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[Stirk]

Chariot, war wagon, similar enough that I'm sure you'll excuse the terminology out of the kindness of your heart. Ancient era was known mostly for its chariots, after all. The downsides outnumber the possible upsides so far that I can't imagine trying to use it in warfare intentionally.

Sorry for thinking that calling it a not-chariot, describing it as a not-chariot, and giving a tactical description completely separate from what chariots do would make you figure out that it doesn't serve the same roll as a normal chariot. I'll stop assuming you have the basic competence now to prevent this kind of confusion in the future.

Just saying that I've been wrong in other places does not, in fact, allow you to brush off my comments and claim that you are right. Not to mention it being somewhat outside the spirit of arms races to insult people.

You didn't actually make an argument in that quote? You just said it was dumb. So I said you were dumb. If it is outside the spirit then maybe you should stop being so condescending in the first place? Smug and wrong, choose one. If you're going to try being smug and wrong (like now ), everyone will just hate you.

War wagons were used, sometimes, but they could also be moved reliably, without turning uncontrollably due to differences in propulsion between the aeolipiles. You can't "circle the wagons" if your wagons run out of fuel and then must be moved by hand, ESPECIALLY if you expect to be fighting a more mobile, mounted foe, who will be able to reach you before you can circle them. Or, if you circle them up far enough way, just ignore it and go around the now-immobile "fort".

They should all have roughly the same propulsion, unless you have a compelling reason they would randomly be different. As I said in my first post they would be brought to the battlefield by conventional horsepower in most cases, which can circle the wagons since they're basically just wagons at that point. "Fort" placement would be key, we live in a mountainous caldera with plenty of points that should be able to block off enemy horses.

We can ignore that steam power is too weak but it's much harder to go from "super weak" to "lol we just roll up the ancient equivalent of an APC" than is worth doing for a gimmick that is barely functional as a weapon of war.

You have been wrong in every case you brought up insulting its functionality. So just because you were wrong before totally makes you wrong here, since all your arguments for why it would be bad are wrong :V

[Twinwolf]

To be blunt, Stirk, you have been acting far more "smug and wrong" than Madman has pretty much since the game started. Don't pretend you're on some moral and intellectual high ground when you're digging yourself deeper. Not to say Madman hasn't been rude, but you're far from guiltless.

[Doomblade187]

Steam Belchers

Some nations made catapults. Some nations made ballistae. Etroa made steam belchers. Smooth-bore cast bronze tubes with a large steam valve hooked up, water would be poured into a chamber sitting behind the barrel, where a sunseed would convert it to steam. The water entry being tightly sealed, pressure would build until either the valve between the barrel broke open or a lever was pulled to open it, and allow the steam to vent, propelling whatever was in the barrel at high speeds directly ahead, or arcing at a range. These could fire smaller metal balls or larger metal shells filled with burning oil for anti-infantry use.

[Stirk]

To be blunt, Stirk, you have been acting far more "smug and wrong" than Madman has pretty much since the game started. Don't pretend you're on some moral and intellectual high ground when you're digging yourself deeper. Not to say Madman hasn't been rude, but you're far from guiltless.

I'm smug and right. It is different. Plus it is an endearing, charming smugness that everyone loves.

[Doomblade187]

To be blunt, Stirk, you have been acting far more "smug and wrong" than Madman has pretty much since the game started. Don't pretend you're on some moral and intellectual high ground when you're digging yourself deeper. Not to say Madman hasn't been rude, but you're far from guiltless.

I'm smug and right. It is different. Plus it is an endearing, charming smugness that everyone loves.

No, it's really not.

[The Ensorceler]

Design: Winecutter
An innovative design pioneered by an ambitious gang of apprentice smiths, the Winecutter was quickly adopted as the signature Etroan weapon. A small wineskin fitted with a nozzle is inserted into the handle, where a lever operated rachet pumps wine into a sunseed chamber where it rapidly boils under pressure well past its ignition point. When the lever is released, the searing hot wine instantly vaporizes ant travels at great speed through a hollow blade, exploding on contact with the air into a sheet of liquid flame able to carve through most materials in an instant.

[Vostok]

Sunseed Glass

Sunseed glass was created by a drunken glassblower who decided it would be a good idea to crush a sunseed and add it to his glass. When the resulting piece of glassware was finished, it was found that it was unusually bright and seemed to glow in the dark, impressing the priest who commissioned the piece enough that the creator managed to avoid getting executed for heresy. For the next decade or so, people explored the use of sunseed glass for decorative purposes, creating all kinds of glowing glassware. One temple even had a skylight made of the stuff installed, providing illumination even in the dead of night.

