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[Urist Tilaturist]

Why are humans banned from steel making when the Romans made steel over 1000 years before the game's 1400 technology cutoff?

[Echostatic]

Why are humans banned from steel making when the Romans made steel over 1000 years before the game's 1400 technology cutoff?

Why, because this isn't earth, of course!

And they aren't banned from making it, they simply don't know how.

[Urist Tilaturist]

So, in a world where dwarves easily churn out steel all the time, "humans" (becoming less and less human all the time, we are very good at stealing ideas) are incapable of just learning to copy them. Even after hundreds of years.

It really is a world even dumber than ours. Quite some achievement.

[vjmdhzgr]

Why are humans banned from steel making when the Romans made steel over 1000 years before the game's 1400 technology cutoff?

Because dwarves are the great metalworkers not humans. Also the steel making processes back then were very difficult. As for the next post, that's because technology never advances in fantasy settings. Ever. I don't know why it's just a rule that even if fantasy settings go on for thousands of years they'll keep the same technologies. Also implementing it into dwarf fortress would be very very difficult.

[Urist Tilaturist]

We are not as good at metalworking as dwarves. No human could make Planepacked.

Steel making was hard, but many civilisations across Eurasia, from Syria to Scandinavia, did it by 1400. The scale was not massive, but steelmaking was still important for making swords.

Personally I would prefer for Dwarf Fortress to urinate, defecate and ejaculate all over the rules of other people's shitty Tolkien rip-offs. Tolkien dreamed of an old England free from industry, but why should an American living decades later think the same? Because he is unable to stop plagiarising Tolkien. I am no fan of copyright lawsuits, but I really, really want to see the Tolkien estate sue D&D and win. Halflings, my arse. They're hobbits, and you know it.

The bitter rant is over now. But I want technology stealing in Dwarf Fortress, even if only by humans hiring dwarves to work for them full time.

[Krewl]

It's easy to mod the raws to give humans the knowledge of creating steel.

It's not a default feature, sure no, but it's not hard to change quite alot of stuff to customize the gaming experience in your liking when you've gotten the hang of it.

[Man In Zero G]

-snip-

Wow.
Ok, first off: Let's remember for the moment the game is exceptionally unfinished. And that the very basic systems for civilizations learning new things has only just been introduced recently (the wildlife domestication system). So yes, the possibility that knowledge will spread between civilizations, and civilizations learning new technology is implied. It really doesn't take a lot of effort to think that one through without flipping out.
Secondly:
Your entire rant is ridiculous. Dwarf Fortress is not "1400 AD Eurasiasim: The Game" and the argument of "People were using X technology by 1400" is old, tired and irrelevant. The "1400 technology cutoff" does not technically exist, that is a much repeated misinterpretation taken from when Toady explained - repeatedly - why steam power and gunpowder were not going in. Dwarves - not humans, not elves, not goblins - dwarves were generally not going to be given technology that wasn't in use in Europe prior to 1400 - with a few exceptions due to the fantasy genre (like magma furnaces). Everyone else is less advanced than the dwarves. There is no point in real Earth history you can actually point at and say "There! That's when Dwarf Fortress is modeled on" - because it doesn't work that way. It's a fictional, fantasy setting, with a fictional, fantasy technology base.
Furthermore "So, in a world where dwarves easily churn out steel all the time, 'humans' (becoming less and less human all the time, we are very good at stealing ideas) are incapable of just learning to copy them.  Even after hundreds of years." is so wrong it hurts. First off - there are cultures living TODAY, in 2015, who have no idea how to make steel. Does that make them less human? You seem to be implying it does. And yet, even at the 1400 date in time you are going on about, a huge portion of the world's population was still essentially stone-aged - and they had contact with more advanced societies. So your argument that "since one civilization has a technology, another should be able to just copy it" doesn't hold up.
Plus you seem to not realize that the free and easy exchange of information we have today and the pace of innovation is a new thing. Any technological advantage a medieval society developed would be a jealously guarded secret, be it an economic or military application. Why would dwarves ever give the secret of steel making to humans if they could keep the secret and sell them the inferior stock - ensuring a profit and ultimately military superiority. Seriously, go look into the history of some early medieval inventions and see for yourself how slowly the ideas spread initially. So... "hundreds of years" is nothing.
Not to mention you clearly have no idea how metallurgy works - at a medieval technological base, you can't reverse-engineer an alloy. They can't just "copy" it. Without someone who already knew how to make it, they'd have no idea where to start. For that matter - they may not even realize it's an alloy - humans in the DF world might think steel is something the dwarves are mining out of the deep, just like that blue stuff the dwarves won't sell them...

And finally:
"Because he is unable to stop plagiarising Tolkien." Dwarf Fortress may have been described at the very beginning as a "Moria simulator" - but that is not what it is, by a long shot. Dwarf Fortress is far from a Tolkien plagiarism. Toady and ThreeToe have been looking to folklore and mythology and their own ideas for years in an effort to make DF unique and not play on every single generic Tolkienesque-fantasy trope. There is literally only the vaguest of similarities  - and those that exist are because Tolkien pulled his inspiration from the same myths and folklore.

