Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

Greetings,

This mod adjusts the encumbrance and protection values of some bronze armors to slightly improve the AP and defense, or protection, of those units which use them. This started out as part of mod I am making for EA Arco, but since it impacts more than just one nation, I split it off.

This is a very minor mod, but makes a fairly significant difference for some units. You can find my rationale and a list of changes in either of the attached README files (one with Unix newlines, one with Windows newlines). Synopsis below:
Constructive feedback and thought-provoking analyses appreciated. :)

Thanks.

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

so you wanted to boost Arco.. ok.. but is it historically accurate.. are the bonusses you give the armor deserved?

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

I based the changes on some research I did regarding bronze and iron. The main thrust was to reduce encumbrance in some cases. I would say that the protection boosts are almost negligible, but probably deserved from a realism perspective.

Yes, improved game play was the impetus for the changes, but they were informed by realism.

Edit: More information about mod included in original post.

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

I like the name.

I like most changes, especially the Hoplite Helmet lowered encumberance.. Is Bronze Scale Armor now identical to Scale Mail Armor under your mod? Even a noticeable difference in resource cost would be enough to differentiate it slightly.

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

Thanks, Endo.

I waffled a little on what to do with the bronze scale armors. I felt that they deserved to have at least the same protection as their iron counterparts - in the spirit of the other changes. But, I felt guilty about leaving their rcosts lower, and so I upped them too.
To be honest, I don't have a good feel for how iron armor rcosts should relate to bronze armor rcosts. (From the Arco standpoint, I would love to see bronze rcosts consistently be less, but I'm trying to be balanced. :)) Some of things that may or may not determine rcost would be casting versus forging (time and effort expended) and the fact that at least two different metals need to be supplied to make bronze. Any guidance on rcost tweaks would be appreciated.

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

Id make iron 1 prot and 1 rec higher personally.

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

As long as we are talking realism, lets talk mineral availability. Copper is actually one of the more rare minerals out there that is in heavy use. At least it is these days(I've heard some claims that in what has commonly been deemed 'the bronze age' surface copper deposits were much more plentiful than they are today, but were used up in that age). As such I would actually make the resource cost of bronze armors higher than equivalent protecting iron armors, due to the increased prospecting costs. Why did copper and bronze get used earlier than iron then? because it has a lower melting point, so before people came up with ways to make fires hotter(such as a bellows and enclosed furnaces) it was pretty impossible to separate the iron from its ore. Once these things were invented however, iron was more plentiful, cheaper to produce, and could produce a variety of useful alloys, thus the end of the bronze age. Anyway, there's my realism reasoning behind a suggestion that you actually INCREASE the resource cost of bronze armors.

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

Okay, Bronze beats Iron, but arn't the normal armors supposed to be out of steel? (Sure, the diffrence is small, but important.)

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

Not in the Early age, at least. Steel was expensive. I know it was used for weapons, but producing enough high-quality steel to make armor would be quite expensive.

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

Surely iron must be basically better than bronze? Either in weight or in strength? Otherwise why did we go from the bronze age to the iron age?

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

What whiplash says about mineral availability is quite true (and is one of the notes I put in the README). Historically, most bronze-making involved trade to get tin or copper, as they were often not available in the same region. One has no such problem with unalloyed iron, of course.

Llama, iron is indeed not as dense as bronze, and hence lighter, but not by a huge factor. I felt that some of the encumbrance penalties on bronze armors were exaggerated from a realism standpoint. Making those penalties more reasonable has the effect of making mobility on some units more reasonable, IMO. In vanilla, a Myrmidon has only 5 AP. With the mod, he has 7 AP - still less than indie heavy infantry, but enough to get an extra square of movement per round, which makes a tangible difference.

Steel, an iron alloy, is harder than bronze, and it may be that some of the armors I adjusted their bronze counterparts against are intended to be steel, as Maraxus suggests. Endo makes a good point about steel possibly being anachronistic for the EA. I do note that EA Ulm is called the "Enigma of Steel" though, but perhaps that is a figurative rather than literal title.

