Nitpicking

[WCH]

First off, I'd like to say that I absolutely love this mod -- I've been trying to get all my Civ-playing friends hooked on it, so that I'll have people to play epic multiplayer games with.

That said... couple things that bugged me.

For one thing, jail lowers crime rate... doesn't really work that way. In fact, there are quite a few reasons why prisons actually *raise* crime rate. I understand that it's not intended to be an accurate socioeconomic model, just bugged me as a sociologist.

Superiority of iron over bronze. Que? This is the same in unmodded Civ IV, but more important in FFH2 just because metals do more. Bronze is actually superior to iron for weapons and armour; the reason for the historical success of civilizations which made the switch to iron has nothing to do with the quality of the equipment and everything to do with economy: bronze is more expensive to produce. The result was that civilizations which used bronze weapons would give the good armour only to the leaders and top warriors, whereas the civilizations that used iron weapons could afford to give it to everyone. I'm sure you can imagine what happens when two armies fight and one has better equipment, but less than half of them have it.

Not sure how I'd go about representing that in-game. It just seems strange that iron weapons get a 10% bonus against enemies with bronze weapons, when really it should be the other way around (albiet with increased production costs for the bronze).

 

[Marnok]

Jail Crime:
Depends on what happens to criminals surely? Do they raise crime rates because criminals are eventually released as hardened crooks? It might be that in FFH, you don't get out!

Iron and Bronze :
Well, if this is right, then you already answered that army with iron > army with bronze. When a unit gets bronze, only the leaders have it. If it gets iron, they all have it. Sounds like *heroes* with bronze ought to be tougher than heroes with iron, is that right?

 

[MagisterCultuum]

I personally think that some "releasing Hardcore crooks" could be better represented through random events tied to the building. I also think it should probably have its unhappiness added back, and maybe be moved up to Feudalism, given a defensive bonus, and renamed "Keep".


In my modmod, I'm changing how weapons promotions work. I'm adding more weapon types, and granting them through spells instead of automatically. There won't be just a simple hierarchy of weapons, although I probably won't change it too much. One main change is that the weapons spells/abilities will cost gold. Iron and Bronze are basically the same promo (although iron is more vulnerable to rust), but Bronze will cost far more gold than iron will.

 

[Roghar]

WCH,

I'm curious as to jails raising crime rates - how are the studies conducted? Every society I'm aware of uses jails, what comparison is used to show that they raise crime rate?

As the posts above, whether its thru more people being outfitted or better individual weapons doesn't really matter. If civs with iron had a military advantage over those with bronze the representation in the game seems very reasonable.

 

[Vehem]

Jail Crime:
Depends on what happens to criminals surely? Do they raise crime rates because criminals are eventually released as hardened crooks? It might be that in FFH, you don't get out!

Agreed - whilst it's true that at least modern, western society is discovering that jails have become a "criminal training ground" of sorts, medieval and fantasy settings rarely worry about being sued for breach of human rights. Many of the criminals incarcerated will not be in any state to commit crime again (either due to serious injury, mutilation or death whilst in jail - removal of hands, starvation etc, or will just not be released until they die naturally - depending on the civ in question).

 

[Perkin Warbeck]

Heh, but can you imagine how scary a criminal that survived Calabim jail time would be?

 

[felix86]

Heh, but can you imagine how scary a criminal that survived Calabim jail time would be?

There could be a random event to get a free unit based on that.

 

[Marnok]

Something like the Dread Bandit Neitz event? Let some really useful and rogueish villain out of prison, but gain crime and lose happiness?

 

[Mortenart]

Bronze is actually superior to iron for weapons and armour.

Not my words, but:

"By far OK quality iron is better then good q bronze. The cutting edge lasts longer and a tip (arrow, spear) is more reliable. A large weapon made of bronze (sword, axe, spearhead) usualy BREAKS if hit by a weapon made of OK iron. An arrow/spear head bends and has almost no chance of piercing iron armor. An iron weapon can be broken also if hit right but can open a helmet or pierce metal armour. For arrow heads, even low quality iron is very efficient and (used with a decent bow) can easily pierce any bronze armour."

I would tend to agree with this.

 

[rusty217]

Why should jails raise the crime rate?

There has to be crimes committed that aren't serious enough to be executed for, so putting them somewhere they can't do that crme anymore should lower the crime rate rather than releasing them and letting them commit the crime again....

and as for why iron weapons should be superior to bronze weapons....

As ironworking improved, iron became cheaper, and people figured out how to make steel, which is stronger than bronze, holding a sharper edge longer.

 

[Perkin Warbeck]

Something like the Dread Bandit Neitz event? Let some really useful and rogueish villain out of prison, but gain crime and lose happiness?

