Bronze + Steel Bonuses Mod

Basically the premise of this mod is to reflect the fact that weapons, armor, etc, made from bronze are stronger than ones made from iron. It gives a +10% combat bonus (as per Combat I) to units built with bronze, +15% to units built with Iron + Metal Casting, and +20% to units built with Steel.

People with other mods, feel free to merge this into it.

Here's the contents of the readme:

Metal Bonuses, release 2
November 14, 2005
by SL (http://sl.ecwhost.com)

Changes since release 1:
1. Now uses the inheritance model, should be easier to merge with other mods.
2. Gives a +15% combat bonus if you have metal casting, if you have iron and the unit requires it.

To install:
There are multiple ways, and each has advantages and disadvantages:

1. Unzip this somewhere and then copy the files from the "Metal Bonuses" folder into CustomAssets. If any of the files already exist (from another mod, probably), then you'll have to merge them together (I suggest using WinMerge). This method WILL BREAK ALL YOUR EXISTING SAVED GAMES. The reason is that Civ IV quits to desktop if the XML contains more (or different?) promotions than existed when you saved the game (Or something like that).

2. Or, unzip into the Mods folder, so that there is a Mods\Metal Bonuses\ folder. This won't break existing saved games, but you won't be able to use this with them either. You'll also have to load the mod every time you play, and you can only have one mod loaded at a time...

3. Or, unzip this somewhere and then merge the files' contents into the files in another mod's folder (Using WinMerge). This will let you combine this mod with another one; For example, you could merge this with dearmad's Slower Tech + Balances mod, which is how I have this set up locally, or you could merge it into Dracleath's Medieval Weapons Mod, or you could merge it into jaynus' Civ4 Realism Mod... Etc. And if you really like it, you can pester the author of whichever mod you chose to get them to add it to their mod.

A warning again: You can NOT switch your existing saved games so that they use this mod. If you managed to do so (or installed this mod in CustomAssets), Civ IV would refuse to load the saved games. Again, this is because Civ IV exits if there are more (or different?) promotions in the XML than were in it when you saved that saved game.

Also: There's a third new promotion (for metal casting) in release 2, so you use it with saved games that you started with release 1.

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The purpose of this mod is to make units made with bronze stronger than ones made with iron, and to make units made with steel stronger still. The reason is simply that bronze is stronger (for military purposes) than iron, and steel is stronger still. The strength boost with bronze is 10%, and with steel it is 20% (those are not cumulative, a unit which would be given both will only get steel). These are fairly conservative values IMHO, since a small difference over the course of a war could have a large difference total.

The bonuses are handled as unbuyable promotions:
Bronze gives a +10% combat bonus (the same as Combat I does, although it is a separate bonus).
The Metal Casting tech plus Iron gives a +15% bonus.
The Steel tech plus Iron gives a +20% combat bonus.
Only the best bonus available will be applied, and a bonus cannot be applied to a unit which doesn't have that resource as a prerequisite (copper for bronze, iron for metal casting or steel).

These are the rules for when the promotions are given to units. When a unit is built:
If the unit has the iron resource as a prerequisite, and the city has access to iron, and the player has the steel tech, we give the unit the Steel promotion.
If the above was true except that we don't have the steel tech, if we have the metal casting tech then we give the unit the Metal Casting promotion.
If we didn't give it either of those promotions, and the unit has the copper resource as a prerequisite, and the city has access to copper, and the player has the bronze working tech, we give the unit the Bronze promotion.

Note that 'as a prerequisite' in this case means the unit has the resource in question as one of its possible resource requirements, although only one of those resources has to actually be available for the unit to be buildable.

What's in the mod:
1. Three new promotions (which you can't buy normally) in CIV4PromotionInfos.xml, plus their text in CIV4GameTextInfos_Objects.xml. The promotions currently use the icon for the 'Combat I' promotion, since I don't know how to make .dds files and don't know how I would make new promotion pictures which look like the old ones. Also, if some people who speak french, german, italian, and spanish could check the text shown for the Bronze upgrade, that would be nice. I just borrowed the word for bronze from the 'Bronze Working' text, but I don't know if that's how it should still be spelled when it's by itself.
2. CvEventInterface which points at CvCustomEventManager, plus CvCustomEventManager, plus MetalBonuses.py. The actual script is in onUnitBuilt in CvCustomEventManager.