Maraxus, I did think about whether we might be comparing bronze to steel rather than iron. The armor pairings I came up with were as follows:

• Iron Cap - Bronze Cap
• Plate Cuirass - Bronze Cuirass
• Plate Hauberk - Bronze Hauberk
• Scale Mail Cuirass - Bronze Scale Cuirass
• Scale Mail Hauberk - Bronze Scale Hauberk

I guess that one could argue that Half Helmet (or somesuch) actually matches the plate armors and scale mails, rather than the Iron Cap, which would then be a stray without an accompanying family of armor. But, basically I started by comparing cap to cap, and then built armor families around each.

I'm guessing that some of the difficulty of this thread stems from the traditional bronze -> iron -> steel progression found in games. Yeah, steel pretty much kicks gluteals, but there are actually trade-offs between iron and bronze. From what I have read, the historical transition between bronze and iron seems to have had less to do with hardness and more to do with availability and metal-working technology.

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

That sounds like a good answer to me, analytic - thanks. I had always assumed that bronze was a bit rubbish, like copper (only not as rubbish as copper of course).

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

Do your thesis work!

-cleave-

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

Agreed on the copper; I guess if you are just entering the Chalcolithic or Eneolithic, then it probably looks quite appealing. But, if I start claiming that copper is really misunderstood and is actually the next big thing, then feel free to nail me for trolling.

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

:D :D

Okay! I'm starting now.

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

no I'm sure you'll read this too. Listen to Sombre!

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

Aaah!

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

I think the suggestion to modify the properties of bronze armor would match the game. My understanidng or bronze is as follows.

Bronze is made from copper and tin with some arsenic thrown in. In fact copper was alloyed with arsenic before tin. I believe this was because arsenic appeared naturally in/near the early copper exploitation. Tin almost is almost invaribly found separately from and usually a good distance from copper.

Bronze also enjoys the advantage of being able to be cast, and your forge doenst need to be as hot. In Dominions 3 terms I would think Bronze would be more expensive than iron because of the need fot imports, but would cost fewer resources due to the casting process.

I know less about iron. Involves hotter forges and much hammering, but since your working with only one element no expensive importing. As iron is repeatedly reheated (hotter is better) and hammered you start getting to steel, as in pattern welding.

In game terms I'd give the following modifiers to Bronze over the corresponding Iron items.
+1AP +1enc Costs more gold but fewer resources.

For small things like a cap there'd be no difference between iron and broanze performance wise. The word cap brings to mind "cheap" and "incomplete coverage" as well as "light" and "cheaply mass produced" so I'd say

I'd say something like a corthian style helmet would be more equated to a great helm.

Just my two cents.

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

My ownly contribution to the debate will likely be controversial.

Rather than decrease the encumbrance, I suggest you unset the metal flag.

Not perfect, but it would allow such spells as ironbane, and rusting mist etc, *not* to affect the unit.

I believe that would be more appropriate.

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

Early bronze was arsenic bronze. However, alloying copper with tin produces harder armor, and I think it was this alloy which was used for armoring after it was developed.

Well, you can cast iron too; that's what "cast iron" is.

In the readme with this mod, there is a brief musing about whether resource gathering costs should be considered as part of the rcost or not. If one wants to consider them, then that could lead down a slippery slope about whether the cost of making the chain for chain mail is being properly accounted for... :)

For me, the question is whether forging iron or casting bronze is cheaper, and whether this should be reflected in any rcost changes for bronze armors. Game play considerations also enter the picture, and one can probably rationalize adjustments in whatever manner necessary to satisfy them. :) (I.e., one can find a way to justify penalizing something if it starts to seem too good.)

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

Very interesting thought, Chris. I had not considered this.
To be honest, I didn't even know there was a #metal (sp?) flag. I don't see it in the modding manual, but it would make sense to have - for the reason you give.

Thanks for the neat idea.

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

I don't think it's moddable. It would be a great idea, though.

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

Well its there in edi's db. And you're right, you can't directly attack the problem - but you can get around it.

