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[Emily]

It does seem to me that using battle axes to cut down trees, while slightly more feasible, isn't really a good idea either.

[Max White]

It worked in Minecraft, why not here?

YOU WILL DIE FOR YOUR SINS!!!

Also, does that imply that HFS is just a shortcut?

[DiscoPony]

It does seem to me that using battle axes to cut down trees, while slightly more feasible, isn't really a good idea either.

An axe designed for chopping wood can also be used quite well for chopping heads, and vice-versa.  You are probably thinking of cartoonishly large viking battle-axes from movies or something similar.  In reality, the axe has always been a tool for wood cutting.  It just happens to also be a decent weapon in a pinch.

Plus, I would think that dwarves - being creatures of industry - would only carry axes that can do both equally well.

[forsaken1111]

Yeah I believe the training weapons were put in as a sort of placeholder system due to the need for training without major injury

[Tastysaurus Rex]

We're still talking about the game that lets you brain dragons with handfuls of vomit, right?

Get your realism out of my Dwarf Fortress! 

[Roflcopter5000]

@ Kamamura It's not about the specific choice of wood as the building material, only about the balance of an axe. Sword's have a dramatically more even weight distribution than axes, though a good European sword centers it's weight in the pommel. And it's also important to point out that although endurance and strength are important for a swordsman, the weapon is a slashing and piercing weapon that relies on a sharp point/edge to do it's work. A waraxe is incredibly top heavy, and relies purely on the ability of it's user to drive the striking head hard enough and fast enough to rip and tear through whatever it is you want dead. It's too difficult to construct a purely wooden version of an axe that would share the same weight distribution.

@ Dorfus Well, they used to weight the pommels of swords with lead... Same idea I guess. I suppose it could work...

I'm not necessarily rallying against the idea of wooden training weapons in DF. I'm just pointing out that they aren't realistic. I think it would be a terri-bad decision to start requiring us to use metal or stone in the manufacture of wooden training axes, or to remove training axes from the game. Actually I've often wondered why there aren't more training weapons, since if you can train with a wooden axe you may as well train with a wooden war hammer or a wooden mace. Plus it kind of sucks to have so few options for safe training.

As far as using wooden axes to cut down trees... Honestly, I wouldn't mind one bit if this were nixed for realism's sake. Frankly if you desperately need those 40 embark points for something else, you're either trying to pull something especially crazy, or you're being an idiot. But by the same token, it doesn't break my immersion or ruin my game, so I really don't care. I just bothered saying something because I felt like people trying to convince themselves that a wooden axe could cut down a tree were suffering from a serious disconnect with reality.

[slothen]

As far as using wooden axes to cut down trees... Honestly, I wouldn't mind one bit if this were nixed for realism's sake. Frankly if you desperately need those 40 embark points for something else, you're either trying to pull something especially crazy, or you're being an idiot. But by the same token, it doesn't break my immersion or ruin my game, so I really don't care. I just bothered saying something because I felt like people trying to convince themselves that a wooden axe could cut down a tree were suffering from a serious disconnect with reality.

I agree with this, you shouldn't be able to chop wood with wood.  Although frankly, it doesn't effect my play style one bit, and would require extra effort for toady to remove this feature.  I'm okay with this being a low priority.

[Max White]

Well in theory you could cut wood with wood using several methods, such as making the edge of the axe blade out of metal, but the rest of the head was wood, or using a notably harder wood then the one your trying to cut.

Short of modding, we can forget about the first option for the time being, so taking the second into account, this mechanic seems eerily similar to using better metal for better quality pick axes, so I guess if/when toady gets around to that, trees and axes will receive the same enhancement, and chopping down mahogany with pine will become hopeless, while a cedar axe could make its way through a eucalypti.

[Dwarf]

@ Kamamura It's not about the specific choice of wood as the building material, only about the balance of an axe. Sword's have a dramatically more even weight distribution than axes, though a good European sword centers it's weight in the pommel. And it's also important to point out that although endurance and strength are important for a swordsman, the weapon is a slashing and piercing weapon that relies on a sharp point/edge to do it's work. A waraxe is incredibly top heavy, and relies purely on the ability of it's user to drive the striking head hard enough and fast enough to rip and tear through whatever it is you want dead. It's too difficult to construct a purely wooden version of an axe that would share the same weight distribution.

@ Dorfus Well, they used to weight the pommels of swords with lead... Same idea I guess. I suppose it could work...

I'm not necessarily rallying against the idea of wooden training weapons in DF. I'm just pointing out that they aren't realistic. I think it would be a terri-bad decision to start requiring us to use metal or stone in the manufacture of wooden training axes, or to remove training axes from the game. Actually I've often wondered why there aren't more training weapons, since if you can train with a wooden axe you may as well train with a wooden war hammer or a wooden mace. Plus it kind of sucks to have so few options for safe training.

