Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

Use neither Mythos Major nor Mythos Minor as test maps until the game is finished

Use only Mythos Major as a test map, saving Mythos Minor for the finished game

Use only Mythos Minor as a test map, saving Mythos Major for the finished game

Use both Mythos Minor and Mythos Major as test maps until the game is finished

Another option entirely that I will immediately post below because otherwise I just wasted my vote

[Timeless Bob]

Short swords and long daggers were both mainly piercing weapons, since keeping a fine enough edge (but not too fine) on a blade was problematic at the time.  I'm wondering if taking the ability to smelt iron or steel out of availability wouldn't be also a good idea?  Does anyone know off the top of their heads how far metallurgy had progressed at that period historically?

(Hephaestus would get the non-handicapped smelter for his great works, of course.  Since Prometheus stole the fire from his forge to give to the Mortals, I'm thinking he had a magma forge.)

[Eric Blank]

The kopis was actually designed as a slashing weapon, not a piercing weapon.

In terms of metallurgy, steel definitely wasn't available to European cultures at that time. According to wikipedia the Hittites used iron, and were the first to smelt it from ores (like the DF ores) in the 15th-12th centuries BC, and it was introduced to Greece in the 11th century BC after the collapse of that civilization, but what wikipedia defines as "Ancient Greece," including their alphabet and literature doesn't begin until 6-8th century BC so they obviously knew how to make the iron, they apparently just preferred bronze. Maybe it was an economic issue? Couldn't afford the iron?
Before the rise of the new-Ancient Greece was some form of dark ages after the collapse of the Mycenaean culture or something.

Meteoric iron (meteorite fragments) was used prior to smelting iron by Egyptians and other cultures in various ways, but weapons made from that were fragile.


I guess this means we can limit who knows how to produce iron via reactions to a Hittite culture or Persians something, and make the iron ores simple rock to anybody that doesn't know the smelting technique, or produce an inferior-quality iron that can't be used to produce weapons or armor.

This history shit is interesting.

[sackhead]

In terms of metallurgy, steel definitely wasn't available to European cultures at that time. According to wikipedia the Hittites used iron, and were the first to smelt it from ores (like the DF ores) in the 15th-12th centuries BC, and it was introduced to Greece in the 11th century BC after the collapse of that civilization, but what wikipedia defines as "Ancient Greece," including their alphabet and literature doesn't begin until 6-8th century BC so they obviously knew how to make the iron, they apparently just preferred bronze. Maybe it was an economic issue? Couldn't afford the iron?
Before the rise of the new-Ancient Greece was some form of dark ages after the collapse of the Mycenaean culture or something.

it took a while for iron to become better then bronze (bad forging techniques and impurities and they had to figure out how the hell to work it) the big thing about iron was it was far far far cheaper than Bronze copper and especially tin being far rarer then iron. Tin trade was very important in the ancient world. the closest deposits to Greece were in northern Italy but they were relatively poor and the only decent deposits were in Spain and Cornwall  and trading see-fearing cultures such as the Greeks could trade for this tin (mostly from Phoneticians who sailed to Brittan) well the hiitiets did not have much trade so had little tin. Iron did hold a superior edge and could be sharpened (bronze often had to be heated and reforged) this is why the Spartans had iron weapons but bronz armor at thermopolie   

my understanding of Greek periods
is Minoan(200-1450BCE) dominated by the Minoan civilization on Crete. practice of bull jumping and worshiped some kind of snake goddes relatively peaceful and first civilization in Europe
Mycenae (1600-110BCE)    dominated by kingdoms on mainland Greece and the islands setting of the trojan war
The Greek Dark ages 1100-750 BCE Citys abandoned probibly due to invasion by the Dorian Greeks oddly coinsides  with atacks on egypt by the see people
750-500 BCE Archaic age formation of the city states and birth of art
500-350 BCE Clasical Athenian democracy art the persion wars basickly the cool bits leading up to alexander
350-150 BCE helinistic between death of alaxander and Roman dominance of the mediteranian Greek culture, spread by alexander was the greatest in the world





i am thinking of modding in greek style pottery as well
red figure and black figure would be glazes their would be a range of types of pots for trade and storage and you could add paterns (custom symbols) and pictures with slips,
it would be nice being able to have our stories on pots plus amphorae instead of pots and barrels would give a nice Greek feel 

[Zoolimar]

What have you for the full armaments currently?

"Greeks"

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Bronze/Iron cuirass and helmet - 96%
Bronze/Iron bracers and greaves - 75%
Felt skirt - 96%

Or armour with the same coverage but made out of felt.