And have the crazed promotion mind, just incase he doesn't fancy working for the Civ that wronged him.

 

[Tarquelne]

And have the crazed promotion mind, just incase he doesn't fancy working for the Civ that wronged him.

That makes sense. OTOH, such a man might completely accept the Calabim philosophy and power structure. A cruel and power-hungy Calabim prison warden - and aren't they all? - could see about arraigning that.

A % chance of such a unit having Crazed sounds better to me.

 

[Alzara]

Just a second... I'm sure that iron was a massive step up from bronze.

I'm pretty sure if you block a blow from an iron sword using a bronze sword, the bronze sword has a high chance of breaking... or am I wrong?

Al

 

[Perkin Warbeck]

That makes sense. OTOH, such a man might completely accept the Calabim philosophy and power structure. A cruel and power-hungy Calabim prison warden - and aren't they all? - could see about arraigning that.QUOTE]

I agree with that but I wonder what you could do in the Calabim lands that wouldn't put you top of the menu. Don't you get the feeling that any justification the Vamps have to eat someone will be snapped right up?
It depends on if you think about an event as escaping the dungeon/jail or finishing a sentence. I find that I actually build them now they stop making that extra unhappy point!
Going back to the original question I think if there was en event that involved an escape then perhaps crime should go up, but until then the building is good how it is.

 

[Tarquelne]

Just a second... I'm sure that iron was a massive step up from bronze.

Overall... in the long term... and certainly for most civilian uses. (There's some reason to think, for example, that the iron hoe was one of the single most important improvements in Africa.)

I'm pretty sure if you block a blow from an iron sword using a bronze sword, the bronze sword has a high chance of breaking... or am I wrong?

Early iron weapons were often extremely brittle (and later ones still somewhat brittle), and a primarily wooden shield is what you'd quite often be blocking with, anyway. A bronze sword would be more easily dulled but far less likely to break, and neither type of sword is going to get through the shield very quickly.

Plus most damage is going to be done by hitting your enemy where he's not armored rather than trying to hack through metal, whether it's bronze or iron.

I think the OP is wrong about which units should get the larger bonus (Marnok gives a good rationale), though he's right that the primary benefit was economic, or maybe logistical.

It might be a lot more accurate to change unit types - make Spearman a bronze-tech unit and don't bring in Swordsman/axeman until Iron. Or adjust the costs. But I think the current weapon-bonus progression is more interesting and fits the setting nicely.

This sounds too-interesting-to-be-true, but I've read that one of the significant benefits of iron weapons was morale. Or, really, harming your bronze-using foe's morale. Iron didn't kill dramatically more men, but nature of the wounds from the sharp weapons meant they tended to die on the spot. So, rather than the injured dying discretely at home you get a pile of corpses right there on the battlefield.

 

[Tarquelne]

Don't you get the feeling that any justification the Vamps have to eat someone will be snapped right up?

As a rule. But they might make exceptions for people they want to torture awhile, hostages, and trainees, depending on just how they want to go about recruiting further vampires. As Law-freaks their military might also make use of penal units.

It depends on if you think about an event as escaping the dungeon/jail or finishing a sentence.

Yep.

 

[El_Duderino]

actually bronze was a stronger metal than iron, the iron age can after the bronze age not because iron was stronger but rather all the accessable tin depoists (tin is required when making bronze)in europe, the middle east and north africa had been used up

 

[Alzara]

I have it under good authority that you are quite wrong.

How brittle a source of worked iron can be is dependent on the presence of carbon within the iron. Cast iron will dissolve carbon in solution during the charcoal smelting process to form iron carbide, which, if I am not mistaken, tends to form crescent shapes inside the iron lattice. Stress applied to this iron will cause cracks to appear from the edge of these "crescents".

Iron is worked in order to break up these pockets of iron carbide (although I'm sure that the chemical science of this process was not known at the time).

Once you have this technique perfected, an iron weapon would be vastly superior that a bronze weapon, not only as it keeps a sharp edge, but also through raw strength and rigidity. Well worked iron weapons would likely cause the breakage of a bronze weapon used to defend with.

Iron straight from a modern blast furnace contains about 4-4.5 percent carbon. Much of this is removed in the process of making steel.

Al

 

[Alzara]

Btw I hope you weren't relying on the "bronze" wikipedia entry for your information. The section stating that bronze is stronger than wrought iron has no citation (and hence isn't reliable)

I've found this to be a massive problem with wikipedia for a variety of things. I pretty much had to ignore the site during my university years because of false information!

Al

 

[El_Duderino]

i think i read it from one of cecil adams straight dope columns, but it was a while ago and i cant exactly remember