As far as using wooden axes to cut down trees... Honestly, I wouldn't mind one bit if this were nixed for realism's sake. Frankly if you desperately need those 40 embark points for something else, you're either trying to pull something especially crazy, or you're being an idiot. But by the same token, it doesn't break my immersion or ruin my game, so I really don't care. I just bothered saying something because I felt like people trying to convince themselves that a wooden axe could cut down a tree were suffering from a serious disconnect with reality.

Swords balanced in the pommel? No way.
Depending on the type of sword, they would be balanced towards the blade for power or the crossguard for handling, but not the pommel.
The pommel would've been very, very heavy to achieve that.

That aside, a battle axe and a wood cutting axe are quite different from each other. First off, a battle axe is much lighter, lighter than a sword, and, depending on the construction, more maneuverable than a sword. A wood cutting axe is heavier and much bulkier.

[TheJackal]

A waraxe is incredibly top heavy, and relies purely on the ability of it's user to drive the striking head hard enough and fast enough to rip and tear through whatever it is you want dead. It's too difficult to construct a purely wooden version of an axe that would share the same weight distribution.

NO. BAD MAN.

A battle axe may generally have a center of gravity further up the haft and towards the head, but to say incredibly top heavy is plain wrong. You must be thinking of some kind of fantasy battle axe or perhaps a horseman's axe? Neither of which would be wielded by infantry, much less midget infantry.

[Max White]

Interesting fact: War hammers were totaly these massive, top heavy mauls, with a block of iron bigger then your head at the end. They wern't much smaller and useful for peircing through armour at all.

I just love how cheep fantasy games have changed our veiws on medevial and ancient weapons. The spear was a god darn fighting force back in its day, but these days it is oftern veiwed as being a second rate weapon behind something cooler, like a sword.

[forsaken1111]

Interesting fact: War hammers were totaly these massive, top heavy mauls, with a block of iron bigger then your head at the end. They wern't much smaller and useful for peircing through armour at all.

I just love how cheep fantasy games have changed our veiws on medevial and ancient weapons. The spear was a god darn fighting force back in its day, but these days it is oftern veiwed as being a second rate weapon behind something cooler, like a sword.

Bite your tongue, I use the spear all the damn time. My current fort has a standing army of 20 speardwarves.

[ThrowerOfStones]

Interesting fact: War hammers were totaly these massive, top heavy mauls, with a block of iron bigger then your head at the end. They wern't much smaller and useful for peircing through armour at all.

I just love how cheep fantasy games have changed our veiws on medevial and ancient weapons. The spear was a god darn fighting force back in its day, but these days it is oftern veiwed as being a second rate weapon behind something cooler, like a sword.

It sort of depends on when you are talking and how they were using it. Greek phalanxes preferred spears, it is true, but Romans preferred short swords and medieval Europe preffered swords, up until Pikes began to be invented and used widespread.

My point being, its all relative to how you use it, mostly. It's not like OMG Spears>Swords all the time or anything.

[Max White]

While I accept that your weapon of choice depends on the situation and your training, AND not all games put a single hierarchy on weapons, it still stands to reason that in enough games to draw influence, weapons are taken WAY out of the context of realism.

[Roflcopter5000]

@Dwarf: My apologies. I meant the physical location of the extra weight was the pommel. The cross-guard would then be the center of gravity, as you've stated. The point stands that a standard infantry sword has a center of gravity that wasn't a good 5-6 inches past the wrist of the wielder. As far as a war-axe, you're going to have two basic sorts of axes used in combat. Light, slashing weapons that are also balanced for throwing, or fat limb loppers that crash into your opponent, relying on weight to sunder an opponents armor. Dwarves being dwarves, I'm assuming that the axes in DF are the later category, but I suppose I could be wrong.
Frankly, I'm not so sure any organized military ever actually used the second type, but not that many bothered with the first type either.  The reality is that once you start talking about a weapon shaped like an axe and balanced like a sword, you're talking about a weapon that is clearly and completely inferior to a sword, with the caveat that they are great throwing weapons. Other than throwing, there is no -point- to having an axe with an even weight distribution. It's incredibly difficult to parry with an axe, it's an awkward shape, its striking surface is limited, and you can't stab with it. You have to have some kind of benefit in exchanging all the utility that a sword gives you. A top-heavy weapon with a great deal of leverage gives you something that the sword doesn't bring to the field. Also, if the DF axes weren't top-heavy, they'd be no better at lopping off limbs than a sword, and they would be completely useless for chopping wood.