"Persians"

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Bronze/iron scaled armour - 100% (Chain)
Bronze/iron helmet - 80%
Bronze/Iron bracers and greaves - 75%

Or armour with same coverage made out of leather.

"Primitives"

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Hide armour - 75%
Leather bracers and greaves - 75%
Scaled/Bone helmet - 75%

At least that's what I'm aiming for.

About metallurgy:
Greeks knew how to smelt iron but it was much harder to work with than bronze and technology wasn't very good. Also bronze armour and weapons were much more durable over long time and easy to smelt and reshape if the need arises.   

P.S. Also I messed up in the description of linothorax armour - it wasn't made out of felt but out of layers of linen cloth glued together.

[Eric Blank]

yay! Wikipedia was wrong!

Also, I meant what weaponry you have planned, not armor, sorry.

[Zoolimar]

Also, I meant what weaponry you have planned, not armor, sorry.

"Greeks"

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

•Main
Long knife
Slashing short sword
Piercing short sword
Slashing medium sword
Axe
Heavy Spear

•Training
Club
Quarterstaff
Great club

•Ranged
Bow
Javelin
Sling

"Persians"

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

•Main
Dagger
Sabre
Axe
Mace
Light Spear

•Training
Club
Quarterstaff
Great club

•Ranged
Bow
Long Bow
Sling

"Primitives"

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

•Stone
Knife
Axe

•Wooden
Stake
Club
Quarterstaff
Great club

•Ranged
Blowgun
Javelin

[Eric Blank]

I think you could probably add bows, spears and slings to the primatives, as those are concepts that are prevalent almost everywhere.

Also, are clubs and quarterstaffs supposed to be made of wood as harmless training weapons or for actually beating the crap out of somebody in a fight?

[Timeless Bob]

I think the problem with wood clubs and staffs is that the raws don't reflect practice vs bound staffs.  All the fighting staffs I've ever seen have been either covered in a resin varnish that makes them have the same hardness as a length of metal pipe or bound at the middle and capped at the ends to prevent splitting.  Likewise, clubs often had embedded stones or metal stuck in them to increase their stopping power, but anyone who has "accidentally" been struck in the face by a piece of cord-wood chucked at your head from behind (by your asshole little brother, for instance) knows how much even that untreated wood can stun and bloody.

Practice staffs are made to instructively bruise but not break, while bound or capped and bound staffs are meant to break bones.  I suppose including a block of stone or a bar of metal to the reaction needed to produce a staff or club could keep the merely wooden ones in the "practice" category and make the fully functional ones more useful.  I see stabbing spears and maces (pikes, ect...) as subcategories of poles with dangerous stuff on their ends.  Staffs and clubs are right in there with them.

[Zoolimar]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Also, are clubs and quarterstaffs supposed to be made of wood as harmless training weapons or for actually beating the crap out of somebody in a fight?

Something in between.

They will be made out of wood but not harmless. Problem is that there is no other way to get weapons made out of wood beside assigning them to a race without metal smelting.

I think you could probably add bows, spears and slings to the primatives, as those are concepts that are prevalent almost everywhere.
 

Spears yes but bows and slings without using metal for arrows and sling bullets are almost meaningless. 

[sackhead]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Also, are clubs and quarterstaffs supposed to be made of wood as harmless training weapons or for actually beating the crap out of somebody in a fight?

Something in between.

They will be made out of wood but not harmless. Problem is that there is no other way to get weapons made out of wood beside assigning them to a race without metal smelting.

I think you could probably add bows, spears and slings to the primatives, as those are concepts that are prevalent almost everywhere.
 

Spears yes but bows and slings without using metal for arrows and sling bullets are almost meaningless. 

i don't IRL know flint and stone arrows can be lethal... and in DF wood arows are still a danger

[Eric Blank]

Ok, I wrote some new creature definitions for rock lizards, whip snakes, vipers, and slow worms, added _man and giant versions of them, as well as giant and _man for wolves, deer, foxes, and vultures because I was going to add them to the animal man interactions. Is this okay for everyone?

Here is the current list of possibilities for animalman curses:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

mammals:

porcupine   DONE
hedgehog   DONE
bats      DONE
lynx      DONE
red fox      DONE
wolf      DONE
brown bear
stoat      DONE
weasel      DONE
badger      DONE
otter      DONE
wild boar   DONE
deer      DONE
ibex      DONE

birds:

eagles      DONE
vultures   DONE
stork      DONE
osprey      DONE
kestrel      DONE
owl      DONE
wren      DONE

reptiles:

rock lizard
chameleon
gecko
turtle
viper
whipsnake

News of the most terrible variety: We really WILL need to add those tags to remove color variations from the animal men to avoid crashing when viewing them. They were:

   [CV_REMOVE_TAG:SET_TL_GROUP]
   [CV_REMOVE_TAG:TL_COLOR_MODIFIER]

To the animal men creature variations.

