and other technologies.

The Agricultural Revolution in other countries was a turning point too. In the agrarian societies, four families produced enough food for five families, that is for themselves and one more family. Not much manpower was available for non-agricultural activity. In the course of the revolution, one family began to produce enough food for five families. Much manpower was liberated from agriculture and became available for industry. Thus the Agricultural Revolution made possible the Industrial Revolution: "Industrialization and modern economic growth are basically conditioned by the level of agricultural productivity inherited from pre-modern period... [A]n agricultural revolution and subsequent rise in agricultural productivity are often considered prerequisites for take-off of the initial spurt of industrialization." Unprecedented population growth followed and even more explosive was the growth of the non-agricultural sector. Barrington Moore stressed the "importance of getting rid of agriculture as a major social activity" in the formation of the working class. First, "rural proletariat" appeared;    later, this mass moved to cities causing unprecedented urbanization. When the percentage of manpower engaged in agriculture declined from 80 to 60, occurred great social revolutions or reformations (revolution from above). The result was not liberte, egalite, fraternite; often the result was the opposite, with stronger autocracy. But in all cases, the power shifted from land owners to industrial entrepreneurs or central-planning states,  marking "revolutionary break with the past." The ten-millennia Agrarian Age was succeeded by the Industrial Age.

Today, agriculture accounts for 5% of the world product. But these 5% is the basis holding the rest 95% like a reverse pyramid. The Second Agricultural Revolution created this basis and made possible our industry and other sectors of the modern civilization. Without this basis all this civilization, with all its technological progress, would collapse. "No modern development made us independent from Earth Mother, or Pachamama that feeds, as the Inca put it."

title: British Agricultural Revolution


text:
Pool of Radiance

Pool of Radiance is a role-playing video game developed and published by Strategic Simulations, Inc (SSI) in 1988. It was the first adaptation of TSR's Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) fantasy role-playing game for home computers, becoming the first episode in a four-part series of D&D computer adventure games. The other games in the "Gold Box" series used the game engine pioneered in Pool of Radiance, as did later D&D titles such as the Neverwinter Nights online game. Pool of Radiance takes place in the Forgotten Realms fantasy setting, with the action centered in and around the port city of Phlan.

Just as in traditional D&D games, the player starts by building a party of up to six characters, deciding the race, gender, class, and ability scores for each. The player's party is enlisted to help the settled part of the city by clearing out the marauding inhabitants that have taken over the surroundings. The characters move on from one area to another, battling bands of enemies as they go and ultimately confronting the powerful leader of the evil forces. During play, the player characters gain experience points, which allow them to increase their capabilities. The game primarily uses a first-person perspective, with the screen divided into sections to display pertinent textual information. During combat sequences, the display switches to a top-down "video game isometric" view.

Generally well received by the gaming press, Pool of Radiance won the Origins Award for "Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game of 1988". Some reviewers criticized the game's similarities to other contemporary games and its slowness in places, but praised the game's graphics and its role-playing adventure and combat aspects. Also well-regarded was the ability to export player characters from Pool of Radiance to subsequent SSI games in the series.

Gameplay
Pool of Radiance is based on the same game mechanics as the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rule set. As in many role-playing games (RPGs), each player character in Pool of Radiance has a character race and a character class, determined at the beginning of the game. Six races are offered, including elves and halflings, as well as four classes (fighter, cleric, magic-user, and thief). Non-human characters have the option to become multi-classed, which means they gain the capabilities of more than one class, but advance in levels more slowly. During character creation, the computer randomly generates statistics for each character, although the player can alter these attributes. The player also chooses each character's alignment, or moral philosophy; while the player controls each character's actions, alignment can affect how NPCs view their actions. The player can then customize the appearance and colors of each character's combat icon. Alternatively, the player can load a pre-generated party to be used for introductory play. These characters are combined into a party of six or less, with two slots open for NPCs. Players create their own save-game files, assuring their characters can continue regardless of events in the game. On an DOS computer, the game can be copied to the hard drive. Other computer systems, such as the Commodore 64, require a separate disk for saved games.

The game's exploration mode uses a three-dimensional first-person perspective, with a rectangle in the top left of the screen displaying the party's current view; the rest of the screen displays text information about the party and the area. During gameplay, the player accesses menus to allow characters to use objects; trade items with other characters; parley with enemies; buy, sell, and pool the characters' money; cast spells, and learn new magic skills. Players can view characters' movement from different angles, including an aerial view. The game uses three different versions of each sprite to indicate differences between short-, medium-, and long-range encounters.

In combat mode, the screen switches to a top-down perspective with dimetric projection, where the player chooses what actions the characters will take in each round; these actions occur immediately, instead of happening after all commands are issued as is standard in some RPGs. Optionally, the player can let the computer choose character moves for each round. Characters and monsters may make an extra attack on a retreating enemy that moves next to them. If a character's hit points (HP) go below zero, they must be bandaged by another character or the wounded character will die. The game contains random encounters, and game reviewers for Dragon magazine observed that random encounters seem to follow standard patterns of encounter tables in pen and paper AD&D game manuals. They also observed that the depictions of monsters confronting the party "looked as though they had jumped from the pages of the Monster Manual".

Different combat options are available to characters based on class: fighters can use melee or ranged weapons; magic-users can cast spells; thieves are able to "back-stab" an opponent by strategically positioning themselves. As fighters progress in level, they can attack more than once in a round, and they also gain the ability to "sweep" enemies, effectively attacking each nearby low-level creature in the same turn. Magic-users and clerics are allowed to memorize and cast a set number of spells each day. Once cast, a spell must be memorized again before reuse. The process requires hours of inactivity for all characters, during which they rest in a camp; this also restores lost hit points to damaged characters. This chore of memorizing spells each night significantly added to the amount of game management required by the player.

As characters defeat enemies, they gain experience points (XP). After gaining enough XP, the characters "train up a level" to become more powerful. This training is purchased in special areas within the city walls. In addition to training, mages can learn new spells by transcribing them from scrolls found in the unsettled areas. Defeated enemies in these areas also contain items such as weapons and armor, which characters can sell to city stores.

Copy protection
The DOS, Macintosh and Apple II versions of Pool of Radiance include a 2-ply code wheel for translating elvish and dwarven runes to English. Some dwarven runes have multiple different translations. After the title screen, a copy protection screen is displayed consisting of two runes and a line of varying appearance (a dotted line, a dashed line, or a line with alternating dots and dashes) which correspond to markings on the code wheel. The player is prompted to enter a five or six character code which corresponds to a five or six character word. In the case of a five character word, there is a number at the beginning of the word which is not entered. Under the lines on the wheel are slots which reveal English letters, the coded English word being determined by lining up the runes, matching the correct line appearance, and then entering the word revealed on the code wheel. If the player enters an incorrect code three times, the game closes itself. In the DOS version of Pool of Radiance, the code wheel is also used for some in-game puzzles. For example, in Sokol Keep the player discovers some parchment with elvish runes on it that require use of the code wheel to decipher; this is optional however, but may be used to avoid some combat with undead if the decoded words are said to them. In the NES version, the elvish words are given to the player deciphered without the use of the code wheel, as the NES release did not include a code wheel.