Units can not be given more than one of the preceding promotions (Bronze, Metal Casting, or Steel): If they would be given more than one, only the best one will be given.

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Here's another idea for the future: A new medieval Global Wonder could be added named "Damascus Steel," which would give the Steel upgrade to the units built in that city, even if you don't have the Steel tech yet.

cool idea but then what about the units that use ither bronze or iron?

This is utter nonsense.

Of course, you are right about the basic premise that bronze IS stronger than iron. However, this does NOT mean that bronze should give bonuses to your troops in civ IV. Why? Well, basically because iron is a lot cheaper than bronze, allowing greater numbers of troops to be equipped fairly cheaply. Equipping all the legionaries of the Roman Empire with bronze swords would never have been possible due to the high cost of bronze.

And why in the world would you get bonuses for steel so late in the game? It's not like anyone were building ships out of bronze...

Ghost said:

cool idea but then what about the units that use ither bronze or iron?

Click to expand...

On those units, you get the bronze bonus if you have copper & bronze working, if not, no bonus. (Or if you have steel and a source of iron you get the steel bonus too. Basically you get the best bonus available.)

Ackillez said:

This is utter nonsense.

Of course, you are right about the basic premise that bronze IS stronger than iron. However, this does NOT mean that bronze should give bonuses to your troops in civ IV. Why? Well, basically because iron is a lot cheaper than bronze, allowing greater numbers of troops to be equipped fairly cheaply. Equipping all the legionaries of the Roman Empire with bronze swords would never have been possible due to the high cost of bronze.

Click to expand...

I didn't say that every unit has all-bronze armor and weapons, of course. Even assuming that only the elite soldiers in the army got bronze weapons, and no bronze armor, this would still result in some combat benefit. 10% isn't very high, remember? Also, the game lets you build units with only copper and no iron, without costing more to make them, so you can take your criticism and send it to Firaxis. Some units, anyways. Units which can't be built with copper or don't require it (e.g. swordsmen, warriors) won't get the bronze bonus no matter what.

Ackillez said:

And why in the world would you get bonuses for steel so late in the game? It's not like anyone were building ships out of bronze...

Click to expand...

You can rush to steel while still in the medieval era. Also because not giving it would make bronze look stronger than steel (in that it gives a bonus and steel wouldn't).

Metal casting was the appropriate tech for when iron became as strong or stronger than bronze... WROUGHT iron is weak, CAST iron is strong. Iron casting didn't exist at all in europe until the middle ages. The important thing about casting is that you can adjust the composition while the metal is molten, and also melting it and letting it cool properly itself will increase the strength.


It goes like:

Wrought Iron
Cast Bronze
Cast Iron (with appropriate decarburizing techniques)


Bronze just happens to be much easier than iron to cast.

BUT with increasing hardness you also get increasing brittleness.

True steel isn't as hard as cast iron but is less brittle as well. Maintaining hardness while reducing brittleness has always been one of the main focuses of steelmaking technology.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel



Also note that steel has existed in china and india for thousands of years and it's relatively late adoption in europe was more of an abberation than anything.

Ackillez, also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron said:

By 3000 BC to 2000 BC, increasing numbers of smelted iron objects (distinguishable from meteoric iron by the lack of nickel in the product) appear in Mesopotamia, Anatolia, and Egypt. However, their use appears to be ceremonial, and iron was an expensive metal, more expensive than gold. In the Iliad, weaponry is mostly bronze, but iron ingots are used for trade.

Click to expand...

Dracleath, hmm, I'll read that after I finish reading the article on Iron. Perhaps we should have +10% for bronze, +15% for Metal Casting, and +20% for Steel.