The first military use of this material occurred during the Ofal-Etroa war, when some other genius realized that this stuff could be used to allow our soldiers to see in complete darkness because it amplifies light going through it in a way similar to the photocathode tubes found in modern night vision goggles. Soon, goggles with sunseed glass eyepieces capable of only amplifying light going in one direction (thus avoiding giving away the wearer’s position)  were being issued to specially-formed units to fight in the dead of night.

[TricMagic]

Sunseed Glass

Sunseed glass was created by a drunken glassblower who decided it would be a
good idea to crush a sunseed and add it to his glass. When the resulting piece
of glassware was finished, it was found that it was unusually bright and
glowed in the dark, impressing the priest who commissioned the piece enough
that the creator managed to avoid getting executed for heresy. For the decade
or so, people explored the use of sunseed glass for decorative purposes,
creating all kinds of glowing glassware. One temple even had a skylight made
of the stuff installed, providing illumination even in the dead of night.

The first military use of this material occurred during the Ofal-Etroa war,
when some other genius realized that this stuff could be used to allow our
soldiers to see in complete darkness. Soon, goggles with sunseed glass
eyepieces that enabled their users to see in the dark were being issued to
specially-formed units to fight in the dead of night.

I'm just going to note that light reflects off objects and enters our eyes. Something glowing is not a valid substitute. That and Sunseeds govern heat. Maybe if it amplified incoming light? In that manner, so long as there was light, you could see.

Though that design also renders Sunglass difficult...

[Stirk]

Sunscorched Earth Tactics: ()
Hero's Warcart: ()
Sunglass: ()
Moonseeds and Obsidian Shatterrocks: ()
Steam Belchers:(1) Stirk
Winecutter:()
Sunseed Glass:()

[TricMagic]

Flames of the Sun-Blade

One particular that was discovered by Etroa in regards to the Sunseeds is that they react extremely to alcohol. There was one time where a Sunseed ended up dropped in a barrel of particularly alcoholic beer burnt down a good section of the forest. Past that point, it was mostly toyed with and found that more alcoholic drinks reacted better. That is, in most towns, a splash of alcohol on wood is used with a Sunseed to jump-start fire for cooking.

However, Ofal is pushing into the lands with iron armor for all their troops, along with using their boats to push us. Why they have so much iron is questionable, and while the armor may be low quality it still turns aside our spears and swords most times. So we turned toward experimenting with using alcohol to transfer the mighty power of the sun unto our foes.

To do this, we took a Sunseed and cut it to serve as the end of a hilt. The center of the hilt, meanwhile, was comprised of 6 rectangular tubes made of copper, wrapped together with leather and sealed. And on the bottom of the hilt was a long leather bag filled with alcohol, with a lid for unscrewing to fill again near the hilt.

By using two hands, the warrior could squeeze the bag as they swung, forcing the alchohol out the blade at high speed. This alcohol would instantly ignite as it touched the Sunseed, becoming a blade of pure flame. This flame, when touching something solid would instantly melt it. And if more force was used to squeeze the bag, it would actually cut straight through everything, with the solid object ceasing to exist where it cut.

It is a weapon that requires quite a bit of skill to wield. However, the fact is that the flame has a reach of up to 10 meters when swung. This weapon can only really show it's ability when swung, as that is when the Sunseed's power best shows itself, when concentrated along a line.

It can and was however used to cut doors in solid walls, as well as to set fire to ships and cities. Moreover, it is safe for a skilled wielder, despite the heat of the flame. A few droplets can't melt through leather, though they will cause burns. But the flame is always directed away from the user, and last but a second before the alcohol burns away from the main body of the flame-sword's strike.

Modern Terminology, Reaction: Liquid Ethanol+Sunseed contact = Melting/Sublimation of solid objects through Flame.

