TL 1+x - the never ending bronze age

[DanHoward]

The tin-copper alloys that were used in the Bronze age have similar properties to medium carbon unhardened steel. In many cases, swords and armour made from these alloys were superior to those made from ferrous alloys. Bronze is denser than iron but bronze weapons and armour could be made a little thinner and get the same performance so it is largely a wash. GURPS Low-Tech considers them to be functionally the same. Iron never surpassed bronze in terms of performance until the intricacies of quench-hardened steel were understood.

Anything written by Tylecote will give you all the data you need.

[Jinumon]

This reminds me of a thread I saw years ago.

The premise was a far future where Venus had been terraformed, then a catastrophe had regressed the humans there back to the dark ages, so I was sort of a medieval game set on a different (now) Earthlike world. A problem the creator faced was that Venus apparently has significantly lower surface iron than Earth, making iron and steel less viable as an industrial material.

I don't know enough about metallurgy to add much to the discussion, I just thought the idea was super interesting and thought I'd share.

Jinumon

[AlexanderHowl]

One of the real issues with the surface deposits of iron in a place like Venus is sulfur contamination. Sulfur iron is worthless by any measure, stone weapons are better, so a terraformed Venus would not have any useful surface deposits of iron (subsurface deposits might be useful, depending on their exact nature).

[maximara]

Originally Posted by Anders

Yeah, but... Gods created this world so. If they want copper and tin they make copper and tin.

The problem with that is all the Gods have to be on the same page (I know of no pantheon real or imagined that has this...and yes for this I am counting Angels and Demons as gods because that is, at the end of the day, what they really are. Heck, even the Bible refers to Satan as the "God" of this world.) and not have one or more of them go off and make something better then bronze...or iron.

If alchemy is a thing then non-ferrous alloys not seen until TL6 or even TL7 could be out and about. Weapons and armor made of Copper Beryllium alloys are going to wreck total havoc on even a Bismuth bronze culture.

[DanHoward]

Originally Posted by maximara

Weapons and armor made of Copper Beryllium alloys are going to wreck total havoc on even a Bismuth bronze culture.

Not really. If you take all the factors that determine the outcome of a battle such as numbers, terrain, intelligence, morale, training, communication, commander experience, local cooperation, fatigue, surprise, weather, equipment, food/water, and so on, and list them in order of importance, the difference in the weapons and armour used by both sides is right down near the bottom.

[maximara]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

Not really. If you take all the factors that determine the outcome of a battle such as numbers, terrain, intelligence, morale, training, communication, commander experience, local cooperation, fatigue, surprise, weather, equipment, food/water, and so on, and list them in order of importance, the difference in the weapons and armour used by both sides is right own near the bottom.

One of the theories of the Bronze age collapse was the Sea People had iron weapons and I can't see any local cooperation with those guys.

You had commanders familiar with a certain type of warfare (for Egypt it was the chariot) and when something new came along they tended to be totally out of their depth.

Training? Meet the Spartans.

Communication? That is a problem for attacker and defender at TL1.

Also, once you have magic (divine or otherwise) enter the picture a lot of those factors go down in importance even if all you have are Magery 0 mages.

Food? Preserve Food, Cook, Create Food, Essential Food got your army covered. In fact these three will put a TL1 army in a better situation then a TL8 army as that little issue of living off the land or supply lines just went away.

There are also some potent alchemic Charms and Talismans available. In fact most of the magic in Greek Mythology that isn't form/by the gods is alchemic in nature.

[AlexanderHowl]

One possibility is to make bronze the strongest alloy that can be enchanted, giving it a monopoly on magical armor and weapons. Iron (and by extension steel) would be impossible to enchant or target in such a system but would not otherwise interfere with magic. Anything made from iron could not be manipulated by magic, which would be useful for locks, and magic could not pass through anything that was iron (meaning that teleport would not allow access to a room shielded by iron).

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by Tyneras

You've inspired me to consider a world where iron is cursed by the gods, and thus it is completely avoided in all uses.

I remember an alternate history board discussion somewhere many years ago where someone threw up the idea of a quirk of imaginary chemistry whereby ironworking invariably generated slow but cumulatively very lethal poisons. This generated, among other things, the idea of brutal iron-based military powers with a caste of doomed slave blacksmiths.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by DanHoward

Iron never surpassed bronze in terms of performance until the intricacies of quench-hardened steel were understood.

And when would this be, approximately?

[maximara]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

One possibility is to make bronze the strongest alloy that can be enchanted, giving it a monopoly on magical armor and weapons. Iron (and by extension steel) would be impossible to enchant or target in such a system but would not otherwise interfere with magic. Anything made from iron could not be manipulated by magic, which would be useful for locks, and magic could not pass through anything that was iron (meaning that teleport would not allow access to a room shielded by iron).

I like this as it mirrors the idea of Faerie magic which had problems with iron. If all magic if along Faerie lines then this makes a lot of sense. Of course it will make alloys that don't contain iron a focus of research.