Setting
Pool of Radiance takes place in the Forgotten Realms fantasy world, in and around the city of Phlan. This is located on the northern shore of the Moonsea along the Barren River, between Zhentil Keep and Melvaunt. The party begins in the civilized section of "New Phlan" that is governed by a council. This portion of the city hosts businesses, including shopkeepers that sell holy items for worshippers at each temple, a jewelry shop, and retailers who provide arms and armor. A party can also contract with the clerk of the city council for various commissions; proclamations posted on the walls within City Hall offer pieces of useful information in the form of coded clues which can be deciphered using the included Adventurer's Journal.

Phlan has three temples, each dedicated to different gods. Each temple can heal wounded, poisoned, or afflicted characters, and can restore deceased characters to life for a high price. The party can also visit the hiring hall and hire an experienced NPC adventurer to accompany the party. Encounters with NPCs in shops and taverns offer valuable information. Listening to gossip in taverns can be helpful to characters, although some tavern tales are false and lead characters into great danger.

Plot summary
The ancient trade city of Phlan has fallen into impoverished ruin. Now only a small portion of the city remains inhabited by humans, who are surrounded by evil creatures. To rebuild the city and clean up the Barren River, the city council of New Phlan has decided to recruit adventurers to drive the monsters from the neighboring ruins. Using bards and publications, they spread tales of the riches waiting to be recovered in Phlan, which draws the player's party to these shores by ship.

At the start of the game, the adventurers' ship lands in New Phlan, and they receive a brief but informative tour of the civilized area. They learn that the city is plagued with a history of invasions and wars and has been overtaken by a huge band of humanoids and other creatures. Characters hear rumors that a single controlling element is in charge of these forces. The characters begin a block-by-block quest to rid the ruins of monsters and evil spirits.

Beyond the ruins of old Phlan, the party enters the slum area—one of two quests available right away to new parties. This quest involves the clearing of the slum block and allows a new party to quickly gain experience. The second quest is to clear out Sokol Keep, located on Thorn Island. This fortified area is inhabited by the undead, which can only be defeated with silver weapons and magic. The characters' adventure is later expanded to encompass the outlying areas of the Moonsea region. Eventually, the player learns that an evil spirit named Tyranthraxus, who has possessed an ancient dragon, is at the root of Phlan's problems. The characters fight Tyranthraxus the Flamed One in a climactic final battle.

Development
Pool of Radiance was the first official game based on the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules. The scenario was created by TSR designers Jim Ward, David Cook, Steve Winter, and Mike Breault, and coded by programmers from Strategic Simulations, Inc's Special Projects team. The section of the Forgotten Realms world in which Pool of Radiance takes place was intended to be reserved for development solely by SSI. The game was created on Apple II and Commodore 64 computers, taking one year with a team of thirty-five people. This game was the first to use the game engine later used in other SSI D&D games known as the "Gold Box" series. The SSI team developing the game was led by Chuck Kroegel. Kroegel stated that the main challenge with the development was interpreting the AD&D rules to an exact format. Developers also worked to balance the graphics with gameplay to provide a faithful AD&D feel, given the restrictions of a home computer. In addition to the core AD&D manuals, the books Unearthed Arcana and Monster Manual II were also used during development. The images of monsters were adapted directly from the Monster Manual book. The game was originally programmed by Keith Brors and Brad Myers, and it was developed by George MacDonald. The game's graphic arts were by Tom Wahl, Fred Butts, Darla Marasco, and Susan Halbleib.

Pool of Radiance was released in June 1988; it was initially available on the Commodore 64, Apple II series and IBM PC compatible computers. A version for the Atari ST was also announced. The Macintosh version was released in 1989. The Macintosh version featured a slightly different interface and was intended to work on black-and-white Macs like the Mac Plus and the Mac Classic. The screen was tiled into separate windows including the game screen, text console, and compass. Graphics were monochrome and the display window was relatively small compared to other versions. The Macintosh version featured sound, but no music. The game's Amiga version was released two years later. The PC 9800 version 『プール・オブ・レイディアンス』 in Japan was fully translated (like the Japanese Famicom version) and featured full-color graphics. The game was ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System under the title Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Pool of Radiance, released in April 1992. The NES version was the only version of the game to feature a complete soundtrack, which was composed by Seiji Toda, as he was signed to the publisher, Pony Canyon's record label at the time. The same soundtrack can be found on the PC-9801 version. The Amiga version also features some extra music, while most other ports contain only one song that plays at the title screen.

The original Pool of Radiance game shipped with a 28-page introductory booklet, which describes secrets relating to the game and the concepts behind it. The booklet guides players through the character creation process, explaining how to create a party. The game also included the 38-page Adventurer's Journal, which provides the game's background. The booklet features depictions of fliers, maps, and information that characters see in the game.

Sequels and related works
Pool of Radiance was the first in a four-part series of computer D&D adventures set in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. The others were released by SSI one year apart: Curse of the Azure Bonds (1989), Secret of the Silver Blades (1990), and Pools of Darkness (1991). The 1989 game Hillsfar was also created by SSI but was not a sequel to Pool of Radiance. Hillsfar is described instead, by the reviewers from Dragon, as "a value-added adventure for those who would like to take a side trip while awaiting the sequel". A player can import characters from Pool of Radiance into Hillsfar, although the characters are "reduced to their basic levels" and do not retain any weapons or magic items. Original Hillsfar characters cannot be exported to Pool of Radiance, but they can be exported to Curse of the Azure Bonds. A review for Curse of the Azure Bonds in Computer Gaming World noted that "you can transfer your characters from Pool of Radiance and it's a good idea to do so. It will give you a headstart in the game".

GameSpot declared that Pool of Radiance, with its detailed art, wide variety of quests and treasure, and tactical combat system, and despite the availability of only four character classes and the low character level cap, "ultimately succeeded in its goal of bringing a standardized form of AD&D to the home computer, and laid the foundation for other future gold box AD&D role-playing games". Scott Battaglia of GameSpy said Pool of Radiance is "what many gamers consider to be the epitome of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons RPGs. These games were so great that people today are using MoSlo in droves to slow down their Pentium III-1000 MHz enough to play these gems". In March 2008, Dvice.com listed Pool of Radiance among its 13 best electronic versions of Dungeons & Dragons. The contributor felt that "the Pool of Radiance series set the stage for Dungeons & Dragons to make a major splash in the video game world".

