pre-release info New Civ Game Guide: Hawai'i

[AriochIV]

Obsidian cuts better than iron (or steel), but iron is cheaper and lighter--and when the goal is to lacerate your opponent into bleeding to death, the precision cuts of obsidian aren't a significant advantage. (There are investigations into making scalpels out of obsidian, though--an application where precision cuts are highly desirable.)

Obsidian is extremely sharp but also extremely fragile, so it was much more often used as a tool than as a weapon. I think that a lot of the discovered obsidian weapons were more about prestige than practicality -- obsidian was a valuable and limited resource.

And they don't use obsidian as a scalpel for this very reason -- the last thing you need is shards of glass breaking off in the patient, and while you can easily sterilize steel with high temperature steam, this same method will destroy glass.

This confirms that Civ game begins should be earlier than 4th Millenium BC.

Civilization (the game) is at its core about city-building, and that really only became widespread around the 4th Millennium BC. Recent iterations of the game have delved more into cultures that really don't fit the description of city-builders, but they're still modeled as city-builders. Modeling the earliest known human technologies is well beyond the scope of the game... human technology stretches back millions of years to pre-Homo sapiens ancestors. As much as I like the idea of playing a game about prehistoric hunter-gatherers, I don't think Civilization is that game.

 

[Zaarin]

And they don't use obsidian as a scalpel for this very reason -- the last thing you need is shards of glass breaking off in the patient, and while you can easily sterilize steel with high temperature steam, this same method will destroy glass.

Yes, I know they've looked into it but haven't found a way to make it practical.

Obsidian is extremely sharp but also extremely fragile, so it was much more often used as a tool than as a weapon. I think that a lot of the discovered obsidian weapons were more about prestige than practicality -- obsidian was a valuable and limited resource.

Even for those that were used as weapons, it's worth bearing in mind that the Mexica had a very different philosophy of warfare than what was practiced in the Old World. The goal was to take captives, not to kill; warriors who killed on the battlefield were considered clumsy and ineffective. The Aztecs considered the Spaniards to be the worst warriors they'd ever seen (while the Spaniards were baffled at the strange and, to their minds, ineffective tactics of both the Aztecs and their own Nahua allies).

 

[Zaarin]

That's all more of an urban myth than truth. Firstly iron has about 3 time the density of obsidian, and so objects made out of iron will be 3 times heavier. As for obsidian cutting better, it's more complex than that. It can be honed to a sharper edge, which is great if you wanted to make a razor blade out of one. But it's far more brittle and more fragile, which means that it cuts far less well against anything that offers any resistance.

There's a reason that iron swords, although generally sharp, where never razor sharp, even when the technology allows it. The fragility that comes with that is not worth the slight improvement in the edge (the opposite is true of an actual razor blade, which does need to be super sharp to catch hairs that would otherwise bend out of the way, but those same hairs offer no resistance). So an iron / steel sword might do less well in the first couple of slashes against a naked opponent than an obsidian one, but it will probably do better against someone wearing padded garments, and definitely do better 5min after the fighting starts. Not to mention things like meeting a shield or another blade in edge-on-edge contact, or trying to thrust a point throw a mail ring; all stuff that might slightly damage a steel blade but likely shatter an obsidian one.

As long as something is sharp enough to do the job, it's not worth sacrificing tons of resilience for a little extra sharpness.

Thank you for taking three paragraphs to summarize what I said in one. (Yes, I was being imprecise, but I took for granted I was posting on a forum, not writing a thesis. The general point being that no, obsidian weapons are not superior to iron, though obsidian tools might be...on such a marginal level that it would not offset the cost or fragility of the tool.)

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

Thank you for taking three paragraphs to summarize what I said in one. (Yes, I was being imprecise, but I took for granted I was posting on a forum, not writing a thesis. The general point being that no, obsidian weapons are not superior to iron, though obsidian tools might be...on such a marginal level that it would not offset the cost or fragility of the tool.)

The specific place and instanxe in which obsidian makes a 'cultural' mark is in shaving. Because obsidian naturally flakes into edges that are almost as sharp as a modern razor blade, any culture that had access to obsidian (like, for instance, those in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece) have the option to adopt clean-shaven faces as a 'norm' of appearance without also adopting self-mutilation to achieve it - especially for the 'upper classes' who can afford the expensive imported obsidian blades. That, in turn, meant they could also adopt superior notions of themselves as opposed to 'hairy barbarians' who didn't shave, and even fairly close cultural relatives that didn't - classic example being the attitude of the Greeks to the Macedonians: both had adult males who were generally bearded, but the Greeks wore beards by choice, the Macedonians (according to the Greeks) because they didn't know any better.

