Turn will be up tomorrow, as I have a day off.
Advanced technologies are tricky. As a god, you are within your rights to give one of your followers an AK-47 and several crates of ammunition (1 Act). This will give them quite a bit of a short-term advantage - until it breaks or they run out of ammunition. You could train them to clean and repair it, and even to make new bullets (2 Acts)... except that you need the pre-requisite understanding of Chemistry or Alchemy (4 Acts) to produce the Gunpower (5 Acts) (let alone smokeless power) to put in bullets, nor the smelting or metalworking techniques necessary to produce the metal for the bullets (6 Acts) - or the mining technology to acquire a reasonable supply of ore to smelt (7 Acts). Or even the Farming technology to produce potash for the powder (8 Acts).
And then, let's say you gave them blueprints for the AK-47 (and the power to interpret them) - they then have a fully working understanding of how to build one. Even if you give them all the materials, they lack the machine tools to actually work the materials to the high level of precision (and a machine gun requires rather precise machining indeed) necessary to create a gun that doesn't blow up the first time you use it (9+ Acts, plus all foundation technologies for precise machine tools).
That was a fairly excessive example to prove my point. I mentally label (and will probably officially label, soon) technologies by tier. Bronze Working is a Tier 2 technology. T2 techs depend on T1 techs to be developed - T1s are fairly elemental and can be learned off the bat (i.e. Fire, Fishing, Mining).
What does Bronze Working need? Fire is a definite (though fire is sort of a T0 tech), because you need it for smelting (T1/T2). You can gather native copper from the surface (free) in limited supply, but you need to mine either native copper or ore (Mining, T1), and ore you need to smelt as well. Alternatively you can use Metalworking (T1) to just beat native copper and other native metals (silver, gold) into jewellery, weapons, tools and kitchenware, or develop Forging (T1) to work heavier duty items (e.g. shields, furniture etc).
The other requirements for bronze are access to both copper and tin - which are rarely found in the same region. Thus, a network of Trade (T1) is probably needed unless you settle in an ideal location (e.g. Clockspire, the True Mountain/Island) or control enough territory to have access to both regardless - which will require a type of government more stable and far-reaching than tribalism (T1?). One does not necessarily need a more stable type of government than tribalism - but it will help and if it doesn't exist already, there's a good chance one will be formed as a result.
So, to bring about Bronze Working we need: Fire (T0), Smelting (T1), Mining (T1), Metalworking/Forging (T1), Trade/Better Government Type (T1). That's 3-4 technologies required, minimum, just to get access to Bronze - to say nothing of making it into weaponry or other useful items (Armoury, Weaponsmithy - T2, principally from Forging).
All this means to say that as far as the hidden mechanics I use to determine mortals actions is concerned - when Bronze finally does arrive, it will arrive with very great significance
indeed. Probably more significance than if you had just given them the machine gun.
I wasn't telling him he couldn't, other players have told people things they couldn't comprehend and the knowledge was lost, there is no foundation for the knowledge of iron working, they wouldn't be able to comprehend it.
Half right, though it's primarily due to my poor explanation. The reason the characters couldn't comprehend is that people tried to give multiple techs with a single Minor Act - which is a no-no. I gave the NPCs a chance to work out one of the suggested techs as a freebie, but that carried the risk of critical failure (which would give them a fear of innovation for a couple of turns).
Using an Act to accomplish something may not always get you what you intended, but it will usually get you
something (though depending on what you do, it might not be something pleasant).
ok ...fine Copper then...but if we are talking about reality: Werewolves and Vampires, i think your rambling about technology realism is made moot (mood?) by the entrance of such creatures. They might still be living somewhat nomadic but i don't see a problem with them leaving those bloomeries along their migration routes...but alas i will bend my will to the Masses...
We certainly won't be slavishly following the development of technology on Earth - the very existence of magic as a (semi-)reliable and usable force in Balin will significantly chance the technology tree and how things are achieved. However, technological development has to make sense, thus a tech tree (of sorts, more a tech pyramid) will be developed as we go along to justify not only how certain techs are learned - but how they are maintained. Infrastructure is as important as knowledge.
e.g. If you carve the knowledge for Bronze Working onto a tablet for all time, but the people are not ready to learn it, your Act will grant them one of the base techs automatically, but even if they can understand the tech they may not have the infrastructure to do it automatically. On the other hand, the tablet will give them a chance each turn of learning the rest of the other base techs automatically from it. (This does not apply if a tech is so far advanced that they cannot comprehend it - give them the machine gun schematics and they'll probably just fall down and worship it as holy gibberish.)
On the other hand, this will probably get easier once you upgrade from Minor Acts to Lesser Acts (you need to get >5 Acts/turn to do this).
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Topic: Godhood V: Legacy Of The Titans [OOC] (Read 28498 times)