The 1988 Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game module Ruins of Adventure was produced using the same adventure scenario as Pool of Radiance, using the same plot, background, setting, and many of the same characters as the computer game. The module thus contains useful clues to the successful completion of the computer missions. Ruins of Adventure contains four linked miniscenarios, which form the core of Pool of Radiance. According to the editors of Dragon magazine, Pool of Radiance was based on Ruins of Adventure, rather than the module being based on the computer game. However, Mike Breault stated in a 2021 interview that TSR chose him, Winter, Cook, and Ward to work on the design and writing for Pool of Radiance, indicating that the material was originally created for the game.

Novelization
In November 1989 a novelization of Pool of Radiance the video game, also called Pool of Radiance, was written by James Ward and Jane Cooper Hong, published by TSR. The novel is set in the Forgotten Realms setting based on the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. Dragon described the novel's plot: "Five companions find themselves in the unenviable position of defending the soon-to-be ghost town against a rival possessing incredible power". This book was the first in a trilogy, followed by Pools of Darkness and Pool of Twilight.

Re-release
GOG.com released Pool of Radiance and many Gold Box series games digitally on August 20, 2015, as a part of Forgotten Realms: The Archives - Collection Two. Steam released Pool of Radiance in 2022.

Reception
SSI sold 264,536 copies of Pool of Radiance for computers in North America, three times that of Heroes of the Lance, an AD&D-licensed action game SSI also released that year. It became by far the company's most successful game up to that time; even its hint book outsold any earlier SSI game. It spawned a series of games, which combined to sell above 800,000 copies worldwide by 1996.

In Computer Gaming World's preview of Pool of Radiance in July 1988, the writer noted a "sense of deja vu" in the similarity of the game's screen to previous computer RPGs. For example, the three-dimensional view like a maze in the upper-left window was similar to Might & Magic or Bard's Tale, both released in the mid-1980s. The window that included a listing of characters was featured in 1988's Wasteland; and the usage of one active character as a representation of the entire party was part of Ultima V. The reviewer also noted that the design approach for game play was "closer to SSI's own Wizard's Crown adventures than to the other games in the genre".

Pool of Radiance received positive reviews. G.M. called the game's graphics "good" and praised its role-playing and combat aspects. They felt that "roleplayers will find Pools is an essential purchase, but people who are solely computer games oriented may hesitate before buying it [...] it will be their loss". Tony Dillon from Commodore User gave it a score of 9 out of 10; the only complaint was a slightly slow disk access, but the reviewer was impressed with the game's features, awarding it a Commodore User superstar and proclaiming it "the best RPG ever to grace the C64, or indeed any other computer". Issue #84 of the British magazine Computer + Video Games rated the game highly, saying that "Pools is a game which no role player or adventurer should be without and people new to role playing should seriously consider buying as an introductory guide". Another UK publication, The Games Machine, gave the game an 89% rating. The reviewer noted that the third-person arcade style combat view is a "great improvement" for SSI, as they would "traditionally incorporate simplistic graphics in their role-playing games". The reviewer was critical that Pool of Radiance was "not original in its presentation" and that the colors were "a little drab", but concluded that the game is "classic Dungeons & Dragons which SSI have recreated excellently". A review from Zzap was less positive, giving the game a score of 80%. The reviewer felt that the game required too much "hacking, slicing and chopping" without enough emphasis on puzzle solving. The game was awarded 49% for its puzzle factor.

Three reviewers for Computer Gaming World had conflicting reactions. Ken St. Andre—designer of the Tunnels & Trolls RPG—approved of the game despite his dislike of the D&D system, praising the art, the mixture of combat and puzzles, and surprises. He concluded as "take it from a 'rival' designer, Pool of Radiance has my recommendation for every computer fantasy role-playing gamer". Tracie Forman Hicks, however, opined that over-faithful use of the D&D system left it behind others like Ultima and Wizardry. She also disliked the game's puzzles and lengthy combat sequences. Scorpia also disliked the amount of fighting in a game she otherwise described as a "well-designed slicer/dicer", concluding that "patience (possibly of Job) [is] required to get through this one". Shay Addams from Compute! stated that experienced role-playing gamers "won't find anything new here", but recommended it to those who "love dungeons, dragons, and drama". In their March 1989 "The Role of Computers" column in Dragon magazine #143, Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser (often called "The Lessers") gave Pool of Radiance a three-page review. The reviewers praised Pool of Radiance as "the first offering that truly follows AD&D game rules", calling it a "great fantasy role-playing game" that "falls into the must-buy category for avid AD&D game players". The reviewers advised readers to "rush out to your local dealer and buy Pool Of Radiance". They considered it SSI's flagship product, speculating that it would "undoubtedly bring thousands of computer enthusiasts into the adventure-filled worlds of TSR". The Dragon reviewers criticized the "notoriously slow" technology of the C64/128 system but added that the C64/128 version would become nearly unplayable without a software-based fastloader utility which Strategic Simulations integrated into the game. Conversely, the reviewers felt that the DOS version was extremely fast, so much so that they had to slow the game operation down in order to read all the on-screen messages. They found that the DOS version played at twice the speed of the C64/128 version when using the Enhanced Graphics Adapter (EGA) graphics mode.

Alex Simmons, Doug Johns, and Andy Mitchell reviewed the Amiga version of Pool of Radiance for Amiga Action magazine in 1990, giving it a 79% overall rating. Mitchell preferred the game Champions of Krynn, which had been released by the time the Amiga version of Pool of Radiance became available; he felt that Pool of Radiance was "more of the same" when compared to Champions, but was less playable and with more limited actions for players. Simmons felt that Pool of Radiance looked primitive and seemed less polished when compared with Champions of Krynn; he felt that although Pool was not up to the standard of Champions, he said it was still "a fine little game". Johns, on the other hand, felt that Pool of Radiance was well worth the wait, considering it very user-friendly despite being less polished than Champions of Krynn.

Pool of Radiance was well received by the gaming press and won the Origins Award for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Computer Game of 1988. For the second annual "Beastie Awards" in 1989, Dragon's readers voted Pool of Radiance the most popular fantasy role-playing game of the year, with Ultima V as the runner-up. The Apple II version was the most popular format, the PC DOS/MS-DOS version came in a close second, and the Commodore 64/128 version got the fewest votes. The primary factor given for votes was the game's faithfulness to the AD&D system as well as the game's graphics and easy-to-use user interface to activate commands. Pool of Radiance was also selected for the RPGA-sponsored Gamers' Choice Awards for the Best Computer Game of 1989. In 1990 the game received the fifth-highest number of votes in a survey of Computer Gaming World readers' "All-Time Favorites".