[Urist Tilaturist]

Now I have calmed down a bit, I can explain myself better.

DF's humans are 1. civilised (they live in fairly big settlements, not spread out in loose tribal kingdoms) and 2. in regular contact, trading and fighting, with dwarves. Which cultures in 1400 were civilised and not separated by massive distances from civilisations which could make steel, yet could not make it themselves? The obvious example is some of the West African kingdoms, but they were separated by a massive desert from their more advanced neighbours further north. DF humans and dwarves often live only a few days' walk apart.

I know that one cannot reverse engineer an alloy. What one can do is 1. have some dwarves migrate into the settlement and make steel (the easiest and most likely way), 2. get a dwarf to teach you how to make steel, by his goodwill, bribery, or even coercion, 3. send a spy into a dwarf fortress, observe what is going on, and report back. I do not think that humans absolutely have to make steel under all circumstances, just that their absolutely not being able to over a 1000 year timescale in extremely close contact with those who can seems just a little unlikely. Early mediaeval inventions spread incredibly slowly, but DF worlds are (unless I am very wrong) much smaller than ours, so the spread would be a bit faster. Cattle domestication took thousands of years to spread through Africa, but DF worlds are a little smaller than Africa from my observations. And the whole world need not know. It just needs to be possible. How would a dwarf give the secret of steel making to humans? Most likely, by living in one of their settlements while making steel as he used to. Civilisations are not monolithic blocks of people all with the same ideas. The king may want to keep it secret, but the smith may just want good pay and an adventure away from the dust and of home.

The point about Tolkien was a horrible misunderstanding because of my vague wording. I was not accusing Toady of plagiarising. I was accusing artists in general who copy Tolkein's ideas without really changing them and does not credit him. Toady was not in this category; I was more thinking of D&D and those dreadful Eragon books from a few years ago.

The anger was not about steel at all. It was about the idea that fantasy had rules that people were supposed to follow. It is fantasy, the point is that rules can be broken. I am sorry for that incoherent nonsense.

[Man In Zero G]

Fair enough.
Never type angry, people can't understand you!

[duleshna]

For me DF steel has always been a sort of replacement for Tolkien mithril. It's just fitting for dorfs to have some kind of "super metal" exclusive to them. I do realize that this is just my personal fantasy preference and your claim for human steel making is very valid in my mind. It all comes down to how we all see dwarves as a race, really.

Just edit the raws to suit your own needs.

[Urist Tilaturist]

Mithril? The role of "weird super fantasy material" is already filled by adamantine. Steel is steel.

Did you know about adamantine before, or have I spoiled your game?

[Putnam]

It's impossible not to know of adamantine, since it shows up in every single stockpile and material list related to metals in the game regardless of whether you've discovered it. It's not a spoiler whatsoever.

[utunnels]

It was about the idea that fantasy had rules that people were supposed to follow. It is fantasy, the point is that rules can be broken.

I understand your point.

But keep in mind, DF world is relatively unchanging, that is no matter how long the history is, 100, 1000 or 10000 years, they still use cold weapons and humans still have no idea how to make steel. The features just have not been implemented.

So maybe humans can learn how to make steel, in time, but the game is set in a period before they do.

[duleshna]

Mithril? The role of "weird super fantasy material" is already filled by adamantine. Steel is steel.

Did you know about adamantine before, or have I spoiled your game?

No, not at all. For me adamantine is somewhat of an über metal. I rarely even bother with it, if not all. Steel works just fine in my games. The point I was trying to convey was that I feel like dwafves as a race should have some recipes linked to their race. Going back to Tolkien, elves for example have lembas, dwarves mithril and men... well men are men. They don't really have anything special, they just make the best with what they have. I have never really seen men tied to anything specific. Men are able to adjust while other races are not (not as well at least).

But like I said earlier. It's your game and you can play it the way you want.

[mndfreeze]

I sure would love the official game to make the other races playable by default and as worthwhile and hashed out as the dwarves are.  IMO that would add so many levels of depth and content to the game in fortress and adventure mode, far more then adding taverns and inns for example.

It seems currently all the other races are pretty limited even if you make changes to the raws to make them playable, and they dont really have much going for them thats unique to them other then a few weapons and armor sizes.  Even if you make further in depth changes to let them have workshops and such they still dont come close to the possibilities dwarves have.  I understand of course they were written this way because dwarves are the playable race by game design and I assume things like not being able to make steel is a way of making sure the other races dont overpower dwarves in world gen or players in a live world, at least EASILY overpower them. 

But it sure would be awesome if they all had their own unique play style and all were equally in depth in complexity.  With each race having some abilities or buildings that are unique to them and others cant make or use, that give an advantage in certain scenarios.  Dwarves have steel, perhaps elves could use that 'grown' woodcraft to make weapons and armor that are actually equal to steel in power/strength, Ironwood for an example as many fantasy settings use.