Bay 12 Games Forum

If implementing bodily waste is done in a realistic fashion, bodily waste management would become an unavoidable and necessary consideration in fort design.  I would be very much for this!

Sometimes I think that many of the people who are against this are those that adore contrived, familiar, and meta-gamey game mechanics, and are uncomfortable with the idea that a game could be hard and require actual thinking.

Samesies.  Spiders are oot and aboot.  And they eat other vermin, too.

http://www.maquahuitl.co.uk/

This site is very promising... I don't have time to look through it right now, but there might be some pertinent information regarding the physical characteristics of obsidian and similar materials.

Add some additional <3's to your inventory.  That is what you get for such an awesome suggestion.

<3's for you Dwarfoloid!  I adore your suggestions on this thread and your informative research with actual cited sources!!!

   

I appreciate the spirit of your suggestion, and I agree that metallurgy could use a bit of an overhaul in DF after material properties are sorted out.  However, I disagree with you.

I wish I had more time today, or I would write a better researched and well-written post.  But, basically, soft iron (IF you mean wrought iron) should be the dominant metal for arms and armor if we are wanting to emulate 14th c. European metallurgy.  Either that or bronze if resource distribution is different... but that's another matter entirely.  Swords were a bit of an exception, but a vast majority of metal armor and arms (like spear heads, maces, and stuff) were made of wrought iron, and only some of it was case hardened.  VERY rarely was actual temper-able steel ever made during this time period, and even then it was likely by accident.  I get this information from among other sources the first few chapters of a book called "The Knight and the Blast Furnace" which I wish I owned but was only able to take a glimpse of through some online-library that wanted me to pay to see the rest.

Wrought iron can be work-hardened which played to an advantage in armor, and case hardening, though I don't know if it was common in the 14th c. and earlier, was known and practiced in arms and armor.  As for weapons (and I really need to do more research on this cuz I don't know for 100% certain), I know that at least before the 14th century, there are many examples (and I can't say how many or if this was the most common or what) of sword blades made with a wrought iron core with steel (which was rare!) basically forge welded to the core to form the blade.  This steel was able to be tempered.  There are also examples of blades made from wrought iron that had enough carbon introduced into them through forging that the outer areas could be tempered and retain a durable edge.  Keep in mind that the iron in armor did not have generally have the same properties of the iron (and steely-iron) in the blades of swords since likely (I think) it was not economical to work them in the same way to introduce the steely properties.

Bronze is better than wrought iron for weapons and the like due to its hardness, but I believe it was surpassed in use by iron mainly due to iron's relative abundance (I could be wrong though...). 

What I would suggest doing to make metallurgy more realistic and reflect the 14th c. time-frame (and I believe in this case realism would make for a better game) in DF would be to emulate the following: 

1.  Realistic relative abundances of iron and other metals

2.  Variance of quality of ore (I can deal with this being abstracted out, I guess, but I think it should be implemented) from one vein or region to another: not all iron ores, even of the same type, are created equal!

3.  Better simulation of the bloomery and blast furnace (if we allow Chinese contemporary tech here, which I think we should) processes in how smelters work: i.e. have temp of furnace be affected by use of mechanisms to pump more air in, what kind of smelter it is, other engineering concerns maybe, etc...

4.  Better simulation of the forging process, especially if knowledge spread of techniques (like case hardening, carburization, decarburization, etc.) and technologies is ever implemented.

There are other things, probably, but I am running out of time.  I'm pretty sure the stuff I'm saying has been suggested before in the suggestions forum, but check out these two posts out from the modding forum that have similar concerns about metallurgy in the game:

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=33340.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=47914.msg1182154#msg1182154

Their suggestions rock!

I can't help but think that the philosopher's philosophical movement should be codified as a set of ETHICS tags.
As for dwarven divination, I imagine that, aside from stuff like entrails and palms, they could just sit in the deepest, darkest place they can find beneath the fortress and listen.

Wow.  That's a rather powerful and dwarfy (whatever that means) image, not to mention haunting.  I really like that idea, a philosopher meditating on the silence of the deep mines/caves, perhaps "hearing" messages from beyond that could never be heard without such silence...   oooOOOOoooo spoooooky!

Sure we can, what do you think recycling does? And there is significant wastage when its done. How effectively tools could be recycled in the 15th century is something I'm not very knowledgeable about, though I suspect it was more work in most cases than just getting more metal.

I am not an expert on medieval tools and the like, but I do know that good quality iron was something that was expensive and not the easiest thing to come by.  It is likely weapons were frequently recycled into other implements or other weapons (if I am uderstanding "Arms and Armor of the Medieval Knight" correctly).  Re-sharpening of swords and other blades was an absolute necessity (the frequency of this necessity, I do not know, but it did happen enough during the working-life of a sword that a significant mass of the blade could be lost), and it was not uncommon for weapons to break or become damaged in combat.  Iron and steel had to be frequently oiled and polished to remove/prevent rust.  Maille was frequently repaired after combat with replacement links, and busted rivets in plate armor had to be replaced.

As for an anecdotal example, I have been trying to make historically accurate riveted maille for the past few months.  I've gone through my share of punching-bits (annealed masonry nails filed down to a fine point, reheated and quenched in water to re-harden).  The tips break on occasion, requiring me to re-anneal them, file them down, and re-harden them again.  As the quality of steel used in such tools back in medieval times was for the most part inferior to that found in the masonry nails I use (if not the same quality), they would have gone through such punching bits as frequently as I do (maybe a little less so given superior skill to mine).  It's still speculation on my part, though, as no one knows exactly how they did it back in the day.  But it is pretty much certain a method of punching slits in the rings like I do was part of the process.