Edit:

http said:

Cast iron is rather brittle and unsuitable for striking implements. It can, however, be decarburized to steel or wrought iron by heating it in air for several days. In China, these ironworking methods spread northward, and by 300 BC, iron was the material of choice throughout China for most tools and weapons. A mass grave in Hebei province, dated to the early third century BC, contains several soldiers buried with their weapons and other equipment. The artifacts recovered from this grave are variously made of wrought iron, cast iron, malleabilized cast iron, and quench-hardened steel, with only a few, probably ornamental, bronze weapons.

Click to expand...

It sounds like if you decarburize it you'll either get wrought iron or steel, and cast iron itself isn't useful...

However:

http said:

Wrought iron can be carburized into a mild steel by holding it in a charcoal fire for prolonged periods of time. By the beginning of the Iron Age, smiths had discovered that iron that was repeatedly reforged produced a higher quality of metal. Quench-hardening was also known by this time. The oldest quench-hardened steel artifact is a knife found on Cyprus at a site dated to 1100 BC.

Click to expand...

I've changed this to using the inheritance model, so it may be easier to merge with other mods. Also, Metal Casting + Iron gives a +15% combat bonus now.

The idea of this mod is very nice . . . if you can make units made with bronze cost much more than those made with iron. Otherwise, I'm afraid it's a bit weak conceptually.

Well yeah cast iron is not useful but decarburizing is fairly trivial.

It's a lot easier to go from more carbon to less than less to more in small increments.

This is what the europeans took a long time to figure out.

Edit: and therefore it's easier to hit the sweet spot where you get hard metal that doesn't break easilly. Carburizing wrought iron on the other hand tends to make things that have higher concentration of carbon on the outside than on the inside, giving them brittle outsides and soft insides which is pretty much the opposite of what you'd want.

The easiest and cleanest way I can think of to make units made with bronze more expensive would be to:
1. Change spearmen/axemen/etc to not be buildable with bronze.
2. Make separate bronze spearman/axeman/etc units which require bronze, can not be built with iron, and cost more.

Alternately, if you build units with bronze some money could be deducted from your treasury upon completing the units, or additional production could be taken away by decreasing with the city's overflow production upon completion - That is, assuming that overflow production can be set negative.

It's good as it is now.
don't forget that you need bronze or iron in the city range to make these enhanced units in the first place, so you can't just built the suckers willy nilly everywhere, which in itself is a good and sensible restriction mechanism.

and my gods, its 10%.. whats the big deal?
And of course it wasn't an option to equip the entire roman legions with bronze equipment, because bronze was much more expensive.
but why was it more expensive? because it was more rare.

But here's where you're forgetting this is a game of Civ, people. In your cities, in your civilization, bronze can be much more abundant than iron.

Hey shadowlord, could you do a similar mod with gunpowder weapons?
Something like - musquet, rifle, automatic weapon, etc...
You could do the same with special bullets!!

Maybe I am missing something but don't you need bronzeworking to build Axemen? Since Axemen (bronze weapons) have a higher strength (5-2) than Warriors (non-bronze weapons), don't they already have these bonuses taken into account? This mod would punish a player even more for not getting bronze or iron which has happened to me many times. It seems a little pointless to me. Just my opinion.

Bronze resource Icons? Actually, bronze is a mix of tin and cooper. Why don't you put tin resources? If you have tin and cooper connected to a city (as well a building to forge those metals) you get bronze weapons or bronze tools! Of course! Personally, I think mod this would be integrated to other mods, such a colonization mod! I Think those things would be more interesting!

Dr.Pseikone said:

Bronze resource Icons? Actually, bronze is a mix of tin and cooper. Why don't you put tin resources? If you have tin and cooper connected to a city (as well a building to forge those metals) you get bronze weapons or bronze tools! Of course! Personally, I think mod this would be integrated to other mods, such a colonization mod! I Think those things would be more interesting!

Click to expand...

