The chariot 'flying' was prolly referring to the one that was supposed to be in some ancient temple - a 'magic' trick to impress the devout with the supernatural.
Witness records claim it wasn't held up by rope, but, hell, it could just have been sufficiently thin ropes made too hard to see through proper colouring and lighting.
Their peers did things like spike the wine with stuff to turn your urine red, so their god could 'cure' the 'bleeding'.
read more history, the middle east used to have irrigation down well enough to have a major population, enough to rival europe.
slings were used to hurl gernades really far distances, and even earlier slings were able to outdistance even modern bows.
the metallurgy of metal working civilizations pre steel was able to bond hard and soft metals in ways that we can't do today.
romans had some method of having a full sized metal chariot not only float in mid air with no strings, but gradually descend while moving forward, as if it were gliding to earth.
greek and roman stone working was more precise than what we can do today.
that's just some of the stuff that we don't consider to be just mumbo jumbo, or excessive elaboration.
Many of those claims seem rather questionable, or atleast require deceptive comparisons(ie, "modern stone working is generally less precise than the best that X could do" ...because it's not called for and more precision always means increased cost. Or ...when working by hand/trying to do things the way they used to, not using machines designed to give maximum precision/modern approaches to solving that kind of problem).
However, if you're talking about the comment about us not losing technology any more, that would have, I assume, been in reference into what is known in modern times not being lost as time passes, even as it falls out of use. Because we're kinda obsessed about recording and documenting everything, and spreading these records all around the world(it still does happen, however, but it's mainly just obscure, undocumented or poorly documented stuff - see the efforts by some to document and record ancient native american languages, skills, and traditions that are no longer practiced or going that way, befor the last people with knowledge thereof die out) Not modern people suddenly possessing every technology and skill to ever be invented.
This is kinda an artificial limitation. I can understand them being lousy at it if they had poor lung capacity.
I'd favour a skill efficiency modifier, with complete disabling being less common.
So a dwarf with X skill level in mining(even dabbling) could be much better than a hunam of equal or greater skill. A legendary hunam weaponsmith might average *spears* and the occasional ≡spear≡, while a dwarf of that skill could average ≡spears≡ with the occasional ☼Spear☼.
Goblins, imo, would not have a bonus to weapon making quality, but maybe speed, or weaponmaking skill learning, and their martial bonus being in weapon
use, and maybe in the training speed thereof - it could even be 'average' or penalised skill, but faster training.
So each race could have, say, a quality, speed, and training rate modifier for any/every skill, which would represent biological racial bias in terms of ability. A biological skill ban, for example, might be "swimming", for races with high density/high muscle:low body fat ratio - chimpanzees, 'chimpanzee-men', maybe goblins? Prolly orcs.
You could, if you want, then have another set for cultural bias, with taboos being the basis for penalties and bans, while things they'd be familiar with from day to day life would give bonuses - maybe even a chance for innate skill. A hunam from a seaside civ or city might have a change for bonus swimming skill, for example. And while IMO iffy, you might want the option for cultural "initial challenge", for skills that might be alien or taboo or otherwise strange to them, so a dwarf from a desert civ might have additional trouble learning to swim, but wouldn't be penalised after he got over the initial learning curve and could then learn normally. So as culture changes over time, so too can appropriate skill biases.
...Maybe a raw option for a modifier for XP needed to gain a given level instead? So you could do the reverse, and make the first few levels easier, and mastering a skill even harder? For race and culture, prolly.
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Topic: Future of the Fortress: List of Remaining Items (Read 3666067 times)