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Old 04-30-2014, 05:11 PM   #11
DanHoward
 
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Default Re: TL4 Without Iron

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Originally Posted by Sindri View Post
Well yes, that's rather the point. Obviously people won't be able to track down an analogous historical situation so I'm just looking for a rough back-of-the-envelope guess. That's not the same thing as "can't be answered" though.
It can't be answered without a PhD level of research and analysis.
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Old 04-30-2014, 05:14 PM   #12
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Default Re: TL4 Without Iron

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It can't be answered without a PhD level of research and analysis.
Answering questions that can't be answered properly without a PhD level of research and analysis at a "good enough for gaming" level is what this board does.

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Early iron was inferior to bronze. They used it because a lot more of it was available so more troops could be equipped with metal.
Well yes, I know that. If nothing else Low-Tech made that clear enough. It seems to have been a net advantage though.

This is really a tangent though.
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Old 04-30-2014, 05:18 PM   #13
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Default Re: TL4 Without Iron

Early adopters of iron were those who had limited access to bronze. All they were doing was trying to keep up with their bronze-using neighbours. They never had an advantage over them.

My initial point is that there would be no TL4 society on Earth without iron. You can't simply replace iron with bronze. There isn't enough accessable tin and copper on the planet.
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Old 04-30-2014, 05:19 PM   #14
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Default Re: TL4 Without Iron

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Early adopters of iron were those who had limited access to bronze. All they were doing is trying to keep up with their bronze-using neighbours. They never had an advantage over them.
They had an advantage compared to a version of themselves which had not adopted iron.

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My point is that there would be no TL4 society on Earth without iron. There simply isn't enough accessable bronze and copper on Earth to sustain it using bronze alternatives.
Well okay. Lots of advances past TL1 don't require iron to use, but I can certainly see the argument that the hypothetical society would be too fundamentally different from historical TL4 societies. This is really just an attempt to grasp how bronze behaves in it's own right in the absence of iron. The actual setting I have in mind will have a rather more complicated material set up but I want to have a baseline to work from. So I'd appreciate generosity regarding skepticism of hypothetiland.

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Old 04-30-2014, 05:31 PM   #15
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Default Re: TL4 Without Iron

Perhaps those who think the question answerable can offer answers before those who think otherwise declare the discussion over.

I'd like a clarification: are we on Earth but with iron sunken deeper into the crust and therefore unavailable, or are we on a different, otherwise earthlike planet?

Adam Smith mused that it was a mystery how iron mining got going, since it's found deep within the earth: presumably someone knew to look for it! (I assume the question has since been answered, but I don't know myself.)

Are iron meteorites available, if rare?

Perhaps we're positing a "Bronzepunk" setting in which ordinary technology exists but is different. Metal more expensive and more exquisite. Firearms limited to bronze cannons (or would hand cannons be plausible?). Wooden trebuchets shooting lead slugs and walled cities almost into the modern day. Seems interesting, no?
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Old 04-30-2014, 05:33 PM   #16
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Default Re: TL4 Without Iron

In the campaign I'm starting up in July, set in a bronze age world, I've done some work on this. Historically, tin is the third most expensive metal, after gold and silver. In GURPS, gold is $20,000 a pound, and silver is $1,000 a pound; some fiddling with numbers made it look like $750 a pound was about right for tin.

I'm having copper priced like low-end steel (good quality), but mechanically weak (cheap quality); since silver weapons have a x20 cost multiplier, I made copper $50 a pound. Bronze is on the order of 90% copper and 10% tin; its raw materials come to $45 + $75 = $120. I'm having bronze priced like fine material, but mechanically equal to good material; that's a 4x multiplier for blades, or $200 a pound. I'm figuring that the extra $80 comes from the furnace construction, the fuel, and the skill to cast the bronze; a 2:1 factor is close enough so I'm willing to handwave it.

I don't argue that this is the uniquely right way to do it in GURPS. But it looks close enough to suit my needs. It might work for yours.

Bill Stoddard
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Old 04-30-2014, 05:33 PM   #17
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Default Re: TL4 Without Iron

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Adam Smith mused that it was a mystery how iron mining got going, since it's found deep within the earth: presumably someone knew to look for it! (I assume the question has since been answered, but I don't know myself.)
Adam Smith knew little about history and nothing about geology. Iron is found deep in the earth today, but it wasn't in the past. Rio Tinto was once a large iron-laden mountain. Today it is a hole in the ground.
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Old 04-30-2014, 05:40 PM   #18
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Default Re: TL4 Without Iron

One thing I'd be interested in hearing about; Does TL4 offer any ways to extract copper and tin that TL1 couldn't get to? Not just improvements in ease or profitability but actual increases in potentially accessible metal?

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Originally Posted by Not View Post
Perhaps those who think the question answerable can offer answers before those who think otherwise declare the discussion over.