Allen Rausch, writing for GameSpy's 2004 retrospective "A History of D&D Video Games", concluded that although the game "certainly had its flaws (horrendous load times, interface weirdness, and a low-level cap among others), it was a huge, expansive adventure that laid a good foundation for every Gold Box game that followed". In 1994, PC Gamer US named Pool of Radiance the 43rd best computer game ever.

IGN ranked Pool of Radiance No. 3 on their list of "The Top 11 Dungeons & Dragons Games of All Time" in 2014. Ian Williams of Paste rated the game #5 on his list of "The 10 Greatest Dungeons and Dragons Videogames" in 2015.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Pool of Radiance


text:
Talk:Pool of Radiance

Old messages
Almost seems like this article should actually be titled something like Gold box engine. Atorpen 18:08 Jan 26, 2003 (UTC)

Agreed, we should make a Gold box games entry or something. Sdibb 05:02, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Merge?
Isn't this game identical of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons: Pool of Radiance? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Poulsen (talk • contribs) 15:28, December 15, 2005

[D] The games are actually somewhat different; the NES version with its really long and official title, though it does share many aspects of the same scenerio, is a console game and was severely retrofitted to not require the Adventurer's Journal and other external references (such as the copy protection and translation Code Wheel used in the original versions of the game). [D] is of the opinion that the pages should *definitely* remain separate, though having links pointing back and forth might be a reasonable idea to consider. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.8.177.135 (talk • contribs) 14:03, February 1, 2006

NO MERGE PLEASE! The NES versions of most computer games are usually significantly different enough that they warrant having separate pages.76.226.204.123 (talk) 04:47, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

 * I've performed the merge. I took into consideration the discussion at Talk:Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Pool of Radiance and the guidelines at WP:VG/GL. It's the same title, same publisher, and based on the same game: It's a "port." I have made a seperate section to discuss the differences; although please use WP:V when doing so. Marasmusine (talk) 11:20, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Talking about Neverwinter Nights...
There is a user created Pool of Radiance NWN module based on this game. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.29.255.239 (talk • contribs) 04:30, November 17, 2006

Hacking - Hex editing map locations
In 1989 I was hex editing a POR savegame, just as a hobby, and I set myself to the task of changing a savegame from one map location to another. It took me weeks to figure it out, but I made an AMAZING discovery: The Jumper. The programmers left in testing code that was accessed via map location 10 (I think) that presented an interface for "testing" various game features. (Any SSI programmers who developed this game, please confirm this.) One menu item allowed me to add any item in the game to any inventory, many unattainable via normal play. Another allows adding any Monster to your party, or a customizable area play with any set of features. It was a hex editor's pot-of-gold. It allowed me to look at various abilities of various monsters, change their allegiance to fight with me, and copy their abilities to my characters.

Now I am trying to reproduce it 17 years later and I have lost my notes of how I got there. I would appreciate any help anyone is willing to offer, as this was the coolest Easter egg I have ever seen. --Kwaske 07:11, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Icurafu

I signed up just to point out a little mistake. When I got to the ending of the game, all of my evil chars turned against me and took the offer of the boss. However in this wiki article it states that everyone refuses. This was the PC version. This made me very angry at the time because even with the evil chars winning, there was no alternative ending. (I had to hex edit to win)

PC and NES differences?
This Pool of Radiance page says there are many differences between the PC version and the NES console version. I've played both to their conclusion, the PC one first. I played the NES version with the specific intent of comparing the two (and an excuse to play a good game again). I don't recall finding many differences. I recall the specific monster encounters (for example- the trolls in the slums) having the same difficulty factor and needing the same tactics to win. Random encounters may've been a little easier on the NES.. but random encounters were never that hard on either version, so it's hardy a factor.

I agree that in the NES version, you couldn't customize your combat icons. Whoop-de-do. You couldn't customize your character portraits, either. But, you were still given a portrait and they were far better looking than the PC version, anyway. Graphics aside, gameplay is what made Pool of Radiance shine. For me, both versions were good and nearly identical in gameplay content. Both are very worthy of being called the same game.

In the NES version, however, they didn't worry about all the copy protection schemes, since they didn't think you could copy a cartridge (lets go back in time and tell them about mondern-day emulation). You didn't have to scan through journal entries to find out what just happened, nor did you have to use a code wheel just to start playing.

The only thing that makes me scratch my chin is that this page says the monster lairs in the wilderness are missing on the NES version. I do remember finding them on the PC version. For the life of me, I don't remember if I found them on the NES version or not. Monster lairs were just small additions. Not that big a deal, but it does make me want to go back and run through the game again :) Jiao9 (talk) 04:29, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Good Article?
What do you say? :) I've been wanting to get to this one for some time, and finally got my chance. Maybe I put a bit too much into it, but we can scale some parts back a bit. ;) Some parts need some work, but it's nothing that can't be done. BOZ (talk) 03:50, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Here's a place to look for sources, when I have a bit more time: Amiga Magazine Rack. BOZ (talk) 12:06, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Been getting a lot of use out of that! There is also a review in a foreign language magazine that I will probably not be able to make use of. :) BOZ (talk) 03:39, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm all done with that! Drilnoth pointed some links above that I need to check out as well. I've really built this one up, I think, and while there's still a bit to go, I think it's not far from ready for a GA nom. BOZ (talk) 00:50, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm now going through the list of links that Drilnoth has posted near the top of the talk page, below all the project banners. I used the Dvice.com piece and the High Score! book a bit, but I think I'll leave off the New Straits Times as I think we have plenty of reviews already - don't think that you can't add something from that if you like, though. :) I browsed the MobyGames, IGN, and Allgame links yesterday and saw some useable stuff in there, so I will have another look when I have a bit of free time. BOZ (talk) 17:43, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I've used about as much as I want to use of these. Just going to tweak a bit more, rewrite the lead tomorrow or Thursday, and take a break with this one! BOZ (talk) 03:32, 15 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks! :) If there's anything you can to do help out, feel free to pitch in! BOZ (talk) 23:05, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Wow, this article is looking great, it has certainly developed a lot since I worked on it in June. Well done, guys! Marasmusine (talk) 22:03, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Question
Diff Not sure if this is still accurate, since I haven't played the game. I don't understand if you can bring in a character from another game or something, or what. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 00:42, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

 * Given that this was the first game in the series, I don't think it was possible to bring characters into this game, although pretty sure you could bring characters from this game into Hillsfar and Secret of the Silver Blades. :) BOZ (talk) 00:59, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

