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[Snoman]

Do you really need an anvil to make anvils?

How about forges without anvils can only make things that you would cast, (ie not things you would bang against an anvil while making like swords etc).
 So you could only make statues, coins etc and... anvils.

[Quift]

Which came first? The chicken or the egg?

The egg.  If you always take the view that somewhere along the gradient of change that HERE's where you draw the line between a "chicken" and "not a chicket" that individual--a chicken--was once an egg laid by its parents--not chickents--therefore the egg came first.

This is only true if the animals in question did not belong to the chinese emperor.

[Elvenshae]

Draco18s is correct. The Not-Chicken laid the Egg.

This, of course, entirely depends on how you define "a chicken egg."
 
If it is, "an egg which contains a chicken," then Draco's right.  A chicken egg was laid by a non-chicken.*
 
If it is, "an egg laid by a chicken which contains a chicken," then he's wrong.  A non-chicken egg was laid by a non-chicken, from which hatched a chicken, who then went on to lay the first chicken egg.
 
Since the definition is vague, there is no absolutely correct answer (unless you take the "break the game" approach, like i2amroy, at which point "Any Egg, at all" obviously existed before chickens).
 
* Of course, even then, there's some biological (religious?) filly-fallying you can do.  When, indeed, is an egg an egg - when the shell is hardened as it is laid?  When the chicken embryo is first fertilized but before the shell begins to form?  Etc.

[eerr]

a large flat metal block make a basic anvil just fine
for complicated metalwork, a fancy typical anvil with a rounded end and a flat opposite side will be required.

perhaps metal blocks will be made at the smelter? its more realistic... as long as you ignore the fact you can make both a floor and a wall and get the same block back.

[Mephansteras]

I think a single "block" object in this game is a representation of a collection of blocks, which could be used to make one floor tile/wall/etc.

I like the idea of stone anvils. Probably once wear and tear comes into the game more. That way you could have a use for Steel anvils instead of Iron ones. Stone anvils wear down quickly, as pieces get broken off. Iron anvils last a lot longer, but still dent and get malformed, which makes them unsuitable for smithing on. Steel Anvils would last a very long time. And an Adamantine Anvil would last forever.

[Exponent]

In a mineral mod I've made for myself (available here, though it's very much a work in progress) has a reaction to create an anvil.  I've marked some rock types as heat-resistant, and have cast iron as an additional type of iron that isn't good at making much other than furniture (as it can't make weapons/armor and such, but has a higher value than plain iron).  By using two heat-resistant rocks as a two-part mold and five bars of cast iron (I treat the process as though it is rather crude and wasteful), I get a cast-iron anvil.  Unfortunately, aside from worth it is just as good as a steel or even adamantine anvil, but we can't do anything about that yet.  I tend to make a steel anvil early on for the same of semi-realism.

I'm considering requiring heat-resistant blocks, rather than raw stone, since it only makes sense that a mason needs to work on the stone before it can be used as a mold.  I'm also considering using the suggestion above to introduce a notable chance that the reaction can fail.  Right now, it always works.  Finally, I might make heat-resistant rocks less common (currently they are all the igneous extrusive layer rocks), though I still want them to be more common than just bauxite alone is in vanilla DF.

[Silverionmox]

Well, I guess the million dollar question here is:  how DO you forge an anvil without an anvil?

"Technological advance is an inherently iterative process. One does not simply take sand from the beach and produce a Dataprobe. We use crude tools to fashion better tools, and then our better tools to fashion more precise tools, and so on. Each minor refinement is a step in the process, and all of the steps must be taken."

Kitten marinade for the one who can say who is quoted!

[Snoman]

Well, I guess the million dollar question here is:  how DO you forge an anvil without an anvil?

"Technological advance is an inherently iterative process. One does not simply take sand from the beach and produce a Dataprobe. We use crude tools to fashion better tools, and then our better tools to fashion more precise tools, and so on. Each minor refinement is a step in the process, and all of the steps must be taken."

Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang, Datalinks.

As I was reading I could hear the original audio from Alpha Centauri playing in my head 

Edit:
On reflection, I've no idea if that was the original source of that quote. The game may be quoting someone else for all I know

Second Edit:
Actually, I'd say its originally from Alpha Centauri, as I doubt 'dataprobes' are referred to much by ppl in RL.

[Techhead]

Dang, I was about to post Alpha Centauri, but I got sniped.

[Silverionmox]

8 minutes, jolly good! The kitten isn't very well marinaded yet, though. It still has spasms. Don't worry, it will be better after the mincing.

Alpha Centauri was very good on modern archetypes. That's why it's easy to imagine someone else could have said it.

[Snoman]

You've actually got me looking for my Alpha Centauri cd amongst my box of old games...

I know! something drawing me away from DF!

[Sprout]

Hi!

The question, "How do you make an anvil without an anvil, assuming you can only make anvils with anvils?" has been troubling dwarven scholars for years. (after realizing that dwarves threw all the scholars into lava for blasphemy, they asked the soap makers instead)

The answer, after long, careful study, (and booze) has remained a mystery all these years. The most popular reasoning excuse, however, is that of nearly every other unexplained mystery...

"HFS."

Sprout

[Tamren]

Wrong, we drink until we hallucinate. We then take advantage of the hallucinatory anvil and make an anvil.

SCIENCE!

[Neonivek]

You can smooth metal without the use of a Furnace or Smelter, it just takes FOREVER!!!

You use Rocks, sand, or even metal files. (Flint is a good rock to use I think...)

However all those tools are at the Forge and not the Smelter (Hense why you don't make Coins at the Smelter)

If Toady ever lets you make a Forge without an Anvil... It should just take a long time to forge one using incorrect tools.

[Snoman]

You can smooth metal without the use of a Furnace or Smelter, it just takes FOREVER!!!

You use Rocks, sand, or even metal files. (Flint is a good rock to use I think...)

However all those tools are at the Forge and not the Smelter (Hense why you don't make Coins at the Smelter)

If Toady ever lets you make a Forge without an Anvil... It should just take a long time to forge one using incorrect tools.

Yes! thats what I was trying to say earlier. Forges without anvils could either ( as you said) work slower, or only allow making a limited subset of items. Either way an anvil-less forge would be crippled, but still able to make you an anvil eventually.