Quote:
Originally Posted by analytic_kernel
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.
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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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by analytic_kernel
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.
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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.
Quote:
Originally Posted by analytic_kernel
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?
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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.