 * What a spell "slot" is is not clear. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 01:09, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * If you can cast 5 1st-level spells, then you have 5 1st-level spell slots, basically. BOZ (talk) 05:41, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Diff I'm not sure if this accurately reflects the game. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 01:16, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I think so? BOZ (talk) 05:41, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * "shopkeepers who might sell specific holy items" Some of them sell them, and some don't?  Or in some games they sell them, and in other games they don't? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 01:19, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Not sure. I can try to look that up in whatever source I found it in, and see if I can make sense of it? BOZ (talk) 05:41, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * "The party can also go to the hiring hall and hire an experienced non-player character adventurer at the dueling grounds to accompany the party" Do they hire them at the hiring hall, or at the dueling grounds? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 01:25, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Not sure. BOZ (talk) 05:41, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Should 'old Phlan' be '"Old Phlan"'? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 01:27, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * No. BOZ (talk) 05:41, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * "clearing of this block" What's a block? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 01:48, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * I thought I put something about that. A block is a square area in the game, like the slums or the civilized portion of the city, or the castle, or whatever. BOZ (talk) 05:41, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * "impostor Tyranthaxus" Why is he an imposter? Because he's not a Bronze Dragon? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 01:57, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * He is a possessing spirit pretending to be a dragon. BOZ (talk) 05:41, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. I'll try and work some more on it tomorrow. - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 05:49, 23 July 2009 (UTC)

Incorrect statement
The line: "Pool of Radiance was the first official game based on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.[1][2]" is incorrect. There were official AD&D games on the Mattel Intellivision and Mattel Aquarius long before this. The statement can not even be corrected to say "first official computer game" because of "Advanced Dungeons & Dragon Treasure of Tarmin Cartridge" appearing on the aforementioned Mattel Aquarius. The line could read: "Pool of Radiance was the first official game based on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons since Mattel's Advanced Dungeons & Dragon Treasure of Tarmin Cartridge from 1983 for the Mattel Aquarius.[1][2]" 64.9.35.4 (talk) 18:52, 30 July 2009 (UTC)Bill Loguidice, bill@armchairarcade.com
 * Those games were not based on the AD&D rules system, even though they had used the licensed name. BOZ (talk) 19:18, 30 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Then shouldn't the language be clarified to reflect that?64.9.35.4 (talk) 19:00, 31 July 2009 (UTC)Bill Loguidice
 * What do you propose? I'm working to improve this article, so any help is appreciated. I don't remember what the Dragon review specifically said, but I can go back into it and look. BOZ (talk) 19:31, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * BOZ Sadly with this game coming out in June 1988 and Heroes of the Lance by SSI coming out in January 1988, there is no way this statement can hold true because the same company released a game 5 months prior for all the same systems with AD&D boldly on the cover. It may have been the first in the SSI Gold Box series, but it wasnt the "first adaptation of AD&D for home computers" by a long stretch as many other pages on Wikipedia refute that claim. shadzar-talk 05:52, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Dragon #143 review
I know I went overboard with the Dragon review, and I'll confess it was totally on purpose. You'll notice that the majority of the reviews here are available online (most are here), but Dragon of course is not. I knew that most of it was probably overkill, and we shouldn't use too much of the license holder's fawning praise. :) Still, Dragon did take a critical eye to some things and did discuss other aspects of the game that no other reviews did, so it is important to make use of it. My thinking was, I might as well put the stuff in there long enough for everyone else to get a good look at it, and then trim out what really doesn't help the article (suggestions?) because then other people can judge for themselves. For the other reviews, anyone else can read them because I have linked to them.

Anyway, here is everything I had from that review in the Reception section to begin with, much of which has now been trimmed:

Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser of Dragon magazine's "The Role of Computers" column gave Pool of Radiance a three-page review in Dragon #143 (March 1989). The reviewers praised Pool of Radiance as "the first offering that truly follows AD&D game rules", calling it a "great fantasy role-playing game" that "falls into the must-buy category for avid AD&D game players." The reviewers advised readers to "rush out to your local dealer and buy Pool Of Radiance!" They considered the game Strategic Simulation's flagship product, speculating that it would "undoubtedly bring thousands of computer enthusiasts into the adventure-filled worlds of TSR."

The Dragon reviewers criticized the installation program for the MS-DOS version, stating that "you must have the patience of Job"; so much code was packed onto the three floppy disks that the program had to be compressed, and uncompressing the code took nearly 30 minutes. However, the reviewers considered the final product to be more than worth the time spent waiting.

The Dragon reviewers felt that the game "plays truer to the AD&D game rules than any software adventure we have yet experienced. Only a few minor differences exist in the creation of your characters, which is normally accomplished by using multisided dice." The reviewers wanted strong characters to begin with, in order to enter the game and quickly build up experience points and hit points, allowing the characters to investigate as many areas of the game as possible. They tested the random character creation system, noting that on the C64/128 version it took 207 "rolls" to create an acceptable human fighter with a strength score of 18 (out of a possible 18). To get acceptable attribute scores of 18 as a primary characteristic, 6 rolls were required for a dwarf fighter, 110 for a halfling thief, 50 for a magic-user, 73 for a cleric, and 350 rolls to get a multi-classed cleric/magic-user/fighter with acceptable attributes in all prime requisites. The reviewers found that it required roughly half the number of rolls to get the same results on the game's MS-DOS version. The reviewers noted that rolls for the initial number of gold pieces owned and languages known are missing during the character creation process; the computer automatically assigns a gold piece figure to each character, and the reviewers felt that language did not seem to be a problem to characters of above median intelligence.

During gameplay, the Dragon reviewers noted that random encounters seemed to be based on the encounter tables found in the AD&D game manuals. They also observed that the depictions of monsters confronting the party "looked as though they had jumped from the pages of the Monster Manual."

The Dragon reviewers criticized the "notoriously slow" technology of the C64/128 system. "Due to the large number of disk accesses required for the various scenes and activities throughout the game, and due to the agonizingly slow disk reads, the game tends to bog down, especially during lengthy combats where the computer must manage numerous enemies. Casting a spell can also lead one to prolonged yawning while waiting for various screens to appear; the screens allow you to decide who will cast what spell on whom." The reviewers added that the C64/128 version would become nearly unplayable without a software-based fastloader utility which Strategic Simulations integrated into the game. Conversely, the reviewers felt that the MS-DOS version is extremely fast, so much so that they had to slow the game operation down in order to read all the on-screen messages. They found that the MS-DOS version played at twice the speed of the C64/128 version when using the Enhanced Graphics Adapter (EGA) graphics mode.