Another arrow in the quiver of cultural self-importance so dear to human hearts . . .

As to styles of warfare, the Aztecs' use of warfare to capture potential sacrifices was mirrored by the plains natives of North America, for whom the greatest warlike feat was not to kill an enemy, but to 'count coup' on him - hitting him or touching him with a slender stick that didn't hurt him physically, but embarrassed him and demeaned him emotionally and culturally. US Army officers wrote frequently about the strange, suicidal methods of their enemies in riding up and smacking a trooper across his face with a stick instead of spearing him out of his saddle, and could not understand the behavior at all.

Of course, once the natives realized that the Europeans were not playing by the same rules, they changed their behavior: by 1876 none of the native eye-witnesses at Greasy Grass (Little Big Horn) mention anybody bothering to count coup . . .

 

[notNamed]

The specific place and instanxe in which obsidian makes a 'cultural' mark is in shaving. Because obsidian naturally flakes into edges that are almost as sharp as a modern razor blade, any culture that had access to obsidian (like, for instance, those in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece) have the option to adopt clean-shaven faces as a 'norm' of appearance without also adopting self-mutilation to achieve it - especially for the 'upper classes' who can afford the expensive imported obsidian blades. That, in turn, meant they could also adopt superior notions of themselves as opposed to 'hairy barbarians' who didn't shave, and even fairly close cultural relatives that didn't - classic example being the attitude of the Greeks to the Macedonians: both had adult males who were generally bearded, but the Greeks wore beards by choice, the Macedonians (according to the Greeks) because they didn't know any better.

It's an interesting remark but keep in mind this only applies to populations which do grow hairy. Asians, be they Chinese or Aztec, have sparse if any facial hair.
From what I remember most Native American societies that shot for a clean look simply plucked what little facial hair would come up using shells, a strategy that was also in use in Asia.

 

[Zaarin]

Asians, be they Chinese or Aztec, have sparse if any facial hair.

A reminder that this is not always true.
Image of a bearded Tlingit chief.

Spoiler :

 

[Boris Gudenuf]

It's an interesting remark but keep in mind this only applies to populations which do grow hairy. Asians, be they Chinese or Aztec, have sparse if any facial hair.
From what I remember most Native American societies that shot for a clean look simply plucked what little facial hair would come up using shells, a strategy that was also in use in Asia.

Generally. Hair plucking was also used in Greece and Rome, where it seems to have been more popular among women than men - vanity all too frequently plays by its own rules.

Also, while In General East Asian and Native American populations are less hairy than more northern/European populations, the variations within populations are at least as great as those between them in this case. See @Zaarin's inclusion above as one example. It is correct, however,(as far as I know) to say that the use of obsidian blades for personal grooming seems to have been virtually absent in East Asia (at least in China/Japan: I do not know enough about Southeast Asia to make a statement on those populations/cultures) and I don't know of any general use of obsidian for tools of any kind north of Mesoamerica except here in the Pacific Northwest, which happens to have a large number of volcanoes to provide the raw material. Even up here, though, the majority of obsidian artifacts found seem to have been general tools: scrapers and blades rather than personal grooming aids.

 

[Thenewwwguy]

Two-persona Lili, please!

the royal and the activist, perhaps?

 

[Thenewwwguy]

You say that like it matters. *Looks at Khmer*

and shawnee

 

[Thenewwwguy]

A reminder that this is not always true.
Image of a bearded Tlingit chief.

Spoiler :

View attachment 710958

not to mention the ainu, central asians, south asians, much of SE Asia, the middle east

 

[Seek]

Every Building and Improvement has a base yield. These are errors with the guides, I've passed this along so they can be updated.

The Meru's base yield is Happiness. The Candi Bentar's is Culture. The Lo'i Kalo is Food and Production.

I just noticed that the Norman’s’ Motte and Bailey both have no base yield listed in the game guide, thought I’d pass it along.

 

[Wabnosa]

Did I miss something or is there a reason half of Hawaiian units wear Mongolian cloths?

 

[Ryansinbela]

I have no idea and I hope they fix the outfits