Bronze armor vs. iron question(s)

[xerxes]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Only if you assume that alloying copper and tin costs nothing. They're not like water and lemon juice, which you can just pour together and stir! You need a serious furnace to liquify them, and a fair amount of fuel, for one thing, and protective gear for the skilled workers who manage the process.

Bill Stoddard

Wait, wait! Don't forget the sugar. It ain't lemonade, without it.

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

In a Bronze Age economy the vast majority of the cost is in getting the metal in the first place. The cost of making something out of it is a small fraction of the total cost. The cost differential between bronze and iron is largely the materials. Tin in particular is fairly rare and usually had to be shipped large distances. The main source in the Bronze Age was Afghanistan. Britain was a big exporter in the Iron Age.

I once read in an Ars Magica supplement that the same was the case in the Middle Ages: That the cost of most items depended chiefly on the materials used to make them, while labour was cheap - even skilled labour, like a scribe or blacksmith.

Can you confirm that?

[Peter Knutsen]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

So how can a generic game system calculate all of the cost factors for every item ever manufactured? Why can't a generic +3 be a reasonable simplification?

It can be reasonable. It might be nice, though, to classify manufactured goods into three or four categories, depending on how labour-intensive they are to make, so that their costs can be more accurately tailored to the world, or to the specific region of the world in which they are bought or sold.

Gold jewelry would be an example of a not-very labour-intensive commodity, relative to the materials cost, whereas mail is quite labour-intensive.

Labour availability may differ from place to place, with some regions having plenty of supercheap labour in the form of slaves, and others having so many skilled craftsmen that competition drives down prices (while in other places again guilds or guild-like systems restrict the number of craftsmen and curbs competitive pricing).

Sometimes a lot of realism can be gained in exchange for only a small increase in complexity. I'm not sure if I can actually implement the above in Sagatafl, though, because I have insufficient knowledge both of medieval goods production, and of economics.

[Flyndaran]

So the example prices of tin and copper have nothing to do with anything despite almost perfectly resulting in 4 times the cost of iron.
To have bronze items cost 4 times iron items, I will never the less have to radically increase the cost of bronze.
Ok, I get that. I just will never get why none of the rules agree with themselves.
Either way thanks for all the viewpoints... even with all the snark.