If you manually create a new armor called bronze plate etc - set the encumbrance et. al- presumably you wouldn't get the metal flag set. It is quite the pain, because then you have to manually equip your troops with the new armor.

On the flip side - it could be an advantage as well - only give the troops the new armor...

Edit: You know I wonder if any armor that has a value > x has that flag set?

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

To add to Scarlioni/analytic_kernel:

Arsenic is certainly found near tin - I couldn't say if it's found near copper. It is IIRC easier to refine from ores than tin, which might help explain why it was used first.

Also, IIRC bronze is harder to recycle than iron. I have heard that recasting bronze has a bad effect on its quality, making it harder and more brittle - not a terribly good thing for armaments. Damaged iron items may be readily reforged though.

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

I know cast iron is incredibly heavy, even compared to other irons, does cast bronze have a similar comparative increase in weight?

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

Chris, I'm guessing that metallicity is probably just flagged by a bit. I guess we could request a new modding command to twiddle that bit, if someone hasn't already done so.

Greg, interesting about the recycling aspect. Probably the oxides formed on the surface of the bronze add impurities. But, I'm no metallurgist.... I do remember reading that recasting was sometimes needed to repair bronze in cases where an iron implement could simply be brought back to a forge and hammered out.

Whiplash, I don't how much greater the density of cast iron is over wrought iron. I suppose the crystalline structure could be different due to the different process (and small amounts of other elements), but that's speculation. However, my understanding is that cast iron is inferior to wrought iron when it comes to armoring. So, we are probably comparing bronze to wrought iron. The densities for those are about 8.5 to 8.7 g/cc and 7.9 g/cc, respectively.

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

It seems that there was a convergence between the declining availability and quality of copper/bronze, and the gradually increasing knowledge of iron working, that led to the change. It is just conjecture, but from what I'm finding, it sounds like bronze would not have been supplanted by iron until later in history, had supplies of higher quality ore been stable - this is highlighted by the fact that Egypt continued to use bronze almost exclusively for centuries after iron became more prevalent in other regions of the world.

I think with a little effort, some hard numbers could be found as far as the relative mass/volume between late bronze and early iron, as well as tensile strength etc between the commonly found alloys.

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

The other reason Egypt might have carried on using bronze is that it was a bit of a technological backwater over most of its history. Ironworking was a high-tech military secret for a surprisingly long while.

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

This is consistent with the mineral availability argument. The gradual change is interesting, though not entirely surprising. However, in some cases, cataclysmic events may have precipitated the change by disrupting trade. Both the fall of the Hittite Empire and the dark period before the emergence of Doric Greece are roughly contemporaneous with the beginning of the Iron Age.

As far as good numbers go, Jim, I think the bronze density is pretty accurate - it reflects a composition of about 12% tin. The number I gave for iron is for pure iron, I think, and not cast iron or meteoritic iron. I don't how many impurities from ores may have been left in the iron from the smelting processes of the Early Iron Age, but if we are willing to assume relatively few, then the density for pure iron may also be quite reasonable.

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

Well that's the thing, from what research I did, it is believed that the quality and composition of both bronze as well as iron was very unreliable early in their use. At the onset of the iron age, however, even though knowledge of bronze had reached a point that very high quality metal could be reliably smelted, the lesser quality ores required smelting temperatures nearing what was needed for iron to begin with. However, the actual justification for the transition is slim at this point, because understanding of the iron ore was very low, and smelting iron was wholly unreliable. Levels of adulteration in the metal varied wildly, and there were no effective methods of dealing with poor ore - it would be smelted, and cast, and then beat with a hammer - if it shattered, you just started over again from scratch. This says to me that yes, only once the ease of procurement shifted dramatically in favor of iron, did it become favorable to focus primarily on its forging.

That is to say, as much as decent quality early iron age iron was better than decent quality early iron age bronze, it was not enough of a difference to justify the change - it required further economic pressure, and supply chain problems.