Plot rewrite
The plot summary, as it was originally before I started working on the article, was mostly unsourced. I was able to source a few of the bits that were there, but I could not find sources for the majority of the section. Thus, I rewrote it from scratch, and I am including the plot summary below, as it was before I started working on the article. I removed a lot of information which I could not source, so if you can find sources to back this stuff up, please feel free to add it back in!:

The game takes place in the Forgotten Realms setting, in and around the Moonsea region and the City of Phlan, which has been overrun by forces of evil. The city had originally held off many attacks, but the forces were marshalled by a bronze dragon which was believed to be possessed by a powerful spirit named Tyranthraxus. The object of the game is to have the party clear the old city of its marauding inhabitants, so the people of Phlan can rebuild and repopulate the areas.

The party begins in the civilized section of "New Phlan" that is governed by a council. This portion of the city is a place for the party to buy equipment at the shops, rest up in the inns, listen to rumors in the pub, and contract with the clerk of the city council for various commissions. The party can also go to the hiring hall and hire an experienced adventurer to accompany the party.

The party's objective is to ultimately free Phlan from the monsters and the boss, Tyranthraxus. There are many missions from the Phlan city council the party can undertake, some optional, which will give rewards for successfully accomplishing the tasks. The only real mandatory task is for the party to clear the areas on the outskirts of Phlan so it can make its way to Valjevo Castle and defeat Tyranthraxus.

Beyond this region the party enters the area of the slums, which have been overrun with low-level monsters such as goblins and orcs that the party must clear out (gaining experience in the process). Further into the slums, the going gets tougher, with ogres and trolls for opponents.

The next commission is to clear out Sokol Keep, a fortified area located on an island. This is filled with undead, among other opponents. Inside the keep is a specter who suffers under a curse. When you remove this curse, the keep is cleared and the shipping lanes to the city are finally opened.

There are a variety of other locations that are encountered as the party ventures further into the city, including Kuto's Well, catacombs filled with a bandit horde, a thieves' guild, Podol Plaza, and a buccaneer bar called the Pit. With the party making impressive progress, they are next contracted to go to the old Textile House, to recover the treasure of a council member. Pressing onward, the party can enter Mendor's Library, a temple of Bane in the wealthy section, Kovel Mansion, and the deadly Valhingen Graveyard.

thumb|240px|Encounter with Tyranthraxus, before the final battle.

Eventually the party ventures outside the city by boat, where they encounter a silver dragon. Various side treks and adventures occur, including visiting an encampment of the Zhentarim, as the party continues to build up experience and aid the city by defeating the plans of the mysterious "Boss".

The party reveals a traitor in the city council, and is commissioned to hunt him down. At some point the party will have to assault Stojanow Gate, a difficult task against bugbears and ettins. The party then enters Valjevo Castle and its inner sanctum, descends a stairwell to encounter some guards of the impostor Tyranthaxus (who assumes the form of a bronze dragon). After defeating his guards, the party refuses his offer to join his side and engages the dragon boss in a deadly battle, emerging victorious.

Good article nomination?
I have never done this before, but I am impressed with this article, maybe we can consider it as a Good articles nomination? Ikip (talk) 01:49, 10 August 2009 (UTC)
 * That's the plan, man! I was waiting for one more person to do a peer review, and then I was going to nominate it. In fact, I'm going to contact that person and see what's up. BOZ (talk) 02:48, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm borrowing this space to note that four non-free images is likely to be too much, one of which itself is a collage, which is considered to be another three non-free images. Not a good idea if you plan to run the gauntlet of the article improvement processes. --Izno (talk) 21:48, 25 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The collage is a new addition - in fact, I hadn't noticed it until you said something. ;)  I imagine we could do without the overland map then? The collage takes care of something requested during the peer review, which is that we needed screen shots of the combat and exploration modes. I killed the excess combat screen. BOZ (talk) 22:38, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Merge Discussion (Dec 2012)
Ok, so the result of the AfD was Keep pending that it gets merged. So. Let's getting merging. Web Warlock (talk) 03:11, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I had my "unfinished buisness" dream last night, so I am ticking things off of my list of things to do. This was one of them.  Merge and redirect completed.  If someone wants to edit or undo, that is good by me. Web Warlock (talk) 14:29, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

The projection in the combat part is not isometric: it's cavalier
My efforts to change this in the article have all been undone on the grounds that there is no external source explicitly stating that the game is not isometric, and that clear descriptions of different projections and comparisons between them and the game's screenshot are not sufficient verification.

How am I supposed to produce adequate proof in a situation where the proof that is readily available is completely ignored? The article on isometric projection provides immediate visual evidence that the projection employed in the Gold Box games is not isometric. The oblique projection article to which my edits linked shows a matching description in cavalier projection.

Calling various games' perspectives isometric where they are not is a very common mistake. Very often any game that has a top-down view that isn't true 3D gets the honor of being "isometric". The IGN article that was used as a citation to prove the perspective's isometry is but an example of said phenomenon.

Finally, a comparison that I urged my countereditors to conduct:

PoR screenshot

Cavalier projection

Isometric projection

So, how do we solve this thing?

91.157.203.137 (talk) 13:31, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Similar discussions have come up for a lot of games. It should be handled at a higher level than the individual games since these have been called Isometric for decades.  I strongly recommend this discussion being done first at the WP:Video Games talk page.  There, many editors (not just those watching this article) can be part of the discussion and can come to a consensus). Caidh (talk) 13:58, 9 April 2013 (UTC)
 * There has already been a discussion started at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games. BOZ (talk) 14:39, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I've changed the wikilink to an article that better describes the kind of projection used. If this cavalier perspective is being described as "isometric" by (non-reliable in this case) game magazines, Isometric graphics in video games and pixel art should be updated to reflect that. Diego (talk) 15:15, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
 * The solution you just implemented seems reasonable to me. 24.12.74.21 (talk) 15:25, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Requested move 13 January 2021

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: No consensus to move  (t · c)  buidhe  00:54, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

– Per WP:NCVGDAB, the series should occupy the primary spot. ZXCVBNM (TALK) 16:49, 13 January 2021 (UTC) —Relisting. Natg 19 (talk) 10:03, 23 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Pool of Radiance → Pool of Radiance (video game)
 * Pool of Radiance (series) → Pool of Radiance
 * Comment - Honestly, I'm not sure that "Pool of Radiance" is even the name of the series of games; do we have a WP:RS to back that up? I have doubts that the series of games that the original Pool of Radiance spawned is well known by that same name. This is not the same as the Neverwinter Nights and Baldur's Gate series of games, where the sequels had Roman numerals and it is easy to clearly identify that the games are part of the same series by their names. BOZ (talk) 21:03, 13 January 2021 (UTC)
 * You may have a point. I will withdraw this if consensus is to merge the series article into Gold Box, or some other name is thought of.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 14:55, 14 January 2021 (UTC)
 * That's fair. I don't have any particular feelings about the series page at all, other than being skeptical about its name when the article was first created; merging into Gold Box would make sense if that is what other people would want to do. BOZ (talk) 22:39, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Reviews
207.229.139.154 (talk) 16:49, 16 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Jeux & Stratégie #55

title: Talk:Pool of Radiance


text:
Open-field system

The open-field system was the prevalent agricultural system in much of Europe during the Middle Ages and lasted into the 20th century in Russia, Iran, and Turkey. Each manor or village had two or three large fields, usually several hundred acres each, which were divided into many narrow strips of land. The strips or selions were cultivated by peasants, often called tenants or serfs. The holdings of a manor also included woodland and pasture areas for common usage and fields belonging to the lord of the manor and the religious authorities, usually Roman Catholics in medieval Western Europe. The farmers customarily lived in separate houses in a nucleated village with a much larger manor house and church nearby. The open-field system necessitated co-operation among the residents of the manor.

