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[GoblinCookie]

So was Rome, at its height, and the Early Renaissance. But all three periods/cultures still fit the epic fantasy feel, and are thus included as "valid".

Middle Ages were a lot nicer than any roman/ancient world period you care to mention.  I'd say Renaissance is slightly nastier but not by a large margin.  The world only gets better than the middle ages about the 1700-1800 time frame, in Europe only.

[bloop_bleep]

It should be noted that steam engines weren’t put on boats until c. 1807, long after they were invented, for a variety of technical reasons.

[Shonai_Dweller]

It should be noted that steam engines weren’t put on boats until c. 1807, long after they were invented, for a variety of technical reasons.

Lack of dwarven ingenuity being the main one...

[Bumber]

It should be noted that steam engines weren’t put on boats until c. 1807, long after they were invented, for a variety of technical reasons.

Lack of dwarven ingenuity being the main one...

Humans would probably use hamster men on treadmills.

[Starver]

Strangely, part of the (multi-layered) dream I had last night involved ship* propulsion apparently being a skill (transferable) of a given character to get a fish/bird** familiar, cast them ahead beyond the bow magically enhanced and 'duplicated' (into a menagerie of other birds/fish**, not merely themselves) and act to tow said 'ship' as needed. Upon being dispelled, the magical cohort and tow-lines fade away, the lead/prototype reverts to the handy-sized familiar to be scooped up out of the water (or air!) at a special little window just below the bowsprit*, possibly exhausted by the effort but now only mundanely so.

But then that's a dream (with quite a lot of other weirdness in it, and the above was in a flashback, centuries before this guy and his other two unaging companions had played parts in a weird TV commercial where he used his skill on exiting a skyscraper window to be (ambiguously successfully) kept from plummeting by using the same skill 'tied' to himself to retard his fall, while the other two exercised their respective powers to... whatever ends) which I'd put in the Dream thread except I haven't enough time to render more concise.


But as a magical (or maybe X-Man-ish mutant speciality?) boat-moving method, it seemed too good not to mention in passing.


* Including flying ships! As in boats-in-the-air type stuff.
** - Not sure it mattered which, regardless of medium.

[FantasticDorf]

It should be noted that steam engines weren’t put on boats until c. 1807, long after they were invented, for a variety of technical reasons.

Nobody's ever seen a pneumatic pump propulsed boat however with some tired dwarves toiling away on the handles training that pump operator skill to legendary if they aren't taking the galley slave or wind approach to getting around.

Dwarves already have this technology in the 15th century, though that's not to say that it couldn't still be retconned out of the game. DF tech isn't about explosions (guns/engines, explosives) its mainly about pressure (smithing, controlled obsidianization, manipulation of fluids) and motion (some of the previous points and the transferral of energy)

It makes perfect sense when you think about it, like a modern day engine with a spinning propeller or one of those engineless hand-crank carts that move with 1 or two people onboard along railway tracks, the water is sucked in and the motion of the parts pushes the boat forward, except the water being pushed out by the pneumatic pump is doing it more efficiently than a hand-row for input due to mechanisation.