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[Tamren]

Yes exactly. There are things you can substitute for an anvil. Or you can use crude methods to make a crude anvil.

Whats important here is that we should never be entirely helpless just because we don't have a shaped hunk of metal on hand. AND we should be able to build one from nothing, even if that means using crude anvils to progressively refine other crude anvils into a workable version.

[Grath]

Actually, the answer is different depending on what you believe.
Creationists: The chicken came first, because God made chickens, and they laid eggs.
Evolutionists: The egg came first, because the first thing that could be classified as a chicken had to hatch from it's egg. Nothing that could be called a chicken existed before the chicken evolved. Plus dinosaur eggs before any real 'birds' existed.

However, my view on Anvil-making:
I think it should be possible without an anvil, but possibly have limits on it (Everything made with a makeshift anvil takes as long as if you were Dabbling and has no quality.)

[Jetman123]

Yes exactly. There are things you can substitute for an anvil. Or you can use crude methods to make a crude anvil.

Whats important here is that we should never be entirely helpless just because we don't have a shaped hunk of metal on hand. AND we should be able to build one from nothing, even if that means using crude anvils to progressively refine other crude anvils into a workable version.

Which is exactly how the first good anvils were made.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I say make it simple and more complex.

You can smelt an "anvil", but it will always be an "anvil". Then, you can also forge an "anvil", with it possibly becoming "+anvil+", "*anvil*", or "☼anvil☼".

[Mephansteras]

That's a good plan. A well made anvil should increase the speed at which forging can be done, and probably give a bonus to the end quality as well.

[Granite26]

I say make it simple and more complex.

You can smelt an "anvil", but it will always be an "anvil". Then, you can also forge an "anvil", with it possibly becoming "+anvil+", "*anvil*", or "☼anvil☼".

Make it smelt an XXanvilXX at first, and I'm sold.

Also, I know it's old, but shouldn't your sig read

Code: [Select]

if(Question)
{
    b
}


[Sean Mirrsen]

No, the question is "to be or not to be", and since 2B is not a valid variable name if I remember right, I settled for to_B.
Therefore, the statement if(to_B || !to_B){...} defines the question as "to be or not to be", without specifying the result of either answer.

Personally, I liked the answer of the Mask most (in an episode of the cartoon series) - "The answer - not to be a bee."

[Neonivek]

For the last time... A Anvil made with just a Mold isn't just poor quality... it is actually useless...

Think of it this way... Making an Anvil with one that is made just with a mold... Is like trying to make a color printout with a black and white printer... It just isn't going to happen.

The tools you need after this "Mold" are tools to sand/grind down metal which is located at the forge.

So I guess You could make a XXAnvilXX at the Smelter... Then at the Forge you can transform that into an Ordinary Anvil

[Sean Mirrsen]

Can you, for a moment, consider that the first anvils had to be made with simple molds? It's not the point that a cast anvil is useless, the point is that if there's no other way, you're going to have to use a cast anvil. And you will make a forge with a cast anvil. Also, only the cast iron anvils are useless. Cast steel anvils can stand a beating adequately.

[Tamren]

And no one said you had to make an anvil out of iron. You could make one out of stone or bronze. The only important things to consider are how flat the surface is and or how much use you can get out of it before it breaks.

[Mephansteras]

Found some interesting reading in a few places.

Sounds like a stone anvil would make the most sense, with the ability to forge a good iron anvil after that, since a stone anvil would eventually break too much to be usable.

[Phoenyx]

I find the casting arguments interesting, and would still love to see cast items in game, however,
I've been thinking about moving the original topic forward. Consider making the distinction between a simple, or basic anvil (a simple surface to flatten metal against) and a forge anvil, which has the complex surfaces used in forming items.

That separation gives us two ways around this metal-working bootstrap problem. One of which we can do (I think), the other has to wait to be coded.

With the current setup, you create a simple anvil in the smelter, or even a mason's for stone ones.  Then it would be destroyed (consumed) in a second smelter reaction to create a forge anvil. That would give you the temporary anvil that only works the one time, and has a higher resource cost. It would also only work in the smelter, so can't be used to create any other items.

If I can assume that all the other workshops have the tools they need, I can assume that a smelter has a basic hammer to break open the bar molds (and perhaps pound the bars flat).

The other way would be to request the separation of the metal-shop (which makes furniture, forges, and heavy items) from the forge (which makes arms, armor, crafts and curved/delicate items). The former, of course, only needing a simple anvil.

[Phoenyx]

You know what, I read this in the metalsmith article and could only think.. "Stupid Nobles"

...it was not until the time of Homer, 880 B.C., that noticeable attention was given to iron. At that time it must have been considered of less value than bronze, from the fact that objects dug up from the mounds of Nineveh, of about the time of Homer many were composed of cores of iron around which bronze had been cast.

[Soadreqm]

How about some kind of "tool" item, representing all the tongs, chisels, hammers and files usually found in workshops. Can be imported from the mountainhomes with relative ease or made yourself, if your dwarves are skilled enough. Also make decent trade goods.

Each and every workshop would have a menu where you could designate the amount of tools present in the shop. You could do this at any time, so you if you really liked micromanaging, you could take just a few of them and have the dwarves haul them to whichever workshop you are using at the moment. The number and quality of tools in a workshop give hefty skill bonuses and penalties to dwarves using the workshop. They could also be needed at kitchens and fisheries and the like, representing knives and cheese graters.

This would be abstract enough to avoid excessive micromanaging, while still portraying the simple tools -> complex tools progression. A metalcrafter can make tools, which he can use to make -tools-, which he can use to make +tools+, and so on. Unless you get a fey metalcrafter, you will have to do this for quite a long time to get sufficient metalcrafting skill to get higher on the tool ladder. I think a mediocre no-title skill, the kind you sometimes get from immigrants, should be sufficient to make serviceable tools that allow you to manufacture anything, if at a penalty to quality.

If you don't want to bother, you can import them. They're abundant back at the Mountainhomes, so they would be reasonably cheap to buy. They could be further sold with profit to the elves and humans, who have a greater need for the things because of their less developed industry. Just like Sid Meier's Colonization.

As an added bonus, this method would also be unnecessarily complicated, especially if we have wooden or rock tools for the very early stages of civilization. It is the dwarven way!

[Granite26]

They're abundant back at the Mountainhomes, so they would be reasonably cheap to buy.

Comrade, are you suggesting the capitalist falacy that increased supply might reduce price?