The Lord of the Manor, his officials, and a manorial court administered the manor and exercised jurisdiction over the peasantry. The Lord levied rents and required the peasantry to work on his personal lands, called a demesne.

In medieval times, little land was owned outright. Instead, generally the lord had rights given to him by the king, and the tenant rented land from the lord. Lords demanded rents and labour from the tenants, but the tenants had firm user rights to cropland and common land and those rights were passed down from generation to generation. A medieval lord could not evict a tenant nor hire labour to replace him without legal cause. Most tenants likewise were not free without penalty to depart the manor for other locations or occupations. The rise of capitalism and the concept of land as a commodity to be bought and sold led to the gradual demise of the open-field system. The open-field system was gradually replaced over several centuries by private ownership of land, especially after the 15th century in the process known as enclosure in England. France, Germany, and other northern European countries had systems similar to England, although open fields generally endured longer on the continent. Some elements of the open-field system were practised by early settlers in the New England region of the United States.

Description
The most visible characteristic of the open-field system was that the arable land belonging to a manor was divided into many long narrow furlongs for cultivation. The fields of cultivated land were unfenced, hence the name open-field system. Each tenant of the manor cultivated several strips of land scattered around the manor.

The village of Elton, Cambridgeshire, is representative of a medieval open-field manor in England. The manor, whose Lord was an abbot from a nearby monastery, had 13 "hides" of arable land of six virgates each. The acreage of a hide and virgate varied; but at Elton, a hide was 144 acre and a virgate was 24 acre. Thus, the total of arable land amounted to 1872 acre. The abbot's demesne land consisted of three hides plus 16 acre of meadow and 3 acre of pasture. The remainder of the land was cultivated by 113 tenants who lived in a village on the manor. Counting spouses, children, and other dependents, plus landless people, the total population resident in the manor village was probably 500 to 600.

The abbot also owned two water mills for grinding grain, a fulling mill for finishing cloth, and a millpond on the manor. The village contained a church, a manor house, a village green, and the sub-manor of John of Elton, a rich farmer who cultivated one hide of land and had tenants of his own. The tenants' houses lined a road rather than being grouped in a cluster. Some of the village houses were fairly large, 50 ft long by 14 ft wide. Others were only 20 ft long and 10 ft wide. All were insubstantial and required frequent reconstruction. Most of the tenants' houses had outbuildings and an animal pen with a larger area, called a croft, of about one-half acre (0.2 ha), enclosed for a garden and grazing for animals.

The tenants on the manor did not have equal holdings of land. About one-half of adults living on a manor had no land at all and had to work for larger landholders for their livelihood. A survey of 104 13th-century manors in England found that, among the landholding tenants, 45 percent had less than 3 acre. To survive, they also had to work for larger landowners. 22 percent of tenants had a virgate of land (which varied in size between 24 acre and 32 acre and 31 percent had one-half virgate. To rely on the land for a livelihood a tenant family needed at least 10 acre.

The land of a typical manor in England and other countries was subdivided into two or three large fields. Non-arable land was allocated to common pasture land or waste, where the villagers would graze their livestock throughout the year, woodland for pigs and timber, and also some private fenced land (paddocks, orchards and gardens), called closes. The ploughed fields and the meadows were used for livestock grazing when fallowed or after the grain was harvested.

One of the two or three fields was fallowed each year to recover soil fertility. The fields were divided into parcels called furlongs. The furlong was further subdivided into long, thin strips of land called selions or ridges. Selions were distributed among the farmers of the village, the manor, and the church. A family might possess about 70 selions totalling about 20 acre scattered around the fields. The scattered nature of family holdings ensured that families each received a ration of both good and poor land and minimised risk. If some selions were unproductive, others might be productive. Ploughing techniques created a landscape of ridge and furrow, with furrows between ridges dividing holdings and aiding drainage.

The right of pasture on fallowed fields, land unsuitable for cultivation, and harvested fields was held in common with rules to prevent overgrazing enforced by the community.

Crops and production
The typical planting scheme in a three-field system was that barley, oats, or legumes would be planted in one field in spring, wheat or rye in the second field in the fall and the third field would be left fallow. The following year, the planting in the fields would be rotated. Pasturage was held in common. The tenants pastured their livestock on the fallow field and on the planted fields after harvest. An elaborate set of laws and controls, partly set by the Lord of the Manor and partly by the tenants themselves regulated planting, harvest, and pasturing.

Wheat and barley were the most important crops with roughly equal amounts planted on the average in England. Annual wheat production at Battle Abbey in Sussex in the late 14th century ranged from 2.26 to 5.22 seeds harvested for every seed planted, averaging 4.34 seeds harvested for every seed planted. Barley production averaged 4.01 and oats 2.87 seeds harvested for seeds planted. This translates into yields of 7 to 17 bushels per acre harvested. Battle Abbey may have been atypical, with better management and soils than typical of demesnes in open-field areas. Barley was used in making beer – consumed in large quantities – and mixed with other grains to produce bread that was a dietary staple for the poorer farmers. Wheat was often sold as a cash crop. Richer people ate bread made of wheat. At Elton in Cambridgeshire in 1286, perhaps typical of that time in England, the tenants harvested about twice as much barley as wheat with lesser amounts of oats, peas, beans, rye, flax, apples, and vegetables.

The land-holding tenants also had livestock, including sheep, pigs, cattle, horses, oxen, and poultry. Pork was the principal meat eaten; sheep were primarily raised for their wool, a cash crop. Only a few rich landholders had enough horses and oxen to make up a ploughing-team of six to eight oxen or horses, so sharing among neighbours was essential.

