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[Granite26]

definitely... the term 'toddler' came from infants drinking small beer because it was safer for them than the local water

[G-Flex]

I don't think that's right, but I could be wrong.

I see one site telling me that the first recorded use of it was from the 1790s. Besides, "toddler" makes sense regardless since they can't walk well whether they're drunk or not.

[HatfieldCW]

Water as a commodity isn't farfetched at all, and it would enable some gameplay styles that are conspicuously lacking at the moment, so I like it very much.  But yeah, I've only been around a month or so, and I'm sure I've seen it come up before.

Dwarf fire brigades would be totally rad, for the record.  I spend a whole season trying to build an aqueduct to extinguish my flaming turtle stocks (dumb fisherdwarfs kept running over there, throwing in a new turtle, then scampering off to fish, wreathed in flame), and I was about 80% done with it when it up and rained.

In retrospect, I probably should have just built a little platform up there and designated a pond.  Would that get me a bucket brigade?

[Granite26]

FYI, this has been discussed ad nauseum.  Do a search on water barrels.  In short, you can't haul enough water into the desert to make it worthwhile.

[Starver]

FYI, this has been discussed ad nauseum.  Do a search on water barrels.  In short, you can't haul enough water into the desert to make it worthwhile.

Tell that to Exquisitor Vorbis!

(Ok, so it wasn't exactly easy on the men dong it.)

[Granite26]

I hardly think discworld is a good reference for the feasibilty of something

[Starver]

I hardly think discworld is a good reference for the feasibilty of something

The likes of Wyrmburg aside, I think a lot of Discworld holds up to logic.  Think of everything from food supplies to waste management that Ankh-Morpork works with, it's not random or hand-waved.  And even the magic (levitation, transmutation, etc) is effectively rule based when Sorcerers aren't involved.  Even if you're talking about Hex's "breaking the rules before the universe finds out" method, given that "surprise" is one of the main building blocks...

But I'm not willing to argue this to death, just consider it as an examplar in leui of my remembering enough about RW situations like the one from the time of Ghengiz Kahn that I can't remember nough details about to bring to the forum.

[kcwong]

I don't think it's too realistic. Water can already become stagnant. It should do the same in a barrel.

We finally have a use for silver coins!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver#Clothing

In the 19th century, sailors on long ocean voyages would put silver coins in barrels of water and wine to keep the liquid pure.

[Derakon]

Obviously if you're a caravan, you're only going to bring water (or logs, or raw stone, or anything else bulky and ordinarily cheap) if you expect to be paid based on the cost to you of hauling it, not the value of the good. Currently caravan prices are out of whack since everything is based solely on the global value of the good being bought, but if that's changed, then water caravans wouldn't be out of the question at all.

[HatfieldCW]

And assuming you don't need water to make booze, you'd only need a little water each year.  A few units for irrigation, a few for health care, and one barrel to be pumped around in a circe to generate mist..  I bet you could last a year on three or four 7/7 water zones.  If a barrel hold, say, 5 units of water, you're looking at five or six barrels of the stuff.  If you don't have enough water for medical purposes, of course, then you just lock the wounded in their rooms and let 'em die.  Nothing to it.

[Wolfius]

Also: as wounded dwarves need water, and water freezes in winter, wouldn't it make sense to store some for your wounded?

That's half the point of inside or underground cisterns. Water that's inside won't freeze or evaporate due to temperature(1/7 evaporation not included, of course)

[tsen]

Water caravans might be improbable in real world economic terms, but I don't see why it should be impossible to order barrels of water like we can booze. Sure people will think you're crazy, but as we see countless times in real world history, if you have enough money people will do whatever you want regardless of how crazy they think you are.

[G-Flex]

The thing is that you'd have to shell out a LOT of money for it to be worthwhile at all to the caravan. Like someone else mentioned, the caravan has to make money based on the distance traveled (and difficulty of doing it), not just a profit based on the value of the goods sold. A caravan trekking across the desert to give you water is going to expect a lot in return even if the water isn't worth much.

For what it's worth, copper also helps to keep water sanitized. Silver might work better, but I'm not sure.

[Wolfius]

The thing is that you'd have to shell out a LOT of money for it to be worthwhile at all to the caravan. Like someone else mentioned, the caravan has to make money based on the distance traveled (and difficulty of doing it), not just a profit based on the value of the goods sold. A caravan trekking across the desert to give you water is going to expect a lot in return even if the water isn't worth much.

A barrel of water shouldn't cost more than a barrel of very cheap booze - in terms of shipping, they're functionally the same.

[G-Flex]

I imagine even really cheap booze is going to be more valuable than water by a substantial margin, though.

And even if that's not true, then the point I'm making just applies to cheap booze too. The point is that the effort and time spent traveling needs to be reflected in the profit the caravan makes.