So what I wondered at this point, was how the bronze of the time, measured up to the typical iron of the time, in application. Also, it makes me wonder if perhaps as far as cost goes, in the game, that it would make sense for bronze to have a slightly higher gold cost (to illustrate the importation of raw materials) while iron would have a slightly higher resource cost (to simulate the fact that not all iron is even usable once smelted). Beyond that, I'd guess that in game it would be fair to give iron +10% prot over bronze, generally speaking, while really I doubt actual encumbrance would shift until maybe steel would get a reduction of 1 (ironically, "steel" could not be created in large quantities for mass production until the 19th century.....).

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

I don't know what you mean by 'mass production of steel couldn't be done till the 19th centuries'

But damascene blades, as well as japanese ones were famous as far back as the 1300's as I recall. And they were certainly made in large enough quantitites to support military action.

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

The making of steel was known long before then, yes, and well made steel was highly sought after for weaponry. However, it could not economically be made in large (or 'mass') quantities at that time - certainly not enough to outfit entire armies in high quality steel armor. When steel was employed for armor for the rank and file, it would be of an inferior quality (though some nobles, and elite knights, who tended to be nobles, could afford it).

For example, steel was still in such low supply at the advent of the railroad, that the inferior metals used in the rails would wear out every 3-6 weeks in the busiest junctions.

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

Sorry, Jim, I'm reading two different things from you. Are you claiming that we should be comparing early bronze to early iron (first quote), or that we should be comparing late bronze to early iron (second and third quotes)? I have been working under the assumption that we are doing the latter and not the former. but Dom 3 has enough anachronism that I could be making a wrong assumption.

Well, I would love to be able to tweak the gold cost of armor, but the modding manual gives no indication that we can. One would have to pass on the cost directly to the units equipping it - extra bookkeeping - yuck.

I'm having trouble agreeing with this. Unless I'm misreading the source you provided earlier, the smelting process to use poorer ores was more involved, but I don't see any direct indication that the quality of the resulting bronze decreased significantly. Yes, the iron content may have been higher, but which way does that affect the bronze hardness and by how much?

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

Armors can have gold costs attributed to it? I thought it only raises resource costs.

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

Unfortunately, it seems that at a certain point, it really becomes age specific. As a general rule, EA should be early-mid bronze age, MA should be late bronze - early iron, and LA would be late iron age. Of course this opens up all kinds of cans of worms relating to the perpetuity of many units between 2 or even 3 ages, but is the degree of detail that would be required to show the range of difference in actual perfomance from early bronze, to late iron - with a high degree of similarity in armor value where the 2 overlap in the middle.


For some reason I assumed that it was so, but if it isn't, then yes, providing that level of realism would require tweaking of the recruitment costs of massive numbers of units. :(


Well perhaps not significantly. But it seems to me that the reliability of acquiring good bronze, when it was available, likely declined somewhat, which made sponge iron, and other somewhat poorly performing forms of iron worth using.

I guess it's just that from what I'm finding, good early iron age materials were better than bronze, but that most early iron was not "good", and likely actually inferior to the best bronze available. So whatever the reason, "good" bronze became scarce enough, that people were often willing to settle for "poor" iron, even before "good" iron was commonly available.

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

Hmmm... My observation is that there is a lot of iron armor in EA. When I went through Edi's DB looking for monsters which equip bronze armors, they seemed to be a minority even within EA. Hence, my temptation to place EA at late bronze and early iron.

If we follow your notion that early bronze factors into EA, and that the entire spectrum of both bronze and iron ages need to be considered, then Dom 3 really doesn't provide enough different armors (or perhaps even a wide enough mundane armor protection scale: 0 to 20) to model this.

The periods classifications which I had assumed were:

1. EA: Late Bronze - Early Iron
2. MA: Middle Iron (mostly iron and some early steel)
3. LA: Late Iron (iron and decent steel)

These seem to fit the historical models from which the nations and units come - at least in my mind.


I don't think anyone in this thread disputes that. But, I have read nothing to indicate that poorer bronze started being used alongside or against the poor iron. Hence the contention that bronze in EA may well be superior to iron in EA.

That is an interesting thought and could well be the case. And, I think you then agree that it is fair to compare good bronze to poor iron within the same period.