History
Much of the land in the open-field system during medieval times had been cultivated for hundreds of years earlier on Roman estates or by farmers belonging to one of the ethnic groups of Europe. There are hints of a proto-open-field system going back to AD 98 among the Germanic tribes. Germanic and Anglo-Saxon invaders and settlers possibly brought the open-field system to France and England after the 5th century AD. The open-field system appears to have developed to maturity between AD 850 and 1150 in England, although documentation is scarce prior to the Domesday Book of 1086.

The open-field system was never practiced in all regions and countries in Europe. It was most common in heavily populated and productive agricultural regions. In England, the south-east, notably parts of Essex and Kent, retained a pre-Roman system of farming in small, square, enclosed fields. In much of eastern and western England, fields were similarly either never open or were enclosed earlier. The primary area of open fields was in the lowland areas of England in a broad swathe from Yorkshire and Lincolnshire diagonally across England to the south, taking in parts of Norfolk and Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, large areas of the Midlands, and most of south central England. This area was the main grain-growing region (as opposed to pastoral farming) in medieval times.

The population in Europe grew in the early centuries of the open-field system, doubling in Britain between 1086 and 1300, which required increased agricultural production and more intensive cultivation of farmland. The open-field system was generally not practised in marginal agricultural areas or in hilly and mountainous regions. Open fields were well suited to the dense clay soils common in northwestern Europe. Heavy ploughs were needed to cut through the soil and the ox or horse teams which pulled the ploughs were expensive, and thus both animals and ploughs were often shared by necessity among farm families.

The Black Death of 1348–1350 killed 30–60% of Europe's population. As a consequence the surviving population had access to larger tracts of empty farmland and wages increased due to a shortage of labour. Richer farmers began to acquire land and remove it from communal usage. An economic recession and low grain prices in fifteenth century England gave a competitive advantage to the production of wool, meat, and milk. The shift away from grain to livestock accelerated enclosure of fields. The steadily increasing number of formerly open fields converted to enclosed (fenced) fields caused social and economic stress among small farmers who lost their access to communal grazing lands. Many tenants were forced off the lands their families may have cultivated for centuries to work for wages in towns and cities. The number of large and middle-sized estates grew in number while small land-holders decreased in number. In the 16th and early 17th centuries, the practice of enclosure (particularly depopulating enclosure) was denounced by the Church and the government, and legislation was drawn up against it. The dispossession of tenants from their land created an "epidemic of vagrancy" in England in the late 16th and early 17th century. The tide of elite opinion began to turn towards support for enclosure, and the rate of enclosure increased in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Controversies and inefficiencies
The open-field system is considered by many economists to have been inefficient for agricultural production and resistant to technological innovation. "Everyone was forced to conform to village norms of cropping, harvesting, and building." The communal institutions, the manorial court, and the tenants regulated agricultural practices and economic behaviour. The manorial lord exercised control over the tenants by extracting rent for land or labour to cultivate his demesne lands. The scattered holdings of each farmer increased the time needed to travel to and from fields.

The open-field system, especially its characteristic of common grazing lands, has often been used as an example by economists to illustrate "the tragedy of the commons" and assert that private ownership is a better steward of resources than common or public ownership. "Tragedy of the commons" refers to the alleged destruction of common pastures in England as a result of overgrazing, each tenant maximizing his gain by grazing as many animals as possible and ignoring the long-term impact of overgrazing. The author of the term "tragedy of the commons", Garrett Hardin, pointed out that the pastures of England were "protected from ruin by limiting each tenant to a fixed number of animals". Thus, Hardin says the commons were "managed...which may be good or bad depending on the quality of the management".

The fact that the open-field system endured for roughly a thousand years over a large part of Europe and provided a livelihood to a growing population indicates that there might not have been a better way of organizing agriculture during that time period. However, some argue that the pastures of England were actually highly managed; they were considered to be privately owned by the village as a whole, which led to a communal sense of responsibility to maintaining the land. Managerial practices such as stinting, or limiting the amount of cattle permitted, required weed removal, removal of straw, cutting thistles, ringing swine, and knobbing cow's horns to prevent grubbing were common. The commons were regularly inspected by the villagers and sometimes by a delegation from the manorial court. It is even argued that the commons that Hardin was referring to in "The Tragedy of the Commons" were actually pre-enclosure commons, which were not true commons, but rather left over lands that were misused by the poor, displaced, and criminals.

The replacement of the open-field system by privately owned property was fiercely resisted by many elements of society. Karl Marx was extremely opposed to the enclosure of the open field system, calling it a "robbery of the common lands" The "brave new world" of a harsher, more competitive and capitalistic society from the 16th century onward destroyed the securities and certainties of land tenure in the open-field system. The open field system died only slowly. More than half the agricultural land of England was still not enclosed in 1700, after which the government discouraged the continuation of the open-field system. It was finally laid to rest in England about 1850 after more than 5,000 Acts of Parliament and just as many voluntary agreements over several centuries had transformed the "scattered plots in the open fields" into unambiguous private and enclosed properties free of village and communal control and use. Over half of all agricultural land in England was enclosed during the 18th and 19th centuries. Other European countries also began to pass legislation to eliminate the scattering of farm land, the Netherlands and France passing laws making land consolidation compulsory in the 1930s and 1950s respectively. In Russia, the open-field system, called "cherespolositsa" ("alternating ribbons (of land)") and administered by the obschina / mir (the general village community), remained as the main system of peasant land ownership in Russia until the Stolypin reform process that started in 1905, but generally continued for many years, finally ending only with the Soviet policy of collectivisation in the 1930s.

Modern usage
One place in England where the open-field system continues to be used is the village of Laxton, Nottinghamshire. It is thought that its anomalous survival is due to the inability of two early 19th-century landowners to agree on how the land was to be enclosed, thus resulting in the perpetuation of the existing system.

The only other surviving medieval open strip field system in England is in Braunton, North Devon. It is still farmed with due regard to its ancient origins and is conserved by those who recognise its importance although the number of owners has fallen dramatically throughout the years and this has resulted in the amalgamation of some of the strips.

There is also a surviving medieval open strip field system in Wales in the township of Laugharne, which is also the last town in the UK with an intact medieval charter.

Vestiges of an open-field system also persist in the Isle of Axholme, North Lincolnshire, around the villages of Haxey, Epworth and Belton, where long strips, of an average size of half an acre, curve to follow the gently sloping ground and are used for growing vegetables or cereal crops. The boundaries are mostly unmarked, although where several strips have been amalgamated a deep furrow is sometimes used to divide them. The ancient village game of Haxey Hood is played in this open landscape.

Allotment gardens
A similar system to open fields survives in the United Kingdom as allotment gardens. In many towns and cities there are areas of land of one or two acres (up to about one hectare) interspersed between the buildings. These areas are usually owned by local authorities, or by allotment associations. Small patches of the land are allocated at a low rent to people for growing food.

title: Open-field system