Sunscorched Earth Tactics: ()
Hero's Warcart: ()
Sunglass: ()
Moonseeds and Obsidian Shatterrocks: ()
Steam Belchers:(1) Stirk
Winecutter:()
Sunseed Glass:()
Flames of the Sun-Blade: (1) TricMagic

[Vostok]

Sunscorched Earth Tactics: ()
Hero's Warcart: ()
Sunglass: ()
Moonseeds and Obsidian Shatterrocks: ()
Steam Belchers:(1) Stirk
Winecutter:()
Sunseed Glass: (1) Vostok
Flames of the Sun-Blade: (1) TricMagic

[The Ensorceler]

Sunscorched Earth Tactics: ()
Hero's Warcart: ()
Sunglass: ()
Moonseeds and Obsidian Shatterrocks: ()
Steam Belchers:(1) Stirk
Winecutter:(1) The Ensorceler
Sunseed Glass: (1) Vostok
Flames of the Sun-Blade: (1) TricMagic

[Rockeater]

Sunscorched Earth Tactics: ()
Hero's Warcart: ()
Sunglass: ()
Moonseeds and Obsidian Shatterrocks: ()
Steam Belchers:(2) Stirk, Rockeater
Winecutter:(1) The Ensorceler
Sunseed Glass: (1) Vostok
Flames of the Sun-Blade: (1) TricMagic

[Doomblade187]

Sunscorched Earth Tactics: ()
Hero's Warcart: ()
Sunglass: ()
Moonseeds and Obsidian Shatterrocks: ()
Steam Belchers:(2) Stirk, Rockeater
Winecutter:(1) The Ensorceler
Sunseed Glass: (2) Vostok, Doomblade
Flames of the Sun-Blade: (1) TricMagic

[Madman198237]

Angamolen, the Ironworks
When pressed by our enemies, a great inventor came forth to aid his country. The ancient taminrim (probably the appropriate plural form of tamin [forge]? I dunno, I wish the site showed plurals...anyway) of Orodruin were worked by master smiths and their apprentices, and turned out great works steadily, but slowly. Closer to the volcano, however, there was too much heat and lots of noxious gases making it too hard to do precision smithworking. Enter Tuimmolindo, a great inventor who worked with many tricks, toys, and a few pieces of showmanship using steam, included his famed Steam-Powered Children's Toy-Retrieving Game, which has plagued fairs and markets with its unfair gameplay and high prices.

Using steam power, Tuimmolindo produced a wonder of engineering, a device capable of melting down iron using the heat of the flowing lava, closer to the caldera, closer to the molten streams, places where humans could not work. Steam-powered machinery based on the mechanical arm moved iron ore in troughs of brickwork that could withstand the heat, at least for some time. As the ore melted, it filled the trough, which could then be pulled away and left to cool into a plate-shaped lump of metal. The iron could then be sent to the smiths nearby, who could work the plate into armor. Ironworking was no longer restricted to the very best of smiths. Or at least the smiths wealthy enough to afford a lot of apprentices to work the raw ore constantly, anyway. Iron cannot be melted in a normal forge, and before Tuimmolindo developed his iron-melting building it took many, many hours of hammering heated ore until a nearly-pure form of iron, wrought iron, could be worked. Iron ore is plentiful, but in these ancient days, able hands were not. Too many were needed to work the fields, or, now, fight the invaders.

The arms were sheathed in ceramics that could at least briefly protect the wood from heat and the air that would cause it to catch fire. Long enough to suspend their small payloads over the rivers of lava without immediately catching fire, powered by a water pump seesaw device that could move pistons and outsized aeolipiles driving pulley systems to swing the simple arm towards and away from the lava, and lower and raise it. Many of them were built quite quickly to fuel the war efforts, which would go on for many years. Another aeolipile system just spins a rope across two pulleys, used to constantly haul buckets of water up to the top of the arm, where a simple wooden peg catches the buckets and causes them to dump water on the arm to keep it cool. The buckets are refueled from aqueducts dug or laid in stone and bricks expressly for both that purpose and for powering the steam machinery.

Angamolen iron was often brittle, impure, and had widely varying carbon contents, but under the care of the many smiths it became serviceable enough as armor. It may not have been the best, but it was much cheaper than bronze, and therefore when we marched to war against the invaders our troops had more plentiful metal armor. Iron cuirasses with sleeves and skirts of scale backed with thick cloth, iron cap or bronze helmet, marched to war against the invaders. Yes, the armor was not of the same quality as hammered bronze, yes it sometimes broke under blows or shattered into splinters, yes it was sometimes closer to cast iron than armor, but this first foray into standard metal armor would throw back the ill-equipped enemy.

Sunscorched Earth Tactics: ()
Hero's Warcart: ()
Sunglass: ()
Moonseeds and Obsidian Shatterrocks: ()
Steam Belchers:(2) Stirk, Rockeater
Winecutter:(1) The Ensorceler
Sunseed Glass: (2) Vostok, Doomblade
Flames of the Sun-Blade: (1) TricMagic
Angamolen (Ironworks): (1) Madman