I'd like a clarification: are we on Earth but with iron sunken deeper into the crust and therefore unavailable, or are we on a different, otherwise earthlike planet?

Adam Smith mused that it was a mystery how iron mining got going, since it's found deep within the earth: presumably someone knew to look for it! (I assume the question has since been answered, but I don't know myself.)

Are iron meteorites available, if rare?

Perhaps we're positing a "Bronzepunk" setting in which ordinary technology exists but is different. Metal more expensive and more exquisite. Firearms limited to bronze cannons (or would hand cannons be plausible?). Wooden trebuchets shooting lead slugs and walled cities almost into the modern day. Seems interesting, no?
Hypothetiland is a different, otherwise earthlike planet. The actual setting I'm working on will indeed have iron meteorites but I'd like to look at things without them.

I'm glad you think you think this sort of stuff is interesting! It interests me too.

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Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
In the campaign I'm starting up in July, set in a bronze age world, I've done some work on this. Historically, tin is the third most expensive metal, after gold and silver. In GURPS, gold is $20,000 a pound, and silver is $1,000 a pound; some fiddling with numbers made it look like $750 a pound was about right for tin.

I'm having copper priced like low-end steel (good quality), but mechanically weak (cheap quality); since silver weapons have a x20 cost multiplier, I made copper $50 a pound. Bronze is on the order of 90% copper and 10% tin; its raw materials come to $45 + $75 = $120. I'm having bronze priced like fine material, but mechanically equal to good material; that's a 4x multiplier for blades, or $200 a pound. I'm figuring that the extra $80 comes from the furnace construction, the fuel, and the skill to cast the bronze; a 2:1 factor is close enough so I'm willing to handwave it.

I don't argue that this is the uniquely right way to do it in GURPS. But it looks close enough to suit my needs. It might work for yours.

Bill Stoddard
Sure, I'll definately take these numbers for a spin and see what they behave like. Does your bronze age world have a name that I can look for to read relevant threads? I'm currently on the catching up phase of my reading all the gurps threads status.
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Old 04-30-2014, 05:41 PM   #19
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Default Re: TL4 Without Iron

Quote:
Originally Posted by whswhs View Post
In the campaign I'm starting up in July, set in a bronze age world, I've done some work on this. Historically, tin is the third most expensive metal, after gold and silver. In GURPS, gold is $20,000 a pound, and silver is $1,000 a pound; some fiddling with numbers made it look like $750 a pound was about right for tin.

I'm having copper priced like low-end steel (good quality), but mechanically weak (cheap quality); since silver weapons have a x20 cost multiplier, I made copper $50 a pound. Bronze is on the order of 90% copper and 10% tin; its raw materials come to $45 + $75 = $120. I'm having bronze priced like fine material, but mechanically equal to good material; that's a 4x multiplier for blades, or $200 a pound. I'm figuring that the extra $80 comes from the furnace construction, the fuel, and the skill to cast the bronze; a 2:1 factor is close enough so I'm willing to handwave it.

I don't argue that this is the uniquely right way to do it in GURPS. But it looks close enough to suit my needs. It might work for yours.

Bill Stoddard
This is what I would do in a Bronze Age society using historical amounts of copper and tin. But it won't work if those reserves are being quickly depleted in a TL3-4 society because they have to replace all of the iron they no longer have access to.
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Old 04-30-2014, 05:45 PM   #20
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Default Re: TL4 Without Iron

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Originally Posted by Not View Post
Adam Smith mused that it was a mystery how iron mining got going, since it's found deep within the earth: presumably someone knew to look for it! (I assume the question has since been answered, but I don't know myself.)

Are iron meteorites available, if rare?
Well, first off not all iron ore is (or was) deep beneath the earth. I wouldn't take your geological expertise from an economist :)

Yes, iron or nickle-iron meteorites aren't particularly unusual, as far as significant-sized meteorites that make it to the surface without completely disintegrating go. They're a large portion of asteroids, and tough so have good odds of surviving atmospheric entry.

Some iron artifacts have been determined to be forged from meteoric iron. Before you ask, it's generally not very interesting, verging on "worse than" boring earthly iron, simply because you don't have to know a lot to get access to it, therefore you often don't know to refine the metal properly :)


Native iron (and meteoric iron) introduces you to the idea of iron. But if you're mining copper, you've probably figured out copper ore and the idea of "fancy coloured rocks what got metal in them" is a well known thing. After THAT, with that bit of trivia floating around, inevitably someone is going to wonder about ores of iron.

The (somewhat) trickier part is learning THIS ore has iron in it, since you're not going to accidentally get it out when smelting copper, tin, or gold under normal conditions. I idly wonder if experiments in pottery or glassmaking turned it up first; iron ores usually make lovely black and red pigments, and ceramics need some high temperatures.
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