Hi Guys! Long time lurker, first time poster!
I thought about the same thing as the doc did here, seems back in the day people would travel all the way to (what is now) England for tin, all the way from the Middle East that is! Copper is soft and can be worked and extraced with little heat. It's use for weapons was somewhat limited. Bronze however was vastly superior,and yes, superior to Iron(not steel though.) I should probably double check my Egyptian/Hittite history, just to be sure though! Also brass was later used for cannons, probably because of the ease of casting, and low friction, I don't know if heavy cannons could be made w/ brass tho.
Say Doc, while were on the subject, what do you think about Tungsten/wolfram and/or Manganese ase a late game modifier for iron?(similar to the tin-copper idea) Nazi Germany was very keen on importing Tungsten from Franco's Spain, it was an important additive to make supperior steel armor for tanks, and they have some other important uses that escape my mind at the moment.

Gunshi:

About the brass, I did not know anything about this in relation to the modern warfare, but I think manganese could be used as an important industrial metal, at the Industrial Age - that turns iron stronger, that does not oxide! I need to think a little more about your idea! Better than that, I think metals would be used as commodity to make buildings and weapons in Civ 4! This is the only thing that it is never been done on a Civ game, but on a Colonization game! What do you think about a commodity-based economy?

Dr. Pseikone

Uh, ya lost me there doc, aren't ALL resources in Civ commodities? (where the definition of commodities is "homogeneous products" like pork bellys?)

Tell ya what bugs me though. If I have any one resource, it takes care of my entire civ's needs. WEAK.
My suggestion? Take oil for instance, you discover a deposit of it, and you are told (hypothetically) roughly how much of it there is. Now there are a few factors that come into play after that. How much time/effort/expense does it take to get a barrel of crude? Then assume that the time/effort/expense goes up as you tap that oil well, until it becomes prohibitively expensive. Perhaps cheaper to buy on the market.(Say my, Market) But I need more oil, so my civ knocks on your civ's door and we say "say, we have the technology to pump out more oil more cheaply, we'll set up the infrastructure and give you a cut." Now you have the oil you need and I can either use or sell the surplus, what does that make? Why a commodities market of course!! I can flood the market with cheap oil, ruining the economy of Venez... uh I mean another civ and suddenly the game gets a bit more a) interesting b) complex.
I dislike the simplicity of the current Civ Economic system. I think units should cost more than shields(which mostly represent effort and industrial capacity) and should include materials (maybe later in the game, think tons of steel, look up the manhattan project and look how much silver wiring they used, I forget but I think it was alot) The creation of resources and the scramble scramble to secure/control them was a great idea that began in Civ 3, it added tension, direction, strategy, and realism. It just has to be taken a step further.
Some other examples of resources and such? The Vikings in Iceland I believe only had at their disposal "bog Iron" (lemme check my notes here...) a type of sediment containing as little as 1% iron, modern industry uses ore in the 30% to 95% range. It took alot of effort and energy to extract. Why did they bother? High demand and lack of outside markets.
Also I recall hearing that certain parts(or one particular plain) in Africa was so rich in diamonds that slaves were sent to comb the earth, literally picking them off the ground. Later on, you had to dig for them. What does this have to do with markets? For the most part, diamonds are commodities, and there are plenty of them, but theres basically a monopoly on them, and they are kept out of the markets, out of circulation. High demand, low supply, = high prices.
How does that grab you?

Ackillez said:

This is utter nonsense.

Of course, you are right about the basic premise that bronze IS stronger than iron. However, this does NOT mean that bronze should give bonuses to your troops in civ IV. Why? Well, basically because iron is a lot cheaper than bronze, allowing greater numbers of troops to be equipped fairly cheaply. Equipping all the legionaries of the Roman Empire with bronze swords would never have been possible due to the high cost of bronze.

And why in the world would you get bonuses for steel so late in the game? It's not like anyone were building ships out of bronze...

Click to expand...

Actually this is only part of the truth...

Bronze is stronger than Iron, however, Iron can be tempered but Bronze cannot. Also Steel is made by mixing Iron and Carbon together.

Like it says in the game, the Iron Age only succeeded the Bronze Age not because Iron was a better metal, but because Tin and Zinc had become scarce.

This is why bronze is more expensive in comparison to Iron even today.

Could you seperate the Bronze resorce from the Steel one.Could I use the Bronze Recsorce for my Indigenous America mod???

The steel bonus makes no sense as all melee units are obsolete because you can get to Grenadiers before Steel. The only use for this would be for Pikemen, just one unit.