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

At this point, I'm mostly in agreement with you. Really after all of the digging, and the mulling, it started to feel like (considering 3 distinct and disparate ages) that too high a level of realism isn't achievable without huge overhauls in the recruitables, including creating many new types of armor, tweaking gold costs, blah blah, tons of stuff way beyond the intended scope of the mod.

So to sum up - It really seems like ultimately the actual Encumbrance difference between Bronze and Iron is minimal, and too small to simulate in Dominions terms (Bronze won't be 33% or 50% more Encumbering), and because of the small numbers, probably wouldn't be noticeable until Steel armors, if at all. Likewise, differences in Protective ability were not overly profound, other than if we say that all Bronze is cost, and all Iron is wrought (for sake of game), in which case the wrought items have greater density, and then of course there is a very noticeable jump again, to Steel.

Then it's just a matter of looking at the various armors, and trying to determine "does the actual design of a Hoplite Breastplate differ significantly enough in design properties from an Iron Breastplate to justify a change in values". I guess at a certain point, you allow some things to have higher or lower numbers just because they have a different name, and the intent is to have different capabilities of the units.

Grrr, I'm glad I joined into this conversation, but I am also sad. ;) I'd imagine you feel the same way, by now. :re:

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

One thing strikes me:

As bronze items have to be cast and can't be meaningfully adjusted after the casting process, they aren't likely to fit the wearer as well as iron armour. This would presumably affect their encumbrance value.

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

Would only affect the bronze cuirass, all other kinds of bronze armor in game are explicitly made as scale or mail armour.

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

AFAIK, the prot ranges for mundane armors could be expanded, but then all of the magic armor prots would also have to be bumped up and weapon damages would have to be changed as well. A Dom 3 rescaling project might be neat - but, yeah, definitely beyond the scope of this mod.

Actually, I have no problem with two functionally equivalent things having the same name. I think it is kind of stylish, actually. (I did that with the Bronze Scale and iron Scale Mail armors, but another poster seemed uncomfortable with that.) Probably a matter of differing tastes....

Hey, glad you dropped by. You challenged a hidden assumption or two, and that is usually a good thing. :)

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

Greg, I think encumbrance is strictly related to weight. A defence penalty can be given to account for other things, such as ill-fitting armor, restricted neck or torso motion, restricted field of vision, etc....

Redeyes has a point about the scale armors, but I think even cuirasses were adjustable, because of separate front and back plates.

Re: Brazen Benevolence (Bronze Armors)
 

My two sense on the times and ages is thus, and granted this is just my reckoning, as I am only the most amateur of historians:

to my reckoning the myths and such encompassed by the early age come from a wide range of dates, ranging from the early Caananites(1000-700 BC) all the way through the height of the Roman Empire (100-300 AD) during this over 1000 year period most of the bronze age happened as well as a good bit of the iron age. The later ages get harder and easier to judge, while the evolution of such nations as Arcoscephale gets hard to pinpoint time wise, as things like the advent of Islam and the changes that had on culture never really occur, but for the European based nations it seems that the middle age is late roman through the dark ages and into the early middle ages, depending on the nation, (300 AD - 1100 AD), also during which there were a great many evolutions in different places at different times in smelting and the forging of armor and weapons, such as the invention of chain mail, heavy plate mails designed to withstand the blows of lances, new hardened leathers, and so on. The late age roughly corresponds to the late middle and early renaissance, assuming gunpowder was never invented. For example Marignon's sea captains are reminiscent of the early Portugese(spelling?) and Spanish explorers, and Bogarus is reminiscent of late medieval Russia and the trade cities of Novgorod and Muscovy. Overall I would say that the time periods of the ages are so disparate, that we should accept that the Dominions world is a fictional creation and leave off consideration of particular forging developments beyond this mods original intention to re balance between bronze and iron, taking for the early age consideration some point in history when both bronze and iron were in use, and thus I must arrive at a similar conclusion as analytic_kernel and trust his judgment to use the above mentioned historical points as references.