[Timeless Bob]

So we'll need to go through the animal-man types and add the tags you mentioned to each one?  Or does your news mean something yet more dire that I'm not seeing?

[Eric Blank]

No, just add it to the creature variations for animal men and legless animal men in c_variation_default.txt. That fixed the crashes for me. However, panda men, red panda men, and badger men are throwing errors at me because they apparently needed those tags to redirect the colorations from quadruped-dependent to humanoid-dependent targets. My suggestion is to modify those three entries to have no tissue layer tokens, and they're all under creature_large_temperate.txt so that's simple enough. Technically, deleting the entries for pandas and red pandas entirely is an equally reasonable course of action

[Timeless Bob]

I don't seem to remember any mention of pandas in Greece until zoos and menageries came into vogue and Marco Polo made his little journey, so I'm going to suggest something a little more radical:  Unless regular creatures are part of the ecosystem of that area, (or historically were there, but have since died out), they get cut from the files altogether.  This goes for fish, insects, birds, trees - the whole enchilada.  What we'll have left is a much leaner creature file, but then the animal curses will be specifically drawing from creatures that people there would know about.

So, to be clear: the area around Germany was called "Boria" and north of there was called "Hyperboria".  So creatures as far north as Boria are OK, but Hyperboria was semi-mythical, so we cull out any of the creatures that would live north of Boria.  To the South, I'd like you guys' thoughts on the Elves being able to trade with people beyond the Isle of Crete, such as the Egyptos and the Nubians.  Otherwise, savannah creatures like elephants and the like will also get the axe.  To the East, we have the Ionian Sea (Or whatever name the worldgen came up with for that area) with the Island of Ithica (Peninsula of Ithica in our map) representing that border, so anything farther east than the Ionian sea gets cut too.  To the west the border passes very close to the city of Rhodes (known historically for the "Colossus of Rhodes") in the south and through Phrygia and the Propontis (Modern day Turkey and the Sea of Marmara) in the North.  Anything not further west from there will ALSO be on the cut list.

I'm going to be doing the same cutting away of non-period stuff in weapons, armours, clothing, crops (which will be interesting in Fortress mode unless the above-ground muddied ground glitch has already been fixed.), ect...

I was thinking about asking Meph if he'd mind me using his "shrine-altar-temple" code from the current Masterwork mod and tweak their reactions (and possibly the "look" of them) to be deity specific.

Eric: I'd like you to post a save file of whatever finished changes you've made and I'll stick that into the Mythos Minor file and gen a new world with the cattle of the Hesperides and whatever other changes we've gotten in there too. 

Zoolimar: If you could do the same for the stuff you've been working on, we'll incorporate that in too.  Do you think using the term "Barbarians" vs "Primitives" would sound better?  I seem to remember the Romans using the term "Barbaros" meaning "anyone non-Roman", but it might still work.  Out of curiosity, what groups are you referring to when you say "Primitives", anyway?

Sackhead: I really like the sprites you've done so far, would you be willing to go through the entire Gods and Titans list that I posted a link to and make sprites (or suggest sprites that you feel would work just as well) for each one so we'll have them available?  Also, I'm liking your ideas about amphorae and other Greek style pottery more and more.  Anything you've got along that vein would be great to add into the mix.

So, as a noob to the modding DF, (but learning a great deal as we go through this process - thanks you guys!), I've yet to find out how to make pseudo-FB's or where I should look to find out how to make them, so that the 12 pre-Olympian Titans, Cerebus, and the other singular entities specific to the game's mythos can be added to our little project.  If any of you guys can point me in the right direction, I'll "get Kracken" on those.

I'd like to thank all of you for offering so many ideas and working on stuff to add to this project - I've said it before, but it bears repeating: You guys ROCK.

I plan on leaving the current poll up until the end of the month, but unless there's a drastic change, it looks like we'll be messing around with Mythos Minor while we tweak this monster into a more finished project.  I'll stick any changes you guys can post before then into the game, gen a new world and set up a turn list.  So: Players, what should next month's poll be about?  I'm listening...

[Timeless Bob]

You know... I bet the twelve original Titans could be made as adventurers as well.  All I'd have to do is activate and retire each one after world-gen was completed then somehow disable the ability to play them before posting the save game for you Olympian Gods and Titans to mess with.  Is that even possible?

Edit: Cerebus, the Kracken and some of the other mythic uber-beasties could probably be done the same way, but reserved for only their master's direction using the honor system when we